Cheap Metaphors and Lessons Learned - PGA Tournament 2009

I’m not writing this article as a golf fan. Which I am.

I’m writing it as a fan of dreams-coming-true stories. And aren’t we all?

As one announcer said, “it ended with a Yang.” He must have been an English major. :)

Today was the 91st annual PGA golf tournament. I was in Hazeltine, Minnesota for all the final round action. As far as professional golf competitions go, I guess I always cheer for the underdog. These days it seems like everyone has decided Woods is going to win before a single ball is hit.

Today belonged to South Korea’s Y.E. Yang. Even the avid golf tournament viewer probably had never heard of him. I know I hadn’t.

This guy started the game when he was 19 years old. 19. That’s almost unheard of in this setting. He’s golfed for 15 years and just beat Tiger Woods in a Sunday round of a major tournament. Tiger won his first Major at 21. Yang got his first par at 22. That's just incredible.

But enough about golf.

It seems like with every year that passes, doors close for us. Without our permission. It seems like if you are going to be The Best at any given sport, instrument, or hobby—if you are going to compete with the Tiger Woods’s of the world-- you should either:

a) be a child prodigy, or
b) your parents had better have started you in class when you were 3.

Today I am reminded that isn’t true. Time doesn’t dictate what we can or cannot do. (WARNING: cheap, overused metaphors to follow.) The doors might be closed, but they’re not locked. And you just might have the key. That one is almost too cheesy to actually publish on a blog, but apparently I have no shame. And hey, just be thankful that I’m not going into a soapbox rant about how the “keys” are Attitude, Practice, etc . I’ll leave that to Hallmark.

Just try to remember that it’s not too late to be great at something you never thought you could do. Just ask Yang, Susan Boyle, or the newest lead singer of Journey.

On Gambling

For some reason, this summer I have found myself at casinos quite frequently. Whether is a family crab-leg dinner, a vacation to Vegas or Deadwood, or just meeting up with a best friend on her trip home, I’ve had my share of the neon lights and bells the past few weeks. So, naturally, I now have a theory.

And is there a better place for life metaphors than a casino? They’re the metaphorical jackpot if you will. I mean think about it, where else will people pay money to waste their time? Actually there are a few recent concerts and movies I can think of, but I digress. My point is that you can tell a lot about a person by what they expect from a slot machine.

You have some people, like my dad, who expect to win. People who are borderline shocked when they don’t see a triple-7 all night. And then there are some people, like myself and my mom, who don’t really care to play, but when we do, we expect to lose. We play the game because it’s crazy and maybe there is a tiny part of us that thinks perhaps the world owes us something and Providence intends to make amends with 80 quarters. Then there are a rare few who come in with no expectations. (Wouldn’t it be nice if life worked that way? You wake up neither a pessimist nor an optimist. I wonder what a person could discover if they had a clean slate every day.) But no matter what we expect of the machine, we all pull the lever.

In the end, I’m a gambling pessimist. A pessimist who likes to have fun. So with slot machines—and with life—I guess I just bet the max until I hit zero all while trying to have a good time with good people.

Allen Wins Again

“Drink wine. This is life eternal. This, all that youth will give to you. It is the season for wine, roses and drunken friends. Be happy for this moment. This moment…is your life.”

I just wanted to share this great line. A great line quoted in a not-so-great movie: Unfaithful.

I’m no movie critic, and I won’t pretend to be one. But if you are looking for an excellent movie, with an eerily similar plot, watch Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors instead. I promise that will be worth your time. As is any Allen film.

Unlike Unfaithful, there are so many great lines in C & M that its nearly impossible to pick just one. But, here you go:

“It’s a fundamental difference in the way we view the world. You see it as harsh and empty of values and pitiless. But I couldn’t go on living if I didn’t think with all my heart there was a real moral structure with real meaning and forgiveness and some kind of higher power…otherwise there is no basis to know how to live.”
- Woody Allen, Crimes and Misdemeanors

The Rat Pack

[When speaking of The Rat Pack] "You know they weren’t just singing a song, they were singing a lifestyle."
- Jamie Foxx (4/28/2009 American Idol)

How Do You Solve a Problem like the Sound of Music?

As an only child who can carry a tune, I always loved the Sound of Music. The Von Trapps were livin’ the dream. Forging every stream. But think about it, a big old singing family. When I have my own big old singing family, I hope my kids can learn the valuable life lessons this worn out VHS has taught me:

Remember kids, “when you read you begin with A-B-C, when you sing you begin with Do-Rae-Me.” Now I have learned a lot of things in my life, but what am I still always doing? Reading and singing. Thanks Maria.

And, what do you do “when the dog bites, when the bee stings, or when you’re feeling sad?” Simply remember your favorite things, “and then it won’t feel so bad.” Mr. Woody Allen seems to agree with this. (See the second-to-last scene in Manhattan).

Then there’s the ultimate adage. The foundation of the entire film. The song for the lovers, the dreamers, and me. “Climb Every Mountain.” You remember the emotional ending. The hills—alive with 1960’s cinematography. The score that brings a tear to your eye and a goosebump to your arm. The happiest of happy endings. To a ten-year-old.

But to a college graduate sitting in a tiny apartment eating Chinese takeout, the scene looks different. Bleaker. But the scene does warrant a break in the waves of my channel surfing. I never could pass up this movie. As I sat there, watching good triumph over evil yet again, it occurred to me: My God, what if the Von Trapps are not ok? I mean sure they escaped this time. But that’s a big-ass mountain and there are Nazi’s out there. What’s worse is they will always be running away; with—mind you—nothing but a song and a dream. I guess it worked for the American Idols, but really?

So I guess The Sound of Music continues to teach me, even at 23. There is a fine line between chasing dreams and running away. Is there even a winner in that race? Does chasing your dreams always lead you away from home? Perhaps Maria should take a cue from Dorothy.

Ouch. Now that I think about it, an equally currently-depressing-once-childhood-favorite. Tonight in my own personal philosophical black hole, these are the only conclusions I can see: The yellow brick road might not lead to Oz, and the other side of the Swiss mountains may not be safe and free.

Apparently MGM and 20th Century Fox seem to be under the impression that at the end of a rainbow, a person finds everything they ever wanted. Just “follow every rainbow ‘til you find your dream,” or that “land, that you heard of once in a lullaby", is where? “Somewhere over the rainbow.”

What they never tell you is how you get through all that rain. Cue Mary Poppins.
Now there is a character I’d like to be. Think about it, she comes into people’s lives, sings a few songs, invents a truly quotable word, and then disappears without so much as an “adieu, adieu, to you and you and you.”

A tough pill to swallow, and unfortunately there isn’t a spoon full of sugar big enough to help that medicine go down.

So, perhaps there really is no place like home, and that’s too bad for me. And it’s too bad for Maria and Mary who were both forced to run away from their homes. And poor Dorothy, hers got swallowed up by the Kansas sky.

A Little Bit Country, A Little Bit Rock 'n Roll

Cowboys and Indi-rockers.

In his book Love is a Mixtape, Rolling Stone Editor Rob Sheffield has this to say about country music: “The country singers understand. It’s always the one song that gets you.”

He’s right. He’s an author, a lover of classic literature and not-so-classic 80’s grunge bands, and an editor for Rolling Stone Magazine. And even he knows that country music is where it’s at. So, I think English majors across the (bill)board should listen to country music. Hell, a philosopher who wants to be happy should. And especially all y’all who love MTV.

Somebody should warn Britney Spears who the true womanizers are. Its men like Brad Paisley who write us” little moments.” Or Rascal Flats and the greatest pickup line this side of Memphis: “You don’t look a day over fast cars and freedom” (Rascal Flatts, Fast Cars and Freedom). Sure beats “let me buy u a drank” (T-Pain, Buy U a Drank). It’s the difference between Beyonce’s If I Were a Boy and Diamond Rio’s I am that Man.

Finally, country music defines love in a way matched only by Hemmingway in A Farewell to Arms, but that’s another essay. In fact, country music has helped me quantify some non-negotiables in my definition of love and happiness:

1. “ I wanna love like Johnny and June”, too. (Heidi Newfield, Johnny and June)
2. And “I wanna know how forever feels.” (Kenny Chesney, How Forever Feels)
Johnny and June love forever.
3. Maybe I just wanna be one of “couple of kids just tryin’ to save each other.” JameyJohnson, In Color)
4. Or, maybe I just wish Brad Paisley or Tim McGraw were single.

All that to say, in the epic battle that is Cowboys vs. Indi-rockers, my money is on the cowboy.

Every time.

If "I Sing Because I'm Happy" then I write because it makes me happy.

In his 2006 “Best American” essay, Alan Shapiro asks us Why Write? Although his meditation is distinctly optimistic and highlights many personal reasons for writing, he has indirectly brought his reader into a larger framework of writing and philosophy. There are so many different reasons to write. For some, writing is an occupation. For others, a means to convey truth. It is both a social reform vehicle and an exercise in the arbitrary. It can be therapeutic, and it can be hell. It can document history, and it can cheat it. It can destroy. It can save. It requires both arrogance and humility. It’s a prison and an escape. But no matter the motivation or the even outcome, written word is an art and it survives. Even when the author doesn’t.

In her book Living By Fiction, Annie Dillard has this to say: “We lock in asylums those who see meaning in clouds and rocks…where do those of us who are not in asylums draw the line—by tacit agreement—between the humanly meaningful and the meaningless? Is the search for meaning among the high heaps of the meaningless a fool’s game? It is art’s game? . . . Do we ever discover meaning, or do we always make it up?”

So, why write? Maybe because you are that somebody that refuses to let seemingly insignificant moments slip into the “abyss of history” unnoticed. Somebody that won’t stop believing that words matter. A lot. And to all those somebody’s out there, thank you for your words. History has proved you are in good company. I think William Shakespeare would agree.

And let’s not forget about my other favorite William. He leaves us bloggers with most valuable advice: “It is dangerous to leave written that which is badly written. A chance word, upon paper, may destroy the world. Watch carefully and erase while the power is still yours. I say to myself, for all that is put down, once it escapes, may rot its way into a thousand minds, then can become a black smut, and all libraries, of necessity be burned to ground as a consequence. Only one answer: write carelessly so that nothing that is not green will survive.” - William Carlos Williams

And it is in that spirit – with that sense of caution – that I begin blogging.