Category: Et Cetera
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For Yuvawn
I just found out I lost my grandmother.
I don’t handle these things very gracefully. I don’t become an emotional mess or anything but I get strangely distant, hurting all the same.
She had a stroke not too long ago. And as terrible as it might be to admit, I could never fully steel myself for a phone conversation or another trip down to Georgia because I didn’t know what her slurred speech would do to me, emotionally. It was probably more inflated in my mind than it was in actuality, but nevertheless, I couldn’t do it.
I knew some day I would take my girlfriend down to see her and my father’s side of the family. I knew she’d be alright, that all the recent scares concerning a re-invigorated cancer were just that: scares.
The things we know.
The “some days” that never come.
My instinct was to write about it. My instinct was to manage it. My instinct was to leave my father, almost to Columbia, South Carolina when he got the news, alone for a moment as I know he would appreciate.
My instinct was to let the universe sort it for another few precious beats before I gave myself over to it. Because once I do, the past becomes vaster.
I am a nostalgic person. I look back and see happiness where perhaps there was none, or ease where perhaps the struggle was more intense. And when I’m not concerned with how things were, or how I felt at some other moment, I’m busying myself for what will come, how my path will look tomorrow.
I haven’t sat down and fully intimated myself with “now” in, I’m suddenly aware, a very long time. I think I would have been wise to do it more.
I hope this moment’s pause teaches me that lesson so that “tomorrow” is no longer a distraction, but instead, a gift. I loved her for being so kind, so thoughtful, so strong. For having the traits I wish were more prevalent in me. And I never told her that.
God — why did I never tell her that?
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No more “Day of Rest” posts
Consider me a superstitious man. The two days I’ve neglected it, my guys have won. Here’s to a good season.
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David Fincher’s new NFL Nike spot featuring Adrian Peterson
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Twitter a la carte: future marketing tool?
I was watching the Redskins game this afternoon, doing some work on my computer, and the announcers mentioned something called Redskins Twackle. I was already on the net so I figured I’d give it a look, and this is what I got:
In a nutshell, it’s a Twitter interface for Redskins fans. Obviously something like this would heat up around key moments (games, draft, etc.), but it got me thinking about the on-going concern studios have with finding audiences for their movies and sustaining that interest in any way possible, maximizing the income on their product.
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R.I.P. Les Paul
A break from our regularly scheduled programming. For the music fans. Slash will be bummed.
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What doesn’t kill you…
You know that episode of “Weeds” during season 3, when Mary-Louise Parker’s Nancy Botwin gets a tattoo of a u-turn sign as a symbol of strength against a former adversary of the same name? That kind of sums up why I want this Barack Obama socialism poster, fashioning the Commander-in-Chief after Heath Ledger’s Joker in “The Dark Knight,” hanging on my wall. I’m screwy like that. Over at The Guardian, by the way, Ben Walters does a pretty good job of shooting down the effort being made here by those suddenly on the outside looking in.
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Warrior
I don’t normally delve into sporting matters on these pages, but I can’t not mention the history that has just been made this afternoon, only a couple of miles away from my own house. Today’s Wimbledon men’s final was a mammoth but weirdly cagey affair — certainly not as explosive as last year’s classic — between two fighters stubbornly defending their turf at all costs, before a tense crowd that included the disparate likes of Henry Kissinger, Russell Crowe and Woody Allen. (See, we’re still about the movies here.)
But when — in the 30th game of the fifth set, a record statistic in itself — Andy Roddick finally handed Roger Federer his sixth Wimbledon title with a wayward, exhausted shot, the dramatics of the match were immediately swamped by its larger significance. One man. 15 Grand Slam singles titles. That’s not a record that’s getting broken for a good long while. (Longer still, if the man to do so isn’t named Rafael Nadal.)
It’s not often one can bear witness to a fully-formed legend in the present tense — much less one who has yet to turn 30. Humbling. Hats off.
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R.I.P. Steve “Air” McNair
Those who read regularly know I’m a big football fan, so I felt it necessary to point to the news, which fellow fans will surely have discovered by now or soon, that former NFL quarterback Steve McNair (Houston Oilers, Tennessee Titans, Baltimore Ravens) has been killed in Nashville. He was 36 years old. This is the only information we have so far:Former Titans quarterback Steve McNair has been killed. Police said McNair suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head in downtown Nashville.
The incident happened near 2nd South & Lea Avenue. A female victim was also found dead.
According to Don Aaron with the Metro Nashville Police Department, no suspects have been taken into custody. Several people were being taken to police headquarters for questioning.
Gone way too soon. He never got the proper respect because he was unfortunately so injury prone, but I always thought him to be a considerable talent. And he was mere inches away from a Super Bowl victory in 1999. Maybe a win there would have changed things, but he finished his career in Baltimore and retired in April of 2008. Very sad news.
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Anyone else…
…feel completely robbed as a basketball fan? How boring. You push through the defending champs and the presumed eastern finalists, then can’t even prove that you deserve to be in the series? Maybe they should change it to the Orlando Tragic.
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#CNNFail
I’m glad someone picked this up:
As the Iranian election aftermath unfolded in Tehran–thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to express their anger at perceived electoral irregularities–an unexpected hashtag began to explode through the Twitterverse: “CNNFail.”
Even as Twitter became the best source for rapid-fire news developments from the front lines of the riots in Tehran, a growing number of users of the microblogging service were incredulous at the near total lack of coverage of the story on CNN, a network that cut its teeth with on-the-spot reporting from the Middle East.
For most of Saturday, CNN.com had no stories about the massive protests on behalf of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was reported by the Iranian government to have lost to the sitting president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The widespread street clashes–nearly unheard of in the tightly controlled Iran–reflected popular belief that the election had been rigged, a sentiment that was even echoed, to some extent, by the U.S. government Saturday.
The rest here.
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The Boss fights hunger
You all know I’m a Bruce Springsteen fan, so no need for the background on that. When I was at the two Los Angeles shows last week I saw that the Los Angeles Community FoodBank had a set-up with some memorabilia for sale, all proceeds going to the fight against hunger in the area. Springsteen has been affiliated with the organization for some time now.I received the following email from a guy working with the New Jersey FoodBank as a result of my Boss posts last week and I thought I’d relay it here since, after all, it’s a good cause, and there might be some folks interested:
I got excited when I saw that you were a Springsteen fan because the PR firm I work for does pro bono work for the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, which has a solid relationship with the Boss. Starting [April 22], fans can go on the Backstreets Web site (www.backstreets.com/hunger/), donate $25 and be in the running for one of 14 prints of Bruce taken by prestigious photographers over the past 30 years. Each of the prints is autographed by the respective photographer and the donations go to the FoodBank, which is pretty cool.
Since this has nothing to do with the content of In Contention, I figured I would just shoot over this note simply to let you know about it…I figured a guy who goes to see Bruce two days in a row might appreciate this.
