On Drinking

It's New Year's Resolution season, and I've got the fever.  For my 2013 resolution, I shall undertake one of the most common resolutions.  I shall try to drink less.

A bit of context is important, especially since my boss is one of the more frequent readers of this blog, post reboot (hi, Russ!).  I don't feel that I drink too much now.  I mean, self deluders of the world unite and everything, but in my case, I really don't think I'm what society would consider a problem drinker.  I have a beer after work about 2-3 days per week.  I will have more than that most weekend nights, but seldom more than four.  If I have four, I will not drive, because I know that four beers equals .08 BAC equals our good friend John Dewey.  Most importantly, my drinking has not caused any problems in my life of which I am aware.  My family and friends have not indicated any level of discomfort.

With that disclaimer out of the way, one can reasonably ask the question: if no one thinks you have a drinking problem, why the resolution to drink less?  To answer, I need to reference an idea that has been percolating at the back of my mind for some time but came into focus when I read Anthony Alvardo's excellent D.I.Y. Magic.  The book contains a whole chapter on different legal substances one can consume to alter one's perspective, like a bunch of coffee or yerba root.  He also, as I recall, delves into the effects of several illegal substances, none of which I use or will use, because I like being employed.

Anyway, the idea that crystallized reading Alvardo was that one should use or not use substances to alter perception, a topic that frequent readers will note is one of this blog's animating ideas.  Almost all of the ideas that grab me these days, from Buddhism to string theory to magic to whatever, speak to man's limited ability to perceive reality in his normal state and his potential to transcend these limitations and grasp reality more fully.  To me, any effort that changes my normal practice with minimal foreseeable negative consequences is worth the effort.

Well, what's more normal for me than drinking?  I've been going out and having a pint ever since it was legal to do so, and I don't really know what my body and my mind and my soul are like without the limited amount of alcohol I do consume.  Can I handle awkward social situations without liquid courage?  Will cutting back on booze improve my yoga, my meditation, my gnosis, and my learning?  Does alcohol have positive effects that I take for granted but will become aware of in their absence?

I have no intention whatsoever of cutting out all alcohol now or ever.  There are too many things to love, and I will never pass up scotch with my lady or cocktails at the Velvet Tango Room or Kirin Lights with Jimmy and Beav or Untappd check ins or...well, any time that is special, and feels like the use of alcohol will push me towards the kind of freer mind and body that I am trying to develop.

But give up alcohol as part of day-to-day life and see what happens?  Yeah, that's something that very well may shift my perspective.  Sign me up.

Why Home Practice Wins

On the Solstices, the good modern American yogi is supposed to do 108 sun salutations.  I had done it before, but always as part of a group.  This past Friday, I didn't want to invest three hours to knock them out with the only Bucks County studio I found that was observing the Winter Solstice, so I decided to do my 108 by myself.

I doubt I'll ever do them with a group again.

A study that made the rounds a few months ago claimed that a home yoga practice provides greater health benefits than group classes.  Even though I love classes and will probably always attend them, I believe this study, and my 108 experience reminded me why.

Doing the 108 by myself, in a room with nothing but fading natural light, there was nothing but me and my breath.  20-30 salutations in, my breath became a frickin metronome.  The nice thing about a home practice is that one can let his or her breath dictate everything.  If I'm tight, my muscles will tell my breath, my breath will tell me, and I will need to back off in order to get that wonderful ujjayi breath back.  And when I get that breath locked in, the effect it has on my body-mind is unbelievable.  Friday, it was the equivalent of an hour and a half of perfect meditation.


There's so much going on in a contemporary yoga class.  At a lot of studios, there's contemporary music and an instructor who's straining to be heard over top of it.  Even the best studios can only minimize the distractions, not eliminate them.  There's always someone else, some stray movement that can distract you from what is important, which is the breath and only the breath.

Someone should point out that the ultimate goal is to be able to take this deep calm into the world and to have it in spite of (because?) of the world's "distractions."  I agree, but I also know I'm not there yet.  I lose that feeling in the broader world.  Yoga classes help me get it back, but not as well as a good home practice.

Is Yoga a Religion?

This weekend, the homeboy Mike Lyons posted up a video on whether yoga is a religion.  Mike's been doing his practice for a long time and is serious about aspects of yoga beyond asana, so I have no doubt the video is worth a watch.  However, I'm going to skip it, because I have no interest in the question.

Don't get me wrong.  I am very interested in the history and roots of yoga, and I think yoga in the West has probably strayed too far from them and rushed into the embrace of "Rock Your Asana" a little too eagerly.  I'm all for making yoga more quiet, more contemplative, and more spiritual.

That said, two things bug me about the religion question.  One, from my limited understanding, asking whether yoga is a religion is like asking whether a duck is a number or a letter.  When we in the West use the word "religion," I don't think we can escape the Judeo-Christian association with the word.  So when we ask if yoga is a religion, we're asking if it fits into a box that was designed to fit something else, whether a square peg can really fit into a round hole.

Some people I've heard in this debate acknowledge this dynamic, and they have a tendency to use it to justify a negative answer.  As in, no, yoga doesn't fit into the tidy western concept of a religion, so it isn't a religion.  What bothers me here is not the answer itself but its consequences.

In my experience, the quicker someone is to maintain that yoga is not a religion, the quicker they are to try to sell you something.  The religion debate seems to me to be a way to decouple yoga from its roots so that it fits more easily within a consumer culture.  In other words, if yoga isn't a religion, you don't have to be like dirty brown people.  You're not going to to dive naked into the Ganges, or whatever.  You can continue to lead your good American consumer life.  In fact, here's a 100 dollar yoga mat we think you'll like.

Yoga is hard, and yoga is alien to the West.  It is a demanding way of life that, if practiced fully, will lead one into conflict with the broader society.  Yoga is about achieving transcendence by yourself right now, so if you think Jesus Christ is our savior and the only road to transcending the misery of day to day life, yoga is going to cause you some discomfort.  Yoga demands nonviolence, so it's going to be pretty hard to justify eating that factory farmed beef that's so readily available.

The Ten Millionth Kendrick Lamar Blog Post

I know I'm late with this post.  I know everyone and their mother has screamed good things about this album.

But if ever cared about hip hop, go get the Kendrick Lamar record.  I'm not sure if it's the instant classic many say it is, mainly because modern production techniques like compression leave me cold.  Good Kid M.A.A.D. City's beats are as hot as beats can get in 2012, but they still sound a little clinical and overly digital for my tastes.  The boom bap is there, but not like it used to be.  You have every right to dismiss such complaints as another old guy whining and waxing nostalgic for an 808 and Primo's technique, but if we're serious about our standards for a classic, these are the heights an album's beats must reach.

Lamar himself deserves every bit of acclaim he's receiving.  He's simply a lyrical monster.  Rod from The Black Guy Who Tips made fun of the developing cottage industry of dudes trying to flow over the album's beats, because there's absolutely no way anyone can exceed the lyrics K. Dot has already spit. I don't need to break down how brilliantly he weaves the extended metaphor throughout the entire album, because someone has already done it.

If I have to pick my favorite thing about Kendrick's rhyming on the record, it's how he manages to presents the joys of youthful nihilism and reflect on their consequences at the same time.  Listen Money Trees or Backseat Freestyle, Kendrick communicates both the excitement I remember from raising hell as a kid and the remorse I feel about most of that stuff now.  I couldn't write an essay on the topic half as elegant, and he's doing it as poetry.  Amazing.

Anyway, if you haven't yet, do whatever you have to do to listen to this record.

Change Your Mind

I'm on Facebook as much as anyone I know.  I made myself stop posting about politics on FB, because it's annoying.  Although I think I've been successful, I obviously have no problem offering up off-the-cuff opinions about the issues of the day.

With this, though, not only can't I...

I can barely even type about it.  Sitting here right now, promising that I'd try to write something down about it, and having been successful writing about love and loss and everything else...

It comes down to this.  I've never had a political issue that I've lost friends over, and in my mind, I still don't, because guns aren't a political issue.  And if you want to pretend that guns aren't at all an issue, we can't be cool.  We probably can't be friends any more.

We can argue about how much guns are responsible.

I'm not taking away your right to hunt.  Shit, I'll eat every piece of venison you put in front of me.

We can say other things matter more.

But if you're against any and all new regulations, you're worse than the people in 1491 who said the world was flat.  You saw, with your own eyes, that it isn't.  We have 20 dead elementary school children because a gun made them that way.

I type all this with no joy whatsoever, nor any of the emotions that I usually feel when I'm right about a political argument.  I'm not 23, and I don't start Internet beefs.  I'm sad, sad because some very good people are posting about guns not being a problem, and I can't just sit by and pretend that this shit is ok.  In the face of 20 dead kids, all other arguments fall away.

So, yeah, debate is entirely over for me.  If you respond to this blog post with something inviting dialogue, I won't respond, because I'm just too exhausted and sad to handle it, and because I can't talk with you until you do some really deep introspecting.  And if you keep sharing NRA pictures, you're getting blocked.  I wish it weren't this way, but it is.  I just can't handle it.

The Dreaded Yoga Finger Touch

It comes with five minutes left in the yoga practice.  The work is done, the teacher has called for shavasana, and I have splayed out on my mat with an eye towards total relaxation...at which point, out of nowhere comes another sweaty finger bumping up against mine.

Bumping into people is par for the course in most studios I've frequented.  The most popular classes pack people close together, so some contact is inevitable.  I've taken more feet to the head than I can count.  Hell, tonight, on the way to one pose, I completely bumped into the instructor's, er, posterior.  It didn't phase either one of us, because both of us know the deal.  In modern American yoga, some level of accidental contact is just going to happen.

Yet shavasana seems like it should be different.  Ashtanga's primary sequence is an allegory for life, and shavasana literally translates into English as "corpse pose."  It is the pose where, if you've practiced well, you may be able to do nothing and be nothing and be utterly content.  The self can dissolve, and you can be at one with your surroundings.  If some sweaty dude is rubbing his digits up against mine, how can I possibly deal?  How can I possibly let go?  My natural reaction to the accidental finger touch has always been to jerk away ASAP.

And yet...

And yet...

We aren't separate, not a single one of us.  Zen is a factually correct way of looking at life, because there is no stable self, no stable Bryan, just a billion quarks and neutrons and cosmic stardust that shifts and changes entirely in every instant.  What is physical contact if not a reminder that the self is boundless and shifting?  Someone touches me, and everything about my existence seems to change.  My thoughts change.  My heart quickens.

And as for corpse pose, who's to say that death is lonely and isolated?  What if death really is the fall back into everything, where our consciousness merges and dissolves and unites with the universal?

What if, when we die, someone is there to hold our hand?

Tonight, I didn't move my hand, and neither did she.  As I fell into shavasana, I tried to project all I had learned and hoped to learn.  I tried to share whatever calm I have managed to gain in my life.  I tried to let her know about the time when I practiced and fell into shavasana and realized that God was real.  I hoped that the physical connection between us could help her along her way.  I tried my best to make that physical contact into a form of service.  And it felt great.

Of course, I still have a ways to go on my path.  Next time, if I'm REALLY advanced, I might even listen to what the person touching my hand is trying to say to me.

Still D.R.E.

Given that my readership pre-hiatus was, uh, just my friends, I don't think I need to spend much time explaining why I was on hiatus.  I moved to Cleveland.  I took a job crunching numbers with Cleveland Metropolitan School District.  My whole life flipped.

Well, not the whole life.  Some things stayed the same.  I still love my family.  I still went camping with the homies.  I still date the best woman on the planet. I still dig Terry Riley.  I still watched good triumph over evil.  I still almost have pincha mayurasana. All of these constants have been tremendous comfort during a time when my life was in upheaval.  

I also try to be mindful of these constants as constants as much as possible now because there's a great lesson about how little concepts like "change" and "constancy" mean.  I've changed jobs and locations, which feels like a lot because it is, but the bedrock of who I am remains blissfully unchanged, for which I am so, so grateful.  But that bedrock is an illusion, too.  All the things in the preceding paragraph--my yoga, my relationships, the kids wearing the Pennridge green--all of it changes constantly.  The second I define it, it changes, and I struggle for words to describe how that feels, because it feels like a koan.

One thing I know for sure: I miss writing.  It's one of the few parts of my old profession that I do miss, and this blog was a great source of personal development and a way to connect with others.  I don't know if I can live up to the blog's name any more, but I am committed to trying to write here as frequently as possible.  Hope you stop by.

The Sky

We only think of blue skies as tranquil, but I tend to think the sky is always tranqu and storm clouds as intruders in the sky.  There's some essential skyness that exists separate from those clouds that retains its tranquility even as the clouds race across.  The sky accepts and embraces the clouds but does not let them disturb its essential skyness.

Probably because the sky is empty and completely full and complete at all times.

My Dreams v. The Dark Knight Returns

This was my dream last night:

Somehow, the Joker seemed to be killing people in the dream realm. I, as batman, could only get to where he was causing a ruckus through dreams, as could my father. Once we got there we found that the Joker had done some diabolical shit and gotten away, but he had left clues and the cure for the Joker Virus in an old car. He also left clear instructions that the only way to get to the second part of the adventure was to play through the Batman video game on the PS3 in the beater. One of the things you could do in the video game was gain a bunch of different weapons through mastering the hammer throw, including a Green Lantern ring.

Apparently I did what I needed to do, because it flashed forward to the second part, which was entirely nautically based. The Joker was terrifying people on the beaches along the coast, because he had gained Aquaman-like powers. I/Batman managed to catch him at one point by firing a grappling line horizontally, hitting a big pier, and pulling myself through the water at high speed, grabbing him on the way by. The Joker wasn't too put out by this, though, because somehow he lassoed me when I got on the pier so I couldn't get away. I was above him, but he was climbing up towards me and it was clear he could easily overpower me, but that wasn't his plan.

His plan turned out to be, there was a cruise ship right by the pier with a bunch of people with high powered rifles. When I thought it couldn't get any worse, it turned out he had planned the whole thing so that a giant submarine breached and smashed up the pier and the cruise ship. The waves/tide pushed everybody into a canal, which was lined with more dudes with high powered rifles. I remember calculating that there was like a one percent chance that someone could swim by those riflemen without getting shot at such close range, and sure enough I did get shot twice, because I wasn't batman any more, just Bryan. 

But I did survive to advance to part 3 of the dream, where people started getting washed up in this Mad Max-type setting, except it was on the beach. All of a sudden this dervish of light and evil started charging around the beach looking for stuff to kill. I tried to hide behind some old tires in the garage, but the dervish found me. Turns out it was the spirit of the Joker, and he was unkillable and all powerful. He rode me around and extended his tendrils trying to latch on to humans, from whom he could draw power to reincarnate stuff. He did that for a while and it looked like it would be really bad.

Luckily, somehow we ended up on an elevator. As the elevator rose, it revealed a cat and Russell, the bassett hound. the cat turned into Batman and Russell turned into Superman. Superman flew out, grabbed the Joker, snapped his neck, and threw him to the bottom of a pool, so that the real Aquaman could handle him.

Your move, Mr. Nolan.

Why the NCAA Shouldn't Punish Penn State

Andy Staples at SI just posted an article that nails it.  Read it now.

Staples spends most of the article running through the only needed justification why Penn State shouldn't get any NCAA punishment: because there's no NCAA bylaws against anything anyone at Penn State did. Do you think the NCAA should get in the business of making up what it sanctions on the fly?

As Staples points out, worrying that no NCAA punishment lets Penn State off the hook is completely misguided.  "Besides, Penn State may have bigger problems. While this case doesn't fall under the jurisdiction of the NCAA, it does fall under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Education. A Department of Education investigation that results in a termination of Penn State's accreditation would essentially amount to the Death Penalty for the entire university. Given the fact that such a punishment would put thousands of people out of work, Penn State might fall into the "too big to fail" category. Still, the possibility must fray the nerves of the thousands in State College who had nothing to do with this atrocity."

Far, far worse penalties are coming for all individuals involved and the institution as a whole. Penn State is not going to lose its accreditation, but ED is going to hit us with restrictions and sanctions with no precedent in American history.

The one set of punishments which Staples doesn't address but is very real are financial. In no way do I believe that any financial penalty can offset the harm Sandusky committed and Penn State ignored, but we often use financial penalties to penalize horrific deeds, because they serve as a deterrent to future offenders. By the time this ordeal is over, Penn State is going to have to write a nine-figure check, and the first digit might not be a one. ED is going to fine us at least 50 million dollars. I would say at least that much money and probably closer to 100 million will be needed to compensate Sandusky's victims. Then there's legal fees. By the end of this, it's very conceivable that we have to pay a total of 200 million dollars. That's more than 10 percent of our endowment. And that is a far, far greater penalty than losing the football team for a year or two.

What We Owe the Gay Community

On Sunday, I had a great exchange with friend and former PASC staff member Saige Martin. He indicated that he would never attend a Pride parade so long as they continued to be the gaudy, flashy, decadent events they often are. In his view, such events provided fodder for the Right's efforts to continue the systematic oppression of the LGBT community. Saige would like to see Pride parades that show community members as normal people wearing normal clothes and acting in ways that the broader society would consider socially acceptable. In Saige's eyes, such parades would go a long way to erasing negative stereotypes and help the efforts of activists like himself to ensure full equal treatment for people of all sexual orientations.

(I've tried to summarize Saige's argument as best I can. Saige, if you read this, please feel free to clarify anything I got wrong.)

In case you couldn't tell from my entry on the Sexcamaids, I feel a lot more positive towards Pride. As pessimistic as I can be on a lot of issues, I am very optimistic that Western society is moving towards personal liberty, at least on social issues. Each year, more and more people seem willing to accept other people's lifestyles, so long as they do not harm someone else. We've clearly got a long way to go, but relative to where we were even 20 years ago, we're moving in the right direction.

And society owes a lot of this progress to the LGBT community. I am no expert on the history of personal expression in the Twentieth Century, but here's how I see it: after the backlash against the social movements of the 1960s, most groups stopped pushing the envelope and started to work for more incremental solutions, solutions that the mainstream society could accept. Word to them. That's one, completely legitimate way to achieve social change. Certainly, parts of the LGBT community adopted that strategy.

But other parts of the LGBT community seemed unwilling to compromise. Given even the tiniest opening as a result of the upheaval in the 1960s, certain people decided that they could not nor would not go back to the way things were and that they needed to allow their personality to flower in full. I see Pride as an outgrowth of that. The average gay man couldn't strut and preen in public like, oh, Elton John or Liberace...except at selected events one or two times a year, where, if only for a moment, they could express themselves. Hell, they could even go OVERBOARD in expressing themselves. In other words, while the rest of society moved away from expression at all costs, parts of the LGBT community embraced it.

We know how I feel about outlandish public displays of self-expression. But heterosexuals like myself have the privilege of being able to be as flamboyant as we want in public while still enjoying all the rights that come as part of what is deemed as normal and avoiding the stigma attached to being in the out group (no pun intended, but it's pretty good, isn't it?). I can't even imagine the courage it took just to put on a damn costume and dance in the streets during the 1980s and AIDS and all that horseshit.

So, to the LGBT community: thank you. Thank you for pushing the envelope. I know you don't necessarily do it for the broader society, but the broader society needs what you do. It needs to regard gender roles as more fluid. It needs to see that sexuality can be public without being vulgar. It needs so many of the things that it wouldn't acknowledge without you.

PS: I am sure everyone can tell, but I am painfully inexperienced at writing and thinking about issues of sexuality. In referring to the LGBT community, I've tried to use the terms I thought were most accurate or complimentary, but I freely admit I may have used the wrong words at places. Please feel free to correct me so I can get it right next time.

Character Assassination and the NBA Draft

Did Austin Rivers fuck Chad Ford's wife? That's the only conclusion I come to after following Ford's non-stop campaign to make sure Rivers gets drafted as low as possible.

A little background: Austin Rivers was one of the most highly recruited HS players for the class of 2011, went to Duke, and had a pretty good freshman season. Hit a shot to beat Carolina you probably saw. Scored 15.5 points and showed a nice little 3-point stroke despite seeing constant double teams and being really the only Dukie on this particular team that was anything special.

Yet from the minute the college season started, most draft experts started moving Austin Rivers down their board, for reasons that don't really pass the smell test. People complain that he hogs the ball too much for a point guard, but, uhm, no one with a brain thinks he's a point guard. Those who even acknowledge that fact seem to think he's neither athletic nor tall enough to play shooting guard in the NBA, but as my man Basa at fiyastarter points out, he's taller than Bradley Beal, who all the draft geeks love.

The reason that I'm riding for Austin Rivers comes from the most mystifying criticism of his game, which is that he's a miserable, awful person. I'm not kidding. That seems to be the biggest knock on his game. Just read this sht that Ford wrote on ESPN's blog. The language from the Simmons article has typified Ford's approach to Rivers and is just about as irrational and unprofessional as a major columnist can get. If you're going to say a dude is an arrogant ballhog who will never pass, you at least better provide some evidence. Don't give me last year at Duke, because, again, his teammates were sorry.

Also, since when is it a bad thing for a scorer to be confident, and even a little cocky? Don't some of you want to put Michael Jordan on Mount Rushmore because of his competitive urge, which is really just a polite way of saying the Michael Jordan is a misanthropic asshole? Rivers thinks that he can score on everyone because he HAS scored on everyone to this point in his career. That confidence is going to help him in the league, because it will keep him from getting down after a bad game.

It's true he's going to find the limitations to his approach pretty quickly, but why are we so sure that he won't adjust? What, a 19 year old coach's son isn't going to be able to adjust his game? All these prospects have flaws to their game. With everyone else, they get the benefit of the doubt. People like Ford say they have stuff they need to work on. But for some reason, Austin Rivers isn't going to get any better, because Austin Rivers is too much of an arrogant piece of sht to fix what needs fixing? Nah, man.

In lieu of specific evidence, I've concluded that Rivers rubbed some people the wrong way, which is unfairly clouding evaluations of him. There's no doubt in my mind that Rivers will stick in the league for a long time. At worst, he's instant scoring off the bench a la Jason Terry or Lou Williams, and those guys have demonstrated value in the league. There's a very good chance he develops into a 20 point per game scorer, and that's incredibly valuable, even if he doesn't get them in the most efficient way. And, again, I refuse to believe this bullshit narrative that he will never, ever adjust or grow his game.

Austin Rivers, welcome to the Shelly House. I shall provide you shelter from the unfair criticism that morons heap upon you. There's soda in the fridge.

Sex and Mermaids

What's it like to be down with the Sexcamaids?

You may have seen stories or, hopefully, pictures from Coney Island's 30th Annual Mermaid Parade, held this past Saturday.  Basically, the Mermaid Parade is a Pride for everyone, a chance for any and all to let their freak flag fly in the middle of Brooklyn in front of half a million people.

In my incredibly biased opinion, no group better represents what the Mermaid Parade is and should be all about than the lovely Sexcamaids, a dance troupe that calls themselves 'the sirens of the sex world."  Saturday, they were the ladies wearing just enough clothes, rocking the best, most coordinated moves, pushing the loudest, rudest speaker stack, and otherwise behaving like those untouchable bad girls you were scared to talk to in high school.

(Please keep in mind that a heterosexual man wrote the preceding paragraph and that your experience with the Sexcamaids may vary.  For example, every little girl saw the coolest set of big sisters to ever walk the Earth.  If you want to see happy, you should see an 6 year old girl who sees the Sexcamaids and realizes that, despite whatever her parents have told her, she can play dress up for the rest of her life.)

I had the opportunity to join the 2012 version of Maids' support group, the (ahem) Sea Men. The Sea Men are the Alfred to the Maids' Batman. We do the logistical stuff that kept them dancing and looking good. We push along the sound system that plays their music. We drag along the coolers and give them the water that keeps them from passing out. We deal with the overzealous paparazzi. As befitting any superhero support team, the Sea Men are in costume, which is how I found myself pulling a cooler and dancing down the streets of Coney Island wearing nothing but a sailor's hat and a pair of white rhinestone-encrusted booty shorts.

It was one of the best experiences of my life.  Even as a sidekick, I felt and still feel like an honest-to-God superhero.

I had a bit of a "come to Jesus" moment Saturday.  Now I understand, to a far greater extent, Pride and Goth and Lady Gaga and S&M and so many other things.  Such diverse phenomenon usually get lumped under the banner of sexuality, but after Saturday, I'm convinced that all of these things are about so much more than sex.  They're about expression and freedom and experimentation and role play and performance and power and giving it up and community and billion other things for which either I can't find the word or the word doesn't exist.  We lump so many things under the banner of sexuality because, like sex, we're profoundly scared of many of these things, because they're SO powerful.  We worry that if we let them out even a little, they threaten to flood us and knock away all they fragile little bridges we've built that we think makes us into functional adults who don't have to sleep in cardboard boxes.

I'm not a stranger to self expression or risk taking or any of this stuff, but being a Sea Man hit me in a way I hadn't experienced before.  My enduring memory of the 2012 Mermaid Parade will be that I played with the boundaries of who I was in a way that I hadn't done before, and I had 500,000 people in the crowd who were THRILLED that I was doing so.  When you take a risk and show some side of you that you've rarely shown before in front of that many people, and they show you so much love in return, it can make you feel like every chance you've ever taken to be a better, more complete, more free person was completely worth it, and it makes you want to do it again and again.

Even if you can't see yourself down with the short shorts and pasties crowd, the Mermaid Parade and the Sexcamaids have a lesson for you, and it's really probably the only lesson that matters.  You know that thing you want to try, but you're scared?  You're worried you'll get fired, or your spouse will judge you, or you're just too old/Christian/cool/whatever?  Do it.  Find a safe space and supportive, decent, caring people who will provide you a healthy environment to try something you've never tried or even though of, and let it rip.  There's nothing to lose and everything, everything, everything to gain.

Thank you for letting me tag along, Sexcamaids.  If you'll have me back, I'll haul, push, water, or whatever you need in 2013.

Postscript: Don't get me wrong. It's not not about sex either. Ladies, I am in love with each and every one of you, and so is the rest of New York. You know it, and you wouldn't have it any other way.

The Lebron Narrative

Had the Heat lost, today, we'd hear questions about Lebron's fitness and, consequently, his commitment to off-season conditioning.  Psychologists would be brought forth to opine as to whether a lack of the clutch gene can manifest physical symptoms.  Most of all, we'd hear a lot of morons claiming Lebron faked it because he couldn't handle the pressure.

Yet because they won, we have to hear how Lebron nobly gave everything he has, the way a true champion should and the way he never, ever would have before he went through the pain of losing before.  "Yes," the very serious men writing about a game will say somberly, "this affirms everything we know about how champions are made, not born.

Both stories are ridiculous.  #6, people.  Say it with me.

My Generation

Courtesy of Josh Landau: the 2011 Class of Georgetown Law, which is a Top 14 law school, has an 8.2 percent unemployment rate.  That's actually pretty good compared to how other people in other sectors are doing, but ...

8.2 percent of really smart, really obedient kids got really good GPAs in high school and college.

8.2 percent of kids did everything right, got into one of the elite institutions in America, survived the rigors and bullshit of graduate school.

8.2 percent of the most system system kids were told that their services were not needed.

And these are the ones that played by the rules.

If you're not mad, you're not paying attention.

Taking the Plunge

If you're going to let go, you're going to have to let go a lot, constantly.

Time for a reinvention.  Time to be brave.  Time to try to take the first step on a brand new road, hopefully with a smile.

Details to follow.

The Road Map to Happiness

Elephant Journal has a great article in which Julian Walker discusses the meaning of asana, or the physical practice of yoga.  I can't recommend it enough.

I posted it on Mike Lyons' FB wall.  Like any good yoga teacher, he challenged me, probably without even meaning to.  Specifically, he wondered about my reaction to the comments that maintained that the physical practice of yoga is deeply rooted in ancient Indian tradition, a point with which Walker disagrees.  I reacted on his wall, and I'd like to expand upon what I wrote here.

I tend to think of what happens at places like the Greatest Yoga Studio Ever as the starting point on a treasure map.  It's not the starting point for the quest, of course.  Something got the map into your hands, and nothing has a clean beginning or ending anyway.  But when you go to enough modern US physical yoga class, you start to realize that there is something to this "yoga" thing.  On the most mundane level, your body should feel a whole lot better, but a lot of people can't escape the feeling that yoga offers more than "just" relief from physical pain.

And what happens from there is entirely up to you and your desire to follow the map in pursuit of the treasure.  The map can be hard to follow, but it's all right there.  The physical practice can make you want to meditate, pursue a spiritual teacher, give up meat, live a more compassionate life, and so on and so forth.  I actually do believe that once one comes to view yoga as central to his or her identity, one has taken the first step on a path that can lead to nirvana.

There are some pretty sizable caveats, however.

1. No two people get the exact map or the exact same final destination.
2. Point number 1 means a lot of people are going to make a lot of choices you don't understand.
3. Capitalism has also become pretty damn good at exploiting point number 1 to sell you things that they say should be on your map but probably don't need to be and even shouldn't be.
4. As a consequence of #3, you're going to find yourself struggling with some very unyogic emotions, thoughts, etc. about much of what passes for yoga.
5. Yoga's certainly not the only way to get to your goal.  Buddha would say you're at your final destination right now, and your task is just to get out of your own way.  If that sounds good to you, maybe you should read Buddhism: Plain and Simple rather than going to an asana class.  Maybe you should go for a run.  Maybe you should work on your motorcycle.
6. Why do you need a goal, anyway?

I guess I think the ultimate value of asana is that it's something you do every day for its own sake.  I've come to believe that if you do anything at all long enough and consistently enough, you will do that thing through something like the full range of things we can experience.  You'll rejoice and struggle and, if you're paying attention, learn how to rejoice in the struggle.

The other great thing that asana can give you is its failure.  I will never do every possible pose, and someone will always do better and more poses than me.  Most importantly, consistent asana practice has not and will not solve all my problems.  The great gift here is that realization and the question that accompanies it: "Well, fuck.  Now what?"

That's the most important question there is.

If ashtanga or universal principles of alignment or some other physical practice seem to be moving you forward on your map, ignore everything I just said and keep practicing.  For all I know, I may end up right next to you.  I reserve the right to change my opinion and reject any and all of this in the future.  After all, I have no idea where I am on my map, other than a vague notion that I am moving in the right direction.

The Most Overrated Hip-Hop Track of All Time

I'm about to get crucified, so let me clarify.  It is a GREAT song.  I love it.  But it gets so much love from people of a certain age as the GREATEST hip-hop track ever that it's high time someone stepped in to stop the madness.

"T.R.O.Y." is NOT the greatest hip-hop track ever.

I mean, it's just a guy talking about his family and growing up, which in no way goes with the producer's central conceit, which is about the passing of a loved one.  The beat IS an all-time classic, but the rhymes are not, and, again, they don't match one another.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it.  A lot.

The Politics of NBA Late Game Hero Ball

Note: Official TWEDP Bee Correspondent Sarah Dougherty is late to file her report on the Denver Basebee Controversy.  We apologize for the delay but are happy to bring you more of the usual nonsense.

This post is for the homie Bernard, who requested we discuss the ridiculous role of narrative in the way people think about and cover the NBA.  Basically, Kobe Bryant is clutch and Lebron James chokes, and YOU MUST BELIEVE THIS.  You must believe this because everyone knows it's true. You must believe this even though every statistical measure we have shows that Kobe shoots a laughably low percentage and turns the ball over way too much in crunch time and OMG FIVE RINGS DUDE WHY YOU HATIN?  You must believe this even though Lebron seems to nail a clutch shot or three in just about every playoff series his team wins and all the stats show that he is one of the best clutch performers in the league.

Thing is, Bernard, I don't really have a whole lot to say that hasn't been said recently.  For one thing, after Kobe singlehandedly lost Game 2 against the Thunder Wednesday night, even ESPN stated the obvious.

Also, I've decided I'm out on Lebron-as-meme.  Those who frequent the circus know that I've been one of Lebron's staunchest defenders, but as part of letting go of my attachment to OKP, I'm letting go of my defense of Lebron and trying to see him as the player he really is.  What he is: one the greatest players we've ever seen who falters ever so slightly in clutch moments.  It's not a lot.  If Greg Norman is a 10, Lebron is a 3.  It's slight enough that it only takes him from the best player in the league down to, oh, like a top 10 player in clutch situations.  Also, he's not doomed to choke forever.  As the greatest living sportswriter point out, his choking seems to be a recent development, so we can hope he grows out of it.  

But right now?  Yes, Lebron shrinks a little bit from the moment.  Whatever.  I don't care as much anymore.  The Heat are going to lose to the Pacers.  It's not Lebron's fault, because Bosh is hurt, Wade is old, and everyone else on his team sucks, but Lebron deserves it, because he made his Decision.  He's obviously not having fun, and the Heat are a miserable basketball team to watch right now.  I can't be bothered.

Bring on Thunder/Spurs, which should be epic.

Yoga as Identity

When I tell people I do yoga, I'm always surprised at how many of them are apologetic that they, too, do not do yoga, as if failing to do yoga was some type of sin.  After a conversation last week, I think I finally understand this reaction.  The general bobo population may be used to aggressive missionary sermons from yogis about how awesome yoga is.

But that begs another question.  Why would so many yogis care if other people did yoga?  It's hard enough to find a space for your mat at the 5:45 class at the World's Greatest Yoga Studio.

The Babarazzi hit on part of the answer with their hilarious and scathing discussion of asana as signifier.  If my experience is any guide, yoga can become a central part of one's identity very quickly.    The Spectacle recognizes this and has developed numerous ways for yogis to signify to the outside world that they are serious about this yoga thing.  You can practice on your Manduka mat in your Lulu pants and hit Whole Foods for some quinoa on the way home.  The capitalist pig dogs will nod earnestly until you turn around, then chuckle and count the money.  The Spectacle has plenty of non-financial ways to participate, like fancy asanas or (ahem) blogging.  As long as you're worried about whether others regard you as a serious yogi (or a serious sports fan or faberge egg collector or whatever), you're firmly caught in the Spectacle's web, and It's pretty sure you'll eventually buy stuff.

While the Babarazzi nailed the diagnosis, their bedside manner is shit.  The problem with so much cultural criticism is that it's wrapped in so much hipster condescension, as if the authors can't believe that anyone would be so lame as to care what other people think.  Caring what other people think is a natural urge that is essential to any effort to establish community.  Yes, capitalism exploits that urge.  Yes, people fall for the capitalist commodity version of community and everything else over the real thing way, way too frequently.  But, like, shouldn't those of us who recognize that cycle want to help break it?  Shouldn't we want to help people experience the real benefits of yoga, one of which is that you can stop caring so much about hitting a handstand?  If so, snark is a bad idea, because snark alienates.  When I act superior, I am not likely to be heard or respected.

And truth be told, looking down your nose at people who try too hard to show how yoga they are is a pretty effective way to communicate to others how yoga you are.

For whatever my amateur opinion is worth, my answer to both the problem the Babarazzi diagnosed and the problem with the diagnosis is to let go.  You don't need Lulu to practice, and you don't need to condescend to point people on the right path.

And now, for no reason, hilarity.

Woo! PIG SUEY

The head football coach at the University of Arkansas is embroiled in scandal and just got fired.  Yesterday, a bunch of news types had a fun time talking about a planned Save Bobby Petrino rally.  Only 200 people showed up, which demonstrates that the good people of Arkansas have far more common sense than the media thought.

Having just gone through one of the two worst college athletics scandals in recent memory, I have some sympathy for any fan base going through a scandal beyond the normal free tattoos NCAA nonsense.  As I read about the planned rally in Fayetteville and the condescending, snide reactions from the CFB commentariate yesterday, I remembered the Penn State scandal and the reactions to the student "riots" after Paterno got fired, as if the students on College Avenue represented every Penn State fan.

Arkansas isn't dealing with a scandal of the magnitude of Sandusky, but I feel for the fan base right now.  Contemporary major college football programs operate with no oversight and no credo more significant than "get money."  Lots of money and power with no accountability is a recipe for disaster, and disaster hurts the most when one sees something they love dragged through the mud.

A Non Yoga for All People

Note: Most of you know I had a move going on recently, in addition to the rest of life.  Now that I'm settled in Durham with Jeff and the hounds, I'm going to try to get back to real daily entries.

Today's New York Times article proved that the NYT can, in fact, write articles on yoga whose primary purpose is not to troll the yoga community.  It also raised one of the issues yoga in the United States deals with constantly, which is, to what extent is yoga Hindu?  Probably more important to the people who worry about such things, to what extent will yoga compromise one's commitment to other religions?

There's some debate about the extent to which yoga is rooted in religious versus nonreligious Indian traditions, and there are people much, much more qualified to speak on that topic than lil' ole me.  I can only speak as a practitioner of modern American yoga, but my take is that contemporary yoga is not neutral towards religion.  Certainly, I believe people from all traditions can and do practice yoga, but the one thing to which contemporary yoga is not particularly friendly is fundamentalism.  If you are insistent that one way to Heaven exists and it demands we follow a narrow, rigid path, American yoga is probably not for you.  We preach inclusivity and acceptance of diverse viewpoints, exactly as you'd expect a bunch of good American liberals to do.  What can I say?  We're flexible people.

What surprises me is that I haven't heard other religious/cultural traditions trying to design something like yoga around their systems of belief.  I guess Christian Yoga kind of qualifies, but just giving the poses Christian names doesn't seem to be fooling anyone.  I'm talking about, I am shocked that no one has started from the ground up.  Read the Bible, come to an understanding of the principles in it, and design a series of physical exercises designed to help the practitioner embody those principles.  You can't tell me that with the rise of evangelical Christian marketing, there's not a place for such a practice.

If you know of a counterpart to yoga in other religious/cultural traditions that is still active today, I'd love to hear about it.  If I've just given you an idea that nets you and your house of worship a jabillion dollars, all I ask is ten percent.

Cats

There are two types of people in the world.  Members of the first group have a healthy view towards affection and attention.  If someone from this group feels love, it reciprocates that love.

The other group is competitive and insecure.  The best way to win their attention is to pretend they do not exist.  The more you ignore them, the closer they get.

I would like to think of myself as a member of the first group.

It's Not Personal

But if you're wearing a Yankees shirt, I immediately assume you have a below-average intelligence and CONTENT DELETED substandard personal grooming habits.

The Juan Maclean Isn't Terrible

In the fall of 2005, an ambitious young hipster named Cereffusion wanted to impress the cool, older kids, so he recommended this hip new music act he discovered.  The only problem is that they were terrible.  Cliched.  Pretentious.  Boring.  So the cool, older kids laughed at poor Cereffusion, who was so sad that he grew a beard.

However, time exonerated the plucky upstart.  Somewhere between 2005 and 2009, The Juan Maclean learned how to make songs like "No Time."  Cereffusion's faith had been rewarded, because what was once pretentious and boring had blossomed into something pretty and funky, in a post LCD Soundsystems white hipster kinda way.  Near as I can tell, it's also a love song between a human and a robot.  Yes, please.

He also shaved the beard.  Truly, it is a heady time for our protagonist.

I Miss New England

I want nothing more than a 57 degree day on the shore, with white caps and rocky coasts and snuggling with pretty girls in sweaters watching the boats sail by.

The Get Fresh Crew

I promised I would write every day.  I never promised I would post all of my writings.

I've spent the last three days working on a really neat assignment that I just handed in.  Along the way I've leaned on some pretty awesome people.  I'm lucky enough to have very good friends who were willing to double as professional contacts on extremely short notice.

Elliot Yamada, Ben Sprows, Eric Warasta, Adam Lenter, and above all Sarah Dougherty, IT'S CALLED GRATITUDE!!

I also need to shout out Amy Gershkoff and Shana Kushner, who are the eternal presidents of La Coalition de Frienfessionals.

When You Need Yoga

I haven't been writing about yoga as much lately.  It hasn't been a conscious decision.  Someone who shall remain nameless teased me that TWEDP had turn into a yoga-exclusive blog.  Being a contrarian, I suppose my subconscious could be driving me to write about other things as a way to prove him wrong, but I don't even think that's the case.  For one thing, other stuff has been grabbing my attention.

The bigger issue is that yoga has been relatively tough for me lately.  I've been traveling a lot.  While I'm still keeping up with the physical practice of yoga, I'm doing so at times of the day to which my body isn't accustomed.  Mostly, though, the problem is stress.  On Monday, I move out of my apartment and into the great unknown.  The stress of moving and looking for a job has made asana practice, meditation, and mindful living much more difficult.  My muscles are tight as a drum, and even the best classes at the World's Greatest Yoga Studio fail to fully loosen them up.  Stress is also allowing old insecurities to manifest themselves much more easily, which makes living joy, equanimity, compassion, and kindness much more difficult.

...and I don't know how to make an artful transition to say what I want to say next, which is that I'm incredibly proud of myself.  I recognize how thoroughly terrified I am, and I am doing my best to work with that feeling to get through that feeling.  I'm still on my mat 4-5 times a week, even if I'm having a harder time hitting poses that I generally take for granted.  I'm still sitting down to mediate (almost) every night, even if calming the mind is impossible.  I'm still reading the Sutras (almost) every night before I go to bed.  Life has thrown some fairly significant obstacles at me, but I'm still here.  I'm still present.  I'm still mindful.

All of this makes me recall the guy who showed up for his first yoga class this past Monday.  Our instructor's profound philosophy towards beginner yoga can be summed up with the ancient yogic maxim "sink or swim," so this poor kid got a full-on FSY class.  As we were walking out, he was moving so slowly he could have been limping if I didn't know better, if I didn't know that feeling where every muscle in your body is clenched up and movement seems impossible.

And yet he had the biggest smile on his face.

Word up, kid.  If you keep showing up, so will I.

Michael Bay is Not the Problem. You Are.

You know why Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were popular when we were kids?  Because megacorps figured out they were the most efficient way to get us to get our parents to purchases cheap plastic stuff, so megacorps bought up a lot of TV space after school on UHF stations to run 30 minute commercials for said plastic stuff.

Put a different way, have you gone back and WATCHED any of the cartoons you used to like as a kid?  I have.  They're terrible.  The plots, voice acting, production, and animation are all third rate, even given the technology available at the time.  They introduce new characters every episode, and most of them only show up in one or two subsequent episodes.  Their inclusion makes no sense from a narrative standpoint.  But from a product placement standpoint, it makes complete sense.

Or have you forgotten Sharkticons?

So please, please, please stop complaining that Michael Bay ruined Transformers and is going to ruin Ninja Turtles.  Whatever you and I imagine those two shows to be, they're not.  They were always naked cash grabs, so changing them to grab more cash makes complete sense.

My Name is Bryan, and I Like Kentucky

Yes, the title is supposed to invoke an AA meeting.  I feel like I've done something wrong, but...

Man.

Kentucky is so good, and so much fun to watch.  I love them.  I love Anthony Davis.  I love Kidd Gilchrist, both the player and the name that sounds like a member of the Teen Titans.  I love that, in the era of one and done, Kentucky has a McDonlads' All American that comes off the bench.  I even love Calipari a little, for putting this thing together.

Andy Staples explains my feelings really well.

The Chong Li Theory of College Basketball

Last night, Ohio State got punched in the mouth.  For the first five minutes of the second half, Cincinnati could not miss.  They took a lead in a game that Ohio State controlled for the entire first half.

In other words, Cincinnati is Ray Jackson.

You can win a title without being particularly tough, but you have to be the best the team to do so.  This is why the Shaq/Kobe Lakers could win three straight titles without being particularly resilient.  That's why Miami is still the favorite to win the NBA title this year.

(Lakers fans, calm down.  That lack of resiliency was on Shaq, not Kobe.  After he drove Shaq out of LA, Kobe proved himself to be quite resilient.)

Neither Ohio State nor North Carolina is the best team in college basketball this year.  Kentucky is.  Kentucky has the best draft prospect since Dwight Howard and NBA talent surrounding him.  To beat Kentucky, you either need to catch them on a bad night where you are also hitting shots (a la Indiana or Vandy), or you need to be very, very talented and resilient enough to survive when Kentucky hits you with a 10-2 run in two minutes, like they do to everyone.  Then, you have a chance.

North Carolina has the talent but not the heart.  Carolina fans, I'm not even trolling, so don't be mad.  You know Harrison Barnes doesn't have the eye of the tiger.  You know this team gets tight in close games.  Even with a completely healthy team, you were never beating Kentucky.

If you really want to stop Kentucky, get behind Ohio State.  They're big, physical, athletic, and smart.  Last night, they showed they could take a punch.  They are the only team left with a legitimate claim to being better than Kentucky.

All Questions are Good Questions

On Friday, I did the keynote address for the Connecticut Association of Student Councils' state conference.  It was a blast.  The energy from the kids gave me a tremendous boost in my stride.  As part of my day, the fantastic Todd Burlingham and I presented "Do the Math: Let X Equal Student Activities," the new presentation from the Alliance for Student of Activities.

In brief, "Do the Math" is a presentation that aims to promote the expansion of student activities at the middle school and high school levels.  Scholarly evidence of the highest quality and published in over 100 prestigious peer-reviewed journals show that student activities have an independent, statistically significant positive effect on almost any outcome you can choose.  You want a kid to have a better GPA, better test scores, better chance of graduating high school and college?  Put that kid in student activities, because student activities make all of those things happen and more.

The early stages of the presentation's history have been an unqualified success.  The presentation debuted in December of 2011, and there's a very good chance that 5,000 or more people will see it before the end of 2012.  Moreover, we're winning the hearts and minds of our audience faster than we thought possible.  In particular, principals seem to be paying attention.

The people behind "Do the Math" are mostly professional educators.  I am the lone social scientist in the group, so my role has been to translate these compelling results into terms that our audience of teachers, principals, school board members, superintendents, and policymakers can understand.  I have done a good enough job in this task for our presentation to be credible and professional, and I would stake my professional reputation that the information in the presentation is accurate.

However, I am not beyond being phased by a particularly good question about how statistics work.  After our presentation, a very nice teacher approached me  and asked what she thought was a really stupid question.  To make the point about independent effects in a setting with controls, our presentation asserts that the studies we cite create, through statistics, sets of identical twins, where everything about two people is exactly the same--same parents, same demographics, same level of achievement--except that one participates in student activities, and the other does not.

This teacher asked how statistics did that.

And I was stumped.

This Connecticut teacher, being all apologetic, asked a question about how multivariate statistical analysis actually worked, how it actually determined the size of the effect of each independent variable on the dependent variable, how we know that putting any tenth grader into student activities will result in an almost 6 percent gain in his/her scores on standardized math tests.  Keep in mind that I explain this stuff for a living.  I taught my department's methods courses and explained regression analysis more times than I can count.  Student evaluations and faculty review said I was really, really good at it.  And yet the right question at the right time threw me for a loop, at least for a few seconds.

The point to this long, only kinda focused blog entry: this statistics stuff is complicated.  Because I am immersed in stats pretty consistently, I can forget that the logic isn't intuitive.  It's a good experience for me to remember my limitations.

Also, I hope this story gives heart to the rest of the Alliance Ambassadors, who don't have the statistical training that I do.  Before our presentation this week, Todd said he was glad I was there, because the research findings confuse him.  Yet I saw Todd do an exceptional job explaining every statistical concept in the presentation.  One need not be able to explain every sophisticated nuance of statistics to understand and use them.  In Todd's case, and in the case of the rest of the trained ambassadors, they understand the notion of controls, longitudinal data, independent effects, and everything else well enough to explain them competently to educated audiences.  They may not be able to stand up at an academic conference and explain everything perfectly, but I am so proud and so impressed  by how much they have learned and are able to share.

Besides, if Todd and the rest of the Ambassadors could explain statistics as well as I could, I would have taught myself right out of a job.  It doesn't pay, but the fringe benefits are fantastic.

Lest the point of "Do the Math" get lost in this discussion of statistics, let me reiterate that we know, beyond all reasonable standard of doubt, that student activities make kids better.  Participants don't have better scores just because activities attract better students.  These things make kids smarter, more motivated, more compassionate, and whatever else you can think of, and we have empirical evidence that will withstand any standard of scholarly scrutiny.

BOO-NUS CONTENT: Bjork

Yo.

Yo.

Do you realize that "Pagan Poetry" is only the fifth track on Vespertine?


All the set up, all the glory, all the distance we travel to get to the most perfect track of the decade...takes place  in four songs?

I mean, "Cocoon" is about as perfect an e.e. cummings poem of a downtempo sigh  you will ever find, and yet the context that Vespertine establishes for that song makes it even greater than it is and, somehow, makes it prelude to even greater things.

Once, Bjork had a love of icy perfection that she knew could never last.  Imagine standing in a castle made of ice in an imaginary land with the perfect lover dying from the knowledge that someday he'd be left behind.

And then imagine singing about it.

BONUS CONTENT: Nick Young and the Clippers

The only problems with Nick Young is that he is completely one dimensional, he's not very good at his one dimension, and he has a complete disregard for ball safety.

Other than that, great trade, Clippers!

Good Things Are Worth the Wait

Among the five million things I have going on right now, I stumbled upon a great idea for today's blog post.  It's so good that I just wrote the first part and realized I want it to give it some time to marinate and develop.  I am excited, because this is the first time I've started a blog post that I realized might have a wider audience.

So no new blog post today, but tomorrow's will be, I think, the best written, most interesting post I've written yet.  Hopefully when you see it, you won't think today's post is as much of a copout.

Speaking of cops, since you're not reading my blog today, go check out Axe Cop.

My Last Nerve

Life (or the God of your choice, if you prefer) puts certain people in your path as growth opportunities.  Think you're nonviolent?  Think you're serene?  Life will give you people who test you.  And with everything else I have going on right now, I do not want to deal with this same...old...issue from the same person.

Deep breaths.  Meditation.  Yoga.  These are my friends.  These can overcome my impatience and my frustration.

Standard disclaimer: the person(s) to whom I am referring is not on Facebook or Twitter and is certainly not reading this blog.  It's not you.  You are wonderful.

Two Words to Fix the NCAA Tournament

"Strategic Unfairness"

Today's NCAA Tournament games have been boring.  We've seen exactly one close game (Wichita State/VCU) and one game that sounds like it was good, but I was flying to Connecticut (Syracuse/UNC Asheville).  That's a one hot album every ten year average.

The real problem with the tournament is that the selection committee has gotten too good.  Thanks entirely to the movie Moneyball, advanced statistics have made it possible for people to compare teams from different conferences very fairly.  Gone are the days when Murray State would be patted on the head for its one-loss season and given a 13 seed.  Now, teams like Wichita State regularly get 5 seeds, which leads to matchups with VCU that no one cares about.

Do you recognize the problem?  If Murray State were a 13 seed, some 4 seed was probably going down today.  We'd get a buzzer beater, we'd think that an underdog had won a huge upset, and everyone would be happy.

Solution: we need to reintroduce corruption into the selection process.  No one wants to see Wichita State play VCU, but underseed them both, and I will LOVE to watch them take down an over-seeded Baylor or Michigan team.  An additional benefit is it allows athletic directors and other NCAA types to engage in yet another form of corruption, which will make them happy.

Stress and the Future

I'm a mess with stress, though I present it with finesse.  It's a tough time.  No need to go into the details.

This stress comes from worries about the future.  However, I have no doubt that I'm going to keep eating, sleeping under a roof, and doing all the things that are critical to a healthy, full life come July 1st.  There is a zero percent chance I go hungry or homeless.

Instead, my stress comes right from my fears about my self-image.  Specifically, who am I when I'm done at Wake Forest?  How does it affect my status, how others perceive me?  I'm also worried that the next j.o. I take will keep me from doing the things that matter.

Really, the things that are causing my stress are that simple and that inconsequential.  Like, maybe Bryan doesn't need to take such a job.  Or maybe Bryan can quit such a job if he finds it is getting in the way of what matters.  He has a very good friend who did just that, and life worked out just fine for her.  As for status, whatever.  The only people who judge someone by the status of their job are jerks and...me, I guess.

And I don't think I'm a jerk.  Insert smiley face emoticon.

If you're going through a tough time, I recommend you break down what scares you.  A little honesty and introspection can show us that a lot of the fears about the future we have aren't nearly as bad as our heads make them out to be.  Everything that you really want and need is always available to you.

Ben Riggs' latest masterpiece directly influenced this post.  Make 15 minutes to read and digest it.  You'll be glad you did.

Yoga Clothes and the Landmark Forum

Wait, Lululemon encourages people to join the Landmark Forum?

Man, I try not to judge another person's path, but this is an organization that charges a hundred bucks for yoga pants made in sweatshops and actively supports the favored ideology of every a$$hole Wall Street banker.

Fck Lululemon.  Most companies that exploit spirituality at least make token gestures towards doing the right thing.  Lululemon can't even be bothered with that.

Kicking Ass to Live

I read an article over at Elephant Journal last week that talked about how asana is only one limb of yoga, although we Americans tend to treat it as the end all and be all, and how advanced practionners should move past the need to hit every pose every time.  Right on.  I've written about the very same things in this space.

However...

Over the last week, life stayed heavy, when I thought it was getting lighter.  I broke under the load a little bit.  I spent the weekend on my couch with ESPN.  I needed the break, but I woke up today knowing that I needed to get back in the game.  I needed to work out the stress that I had accumulated.  So what I needed was an ass-kicking hour and a half of yoga.  I needed to sweat the pain away.  

Asana isn't the only thing, except when it is.

The Backlash to the KONY Backlash

First, KONY should always be your favorite terrible hip-hop acronym.

I was about to write a long piece blasting those people who wanted to get all smug about the KONY video.  Once I started to read about the backlash, I slowed my roll.  I haven't watched the video and don't intend to, but the criticism sounds fair.  Invisible Children should be commended for an innovative and effective outreach campaign, but it won't do to simply swap sets of butchers.

Yet my core worries about Andrew Sullivan and the rest of Smug Brigade remains. The quote from Rebecca Rosen in the link is worth a copy-and-paste. "It would be a terrible outcome," Rosen wrote, "if those who initially pushed the video along were discouraged by this experience from further engagement, overlearning the lesson and believing there is no positive way for Americans to engage in the world abroad."  I am FB friends with a lot of high school students who shared the KONY link, because I am sure it was the first time any of them had ever thought of the scale of human rights violations in Africa.  Their outrage and desire to help is completely sincere.

If any of them are reading this, please don't let anything you hear about Invisible Children compromise that sense of outrage you had while watching the video.  The truth might be more complicated than the video portrays, but your urge to want to do something is a beautiful thing.

Packing Conflicts

At the end of the month, I am moving out of my apartment.  Like a responsible adult, I have already started packing.  Remember, nothing makes me feel better than feeling like a responsible adult.

Like most everything else in my life for the last year, packing leaves me profoundly conflicted.  I am excited about what is to come but terrified that I don't know what that is yet.  I am both excited and terrified this move represents a step towards a new job and possibly career.  I am excited and relieved because moving out represents another break from my soon-to-be previous employer but sad because living in this apartment has meant so much more than said employer, has opened up so many amazing doors, and has led to the creation of so many wonderful friendships.

I've reached the point where I'm pretty comfortable with who I am.  Few things that can happen to me could still rock my sense of self, although I know that something down the line will do just that at some point.  But as for now, starting down a move and job fears, all I can think of is that I've done all of this before, so I don't get too worked up about anything.  However my situation resolves itself or doesn't, there will be good and bad aspects to it.

So I think being conflicted is probably an indicator that I can see more of the whole the picture.  Not all of it by a long shot, but enough to know...something worth knowing, I guess.

All of these conflicted emotions, and all I'm doing, at least for now, is putting a lot of stuff in storage and moving up to Bull City.  Given the 95 percent chance that I eventually move out of the Triangle, I can't wait for, and can't stand the thought of, the conflict I'll feel then.

One thing I am not conflicted about: LSU has a real shot of knocking off Kentucky.  CHAOS ALWAYS CHAOS (c) Takao Yamada.