On floating

April 29, 2007


From the moment the boat is on the rack, hefted on top of the car, poised on its side and strapped in with strained precision, tied down and steadied for the movement of the road, I’m at peace. I know where I’m going. Once the formalities have been parted with – the strain of lifting and the gleam of the sun in my eyes as I slowly twist the straps into place – I’m ready to float.

Lifting anchor is as simple as putting both legs in the kayak, straightening them out and letting arms – warm from the unusually warm spring – control the work. The water spreads out ahead, a horizon of motion captured only by the river’s banks. One paddle breaks the tension – gently plopping, straining against the force of the current and passing through the weight of so many hydrogen atoms. Oxygen atoms, strung together, turned from air into fluid. From one necessity of life to another.

The science that causes surface tension helps keep us afloat, with help from physics, our hollowed out shell of molded green plastic beginning to move with the water, giving in to nature and slowly becoming part of it. The paddles are swiftly made worthless, useful for steering and sudden movement but completely arbitrary to the relaxation of being sent for a ride, kayaking in style, one in front, one in back, my field of vision widened to 180 degrees – both sides of the river, meeting in the middle where Kerrie’s head bisects my sight and serves as a center of attention.

It’s warm; warmer than on dry land. But the water is cool – cold to the touch, picked up in the wind and deposited on our slowly roasting skin. The ability to sunburn is heightened when the sun’s rays are bounced back off of the water, unable to break the surface, forbidden from floating along with us and cursing us as it makes this discovery, sentencing us to a few days of dry, taut epidermal pain.

My sandals are wet. We paddle for something to do – to make our actions seem more human. Less divine. My legs start to bead up with the water falling off of the paddles, dropping onto my water bottle and reminding me to drink. The water rushes by, as does a forest that’s usually hidden from us. On this river that encircles our city, surrounded by asphalt and buildings and commerce and life that breezes by too fast, a secret wildlife exists. No one else is on the river. Aside from the handful of people that jog by, we could be floating down any river in the quickly disappearing wilderness.

It’s quiet enough to hear centuries of use, to witness early settlers coming across the river and relocating camp, deciding that here, where the river splits and creates a city-wide island of sorts, is where life should go on. It’s amazingly silent at times. Other times, we’re brought back to the present. We’re floating down a thin line. One side forces us to remember our place, to remember we’re in a city and that this water is not ours. The other tells us to just let go. The river will show us where to go.

Floating down the river is a sensation more different than anything. Unlike a lake, which is self-contained and close-minded, a river flows continuously, fully conscious of its direction but unceasingly moving, always searching out for the ending – the peace that comes from completion. You’re able to let go, so feel weightless, moving along and becoming part of the motion, altering it to your needs but never affecting the overall symbiotic relationship between water and weight – between the need to flow and the ability to move.

And then, in no time, we’re getting out, setting the anchor again with a foot full of mud, traveling around the city to get the boat back on the car, straining into the sun. We’re suddenly aware of all we’d left behind – the streets, the smells, the stifling closeness of everything. We want back on the river, but we know it’s not where we belong. We’re stuck here, on dry land, forever.

Or, at least, until next weekend, when the anchor comes up and both feet are free again.

Tags: On..., Outdoors |

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Playing patsy with the Pacers

April 25, 2007


The 2001-2002 Coach of the Year is stepping down. Rick Carlisle – the one man that made sense out of three disastrous Pacers seasons – is no longer coaching.

The report says he’s stepping down. I have a hard time believing it was that easy. We all know he was being pushed out. Welcome to the NBA Coaching Carousel.

I don’t care what reports say. Rick Carlisle isn’t stepping down on his own accord. I don’t know anyone as young as Carlisle and with as much bad luck as Carlisle has had that doesn’t think they can keep going. I don’t know any coaches who, this early in a coaching career, hang it up, who can afford to miss the paychecks and are willing walk away from coaching under a good friend, where the coach/GM relationship is as tight as could be.

Or maybe we’ve been lied to all these years. Maybe Bird has soured on Carlisle. Maybe Donnie Walsh let Carlisle come on as a favor to Bird. Maybe Carlisle has felt enough pressure to succeed with some of the least talented rosters in all of sports, rosters that have been driven by potential, not results; the future, not current success.

Here’s what I know. I know that Rick Carlisle took a talented Indiana Pacers team to the brink of the Finals during his first year of service, where he came up against the team he had just left – a juggernaught Detroit Pistons team that no one believed in but everyone feared. I know that the next year his plans were torn apart because of the hot-tempered screwball that many know as Ron Artest, thanks to a brawl that threw the lineup out of whack, causing Carlisle to use about 16,000 starting lineups throughout the year.

And the year after that, Carlisle found himself staring down the barrel at another Artest blow-up, this time a self-induced team suspension as a result of a trade request. He was traded, eventually, and a gimped-up Peja Stojakovic was brought in on a rental basis. All of us Pacers fans rejoiced for a month or so, happy to have the Artest Train Wreck out of town, then watched Peja take his services elsewhere – to New Orleans, of all places.

And then this year. We trade to get Al Harrington - a player we let go on free agency just a year before, giving up our draft pick in the process. And then we trade him again, along with gun-brandishing Stephen Jackson, to Golden State. In the meantime, we get two horrible contracts and two of the whitest players in the league. We lose 11 straight. If we could go three games without someone being a complete and utter distraction, we might have hit .500.

Has more bad luck ever happened to a good coach? What’s next? Jermaine O’Neal breaks his leg two games into the season? Mike Dunleavy snaps and starts waving a gun at mid-court? Jamaal Tinsley misses half of the Pacers’ games? (Whoops – that last one hits a little too close to home for him.)

Really, does anyone out there actually think that any of this was Carlisle’s fault – that after four years of trying to coach the crap that Donnie Walsh and Larry Bird had thrown together like some kind of has-been player casserole, Carlisle was somehow to blame?

Through a year of adversity, Carlisle coached a playoff team that somehow made it to the Conference semi-finals. Carlisle made Eastern Conference contenders of a team without its second best player and no viable scoring options. Through injuries, Carlisle kept the Pacers competitive.

And though boneheaded moves, horrible judgment and moronic choices, Walsh and Bird threw it all away, every time. Now, we have one bright spot: Danny Granger. That’s it. Everyone else has worn out their welcome or proven worthless to the team, unable to pull teammates together in some semblance of a professional outfit.

Jermaine O’Neal needs to go. Jeff Foster needs to go. Jamal Tinsley needs to go. Everyone on the team not named Danny needs to go. After four years of steady decline – prompted by the brutes and scrubs that upper management has put together – Larry Bird needs to go. Donny Walsh needs to sell the team to someone competent – someone willing to spend and choose great players and attempt to create a great team again.

Out of everyone, there’s one person who really DIDN’T need to go.

Rick Carlisle. He’s the only thing that kept the team together. And now he’s being shoved into the role of patsy.

It’s too bad. I had high hopes for the next season – a cleared out roster and a new direction, a focus on the young players Indiana could get and a sharp drive from the old days of boring, brutal basketball.

Now I can’t. I’ve been let down again. I’ve lost nearly all respect I had for my favorite team. I’m ready to jump off of the ship, to swim to better luxury liners – the ones that cater to the fans while fielding a competitive team. Because I’m starting to have a hard time recognizing this team – my favorite team in all of sports.

None of that was Rick Carlisle’s fault. But he’s stepping down anyway. I’d be surprised if it was of his own accord. All I know is that some team is going to pick up a great coach. And the Pacers are going to regret letting him go.

Tags: Basketball, Indiana Pacers, Sports |

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None more black

April 25, 2007


A Spinal Tap reunion.

This is big news.

From Yahoo News and the AP:

NEW YORK - Spinal Tap is back, and this time the band wants to help save the world from global warming.

The mock heavy metal group immortalized in the 1984 mockumentary, “This is Spinal Tap,” will reunite for a performance at Wembley Stadium in London as part of the Live Earth concerts scheduled worldwide for July 7.

The original members of Spinal Tap will be there: guitarist Nigel Tufnel (played by Christopher Guest), singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer). Rob Reiner, who both directed “This is Spinal Tap” and played the fake documentarian Marty DeBergi in the film, will also be in attendance.

I’m holding back tears of joy right now.

Anyone got any tickets to London I can use?

(Thanks to American Copywriter for the heads up.)

Tags: Concerts, Movies, Music |

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An ode to playoffs

April 24, 2007


Steve and Dirk, a long time ago.

When Dirk Nowitzki was a rookie and Steve Nash was freshly traded to the Mavs, the Dallas fans mercilessly booed them.

They booed Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash in Dallas.

Can you believe that now? After two MVPs for Nash and a nearly inevitable one for Dirk this year?

I just read that in a fantastic article about Dirk and Steve in Sports Illustrated. And it reminded me of one thing: It’s playoff time in the NBA.

This is more than just an excuse to post a picture of rookie Dirk and sophomore Steve. With the Pacers out for the first time in years, I’m ready to fully appreciate everything that the games will bring - the uncertainty and the sure-shots, the tremendous match-ups and star players. I’m ready for another Mavs/Suns series. And I’m ready for one of the two teams to finally step up and win it all.

I’ll admit — I’ve been a little lax in my Pacer fan-dom this past year. After all, they didn’t give me much to root for. It’s been all about watching these two new style teams - the new 80s Lakers and Celtics. The Mavs and Suns could play every night of the season, and it would be fine by me.

If I can’t watch, I’ll at least follow every shot, every dunk, every no-look pass and thundering alley oop, every botched play and drastic recovery, every launched trey and every clanked free throw. Baseball won’t get interesting for months. Football is a season away. This is it — the end of my personal sports season, the twilight of the year, when everything comes together.

The World Series is a teaser. The Super Bowl is like an All-Star Game. The NCAA Tournament, my personal playoffs, rife with intensity and worked to perfection. The NBA playoffs — the ultimate ending.

This is what it’s all about. I’m kind of totally excited. Bring on the action. Bring on the spectacle of my favorite sport at a time when everything counts and everything is brilliant.

Bring on the playoffs.

Tags: Basketball, Indiana Pacers, Sports |

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Voter apathy

April 23, 2007


Call them what you will. Call them bourgeous, call them spoiled, call them anti-American and ultra-liberal and dirty and smelly. Call them every half-baked insult and stereotype in the book.

The French had an 84.6% voter turnout for their Presidential election this weekend.

Nearly Eighty-Five Percent.

On a similar note, the United States played host to a 60.7% turnout for the 2004 Presidential election. That was the highest in nearly 40 years.

We as Americans pride ourselves on being patriotic – on doing the right thing and supporting the ideals that millions have died for over the 200 years we’ve been a nation. Unfortunately, nearly 40% of us don’t even bother to vote for our leaders.

(And you know a good majority of those who don’t vote manage to complain about the leaders that are elected.)

This isn’t a party-line type thing. This is laziness. Apathy. We’re taking it for granted.

Sure, the French seem snotty and rude. But in terms of doing the right thing when it comes to acting on the citizen’s right to vote, they’re more patriotic than we can ever imagine.

So much for Freedom Fries, eh?

Tags: Politics |

3 Comments

Breaking the rules

April 19, 2007


In writing, the basics matter. But they don’t dictate style.

One thing that I’ve always liked about writing is that it has a strict set of rules – a basic structure that needs to be followed at all times in order to transfer meaning and message in the most efficient form. Its rules are so precise - its grammar, its spelling, its sentence structure and spacing and punctuation and hidden rules involving dangling prepositions and spliced commas.

The other thing I’ve liked? That all of these rules can be thrown out the window in the guise of personal style.

At my job, it’s necessary to know the rules of writing in order to break the rules of writing. That’s fun. Advertising needs to be short and punchy, effective outside of the rules. You have to know what’s what – which rules to break in which circumstances.

The same goes for great fiction, or well-written non-fiction. Run-on sentences show a hurried collection of thoughts. Sentence fragments illustrate the broken and poignant atmosphere that surrounds them. Grammar is necessary, but only as a clarifying principle. It comes down to word selection more than rules – word selection that works in conjunction with the basics of language. Because even though the rules can be broken, the rules still…well…rule.

This rule-breaking occurs throughout modern culture. Think of art, business, public speaking, transportation. The basics are important – and need to be studied, practiced and perfected. Only then can one fully understand the purpose of breaking them to make a better point. You can’t change a recipe if you don’t know how it worked to begin with.

That’s all. That’s one of the reasons I love writing so much. Just something I was thinking about.

Tags: Career, Writing |

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Season Ticket Review - Playoff time

April 18, 2007


Skyforce

Playoffs, Round 1 – Ft. Worth Flyers (29-21, #3 Seed) at Sioux Falls Skyforce (30-20, #2 Seed). April 17th, 2007.

First of all – for those of you who don’t understand the NBA D-League Playoff system, join the club.

Not that there’s anything to understand. It’s just a little asinine, really.

See, six teams make the playoffs – three from each division. The top seed gets a first round bye while the other two play a one-game playoff. Then, the winner of that game plays the top seed in a one-game playoff. Finally, the finals are a one-game playoff.

It’s a six team, single elimination tournament. What?

There are reasons. Most of the D-League players don’t want to go through a long and drawn out playoff system. They’d rather end the season and head over to Greece or Korea or some other international basketball league. At this point of the year, there’s little chance of any player being called up anyway. They might as well head for another opportunity.

With that in mind, I find it sad that we can’t see a closely contested series – even three games. If Dakota wins out, they’ll have done it without even stepping foot on their opponents court. How can you crown a champion that didn’t even play a road game during the playoffs?

These are the conditions that we found going into last night’s game against the Fort Worth Flyers – one and done, single elimination, every mistake even more costly.

Of course, we didn’t really make it much of a battle. The Skyforce tore the Flyers apart.

The game was tied at 25 going into the second quarter. By this time, the stands had filled. I had truly thought the Arena was going to be empty, barren for what could be our only home playoff game. We walked in and found less than a thousand people in the stands, the empty seats victims of unclaimed season ticket packages.

As the game advanced, the lower stands filled. Maybe it was the Tuesday factor. Maybe people were just late. Maybe the game tipped off early. Regardless, an empty Arena filled up halfway and became electric.

We managed to outscore the Flyers by 20 in the second quarter. We sailed on from there. There was no urgency – just fast, fun basketball. We played as if the Flyers were some old CBA standby, floating around without a league and playing pickup games with other D-League teams. They hardly put up a fight, never coming closer than seven through the rest of the game.

And the refs – they were pretty good. These are playoff refs – the best in the league. I saw some things I thought I’d never see. I saw my first technical foul called for having six men on the court (against Ft. Worth). I also witnessed three players on three consecutive plays foul out of the game for Ft. Worth. It was weird. The Skyforce would run down the court, make a lay-up and draw a foul. This happened three times in a row, and each time the foul was called on a player who already had five. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Additionally, cameras were set up all over the Arena, and a national broadcast team was located at half-court. We got free t-shirts and basketballs just for showing up. This is playoff basketball, and they pulled off all the stops.

This shows the striking difference between the D-League and CBA – money, and the ability to spend it. The D-League is feeding off of the big leagues, grabbing money to help promote the product and produce something worthwhile. The CBA, however, was unknown; bare bones and horribly under-funded, with only the successful teams (Idaho, Dakota, Sioux Falls) getting any sort of bang for their buck.

But now what? Now, we hope for a Skyforce win in Bismarck against the league leading Dakota Wizards – our bitter rivals. Last time they played in Sioux Falls, we were screwed. We got them back in Dakota by beating them on the road. In fact, after the disastrous beginning of the season, where the Skyforce lost a home and away against Dakota to start 0-2, we’ve gone 3-1 against them, with two wins on the road.

Then, we hope for an Idaho loss. This puts the championship game right here in Sioux Falls.

Two seasons ago, the CBA Championship was decided on the road. Kerrie and I listened to the radio, waiting to hear whether our team had won the championship. They had. And we missed the awarding of the trophy.

This year, we have a chance to witness it first hand, as long as certain circumstances fall into place.

And with Amir Johnson set to return for the final two games, I finally believe the Skyforce could win it all – could win the NBA D-League championship in their first year in the league.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We still have to win a tough game (or two) on the road. Then, maybe we’ll get one last glimpse of the team before they’re broken up and sent around the world.

Until then, Go Skyforce.

Skyforce 128, Flyers 105.

Tags: Basketball, Sioux Falls, Sioux Falls Skyforce, Sports |

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