Soul-shaking Blues

I like heavy music. I like songs sung and played with a fist inside the chest of its creator. Not that it has to be angry heavy-metal, it just needs to be powerful and strong; from a force that drops with the precision of a gavel and thunder of an earthquake. It makes my stomach and throat tingle, and my eyes get a wild look if they're not closed. 'Big Eater' by The Bad Plus, '4th of July' by Soundgarden, 'Ballad of a Thin Man' by Bob Dylan, 'Tarantula' by Smashing Pumpkins, 'I'm Bad (like Jesse James)' by John Lee Hooker, and even a lot of classical pieces. A lot of them are rooted in the Blues, a genre I can't get enough of. The best word I can think of to describe the sound is 'heavy' and it washes over me, covering me with a leather chest plate, gloves, and shoes perfect for the occasion. It's not anger, its just testosterone. A man was not made to sit at a desk. The music is usually good for lifting, but lifting is just practice for sport. Wow- I'm back to lacrosse again... I started looking for a Boston men's league a while ago, but to no avail. I found youth leagues, an indoor league out in Worcester, a league for ex-Division 1A studs, and a 30+ geezer league. I'm going to get my ass handed to me, but maybe I should try walking onto the ex-D1 league... Well, there goes the thought about music and the blues... Sorry :s

SA lax

Florida lacrosse was a completely different game. Of course everyone appreciated a good bell-ringer from time to time, but it was much more about skill and finesse. This was 'beach lacrosse'...
One of my first lacrosse memories at St. Andrews (the Scots) was during a one-on-one drill and I was playing defense. Chris Cawood, who would later become one of my best friends, was the other player in the drill and about to put a move on me when I swung my stick like a Harrisburg club into his forearms and midsection. I can't remember whether he took a swing back at me or not, but basically he stopped and shouted outraged obscenities, and the rest of the team seemed to agree! Apparently, I was a 'hack', and quickly learned what designated a 'slash' penalty ;) . Under the direction of pre-anger management Coach Goldberg, we learned the basic skills and fundamentals of the sport. Move your feet, scoop through the ball, keep your stick in the imaginary box above your shoulder, bounce your shot, pick away. After however long it took Goldberg to learn your name, you were subject to his fire in public. He was a little man with an engine and mouth like a motorbike (*Sublime lyric?). Actually, very much like the motorbike in Nintendo's Excitebike, especially when it was redlining! He would have a vein bulge in his forehead when he told you you sucked in front of the whole team. A ton of guys hated him and a few even quit because of his harsh attitude. I loved him. Many, many times he reamed me out in public and in private. He could be extremely demoralizing, intense and intimidating, but he did it because he passionately wanted us to get better. He had been Rookie of the Year at UNC and even went on to play for Team USA. It was clear that he was passionate about the game, but a lot of the kids didn't care to put up with him. As I said, I really liked his brutally honest, in-your-face coaching style. When you did good, you were his hero. When you did poorly, he let you know it. I compare Coach Goldberg to what I'd expect NFL coaches Bill Cower and Bill Parcels to be like. If you can handle these coaches and excel underneath them, you can be a great player and do amazing things. IF you can handle them. One thing Coach G always did say after a good 'whipping' was, "only because I like you, Johnson! Once I stop talking to you, then you know I don't like you anymore". That was good enough for me. Granted, I only saw the angry Goldberg for my first two years. Then, I believe he was made to take an anger management course or something, because he came back my Junior year a changed man. Still, a great coach, but much softer.

Despite the super-intense coach (who could also have a very fun, playful side), lacrosse in Florida was a blast. We had amazing facilities and equipment, perfect weather, hot water girls, and... we were good. Really good. We were Florida State Champions three of my four years, and when we didn't even get to the finals during my sophomore year, the seniors cried. We were the best, the team to beat. We had teams fly in from New York, Texas, and even Canada to play us. During spring break, we had Syracuse, Yale, Duke, and Colgate (top college programs) come down to our campus. They'd do clinics with us during the days, and then they'd have games on our field at night under the lights...

Under the lights...

Wow. The memory of that feeling just came rushing back to me- playing a big game at night under the lights. An athlete warrior in the spotlight. The clean night air. The ultra green grass and the freshly painted lines. The bright orange pipes that I'd hurl the ball between. The eyes. The pressure. The pre-game hype and nerves building up, ready to explode. For the big games, we were even led onto the field by a team of bagpipers; the sound cutting through your soul. An elemental, almost overwhelming feeling combining excitement, fear, passion, strength, honor, truth, will, courage, and energy. It was an incredibly intense experience for me, those night games, and I know the other guys on the team felt it too.

Why go by rail?

I'm riding on a Bolt bus from Boston to New York and wonder why I ever paid $80 to make this trek on Amtrak so many times in the past. The bus goes straight from Boston to New York except for a gracious 10-minute break for a quick bite or stretch of the legs. So the ride is faster and smoother. The Bolt bus (and Megabus, and similar companies) is only $18 even if you purchase the ticket the day before you leave, while the train (only one option: Amtrak) can be up to $100 or more! The bus is quieter as there aren't any announcements of stops. It's also calmer as very few people are walking up and down the aisles. But the kicker, for me, is that the bus has free wi-fi!! Isn't it unbelievable that the Amtrak Acela, which advertises to the 'business traveler', does not even have wi-fi?! Basically the business traveler is stuck on their crackberries or offline with their Powerpoint slides. I think Obama just prepared a ton of money to go into the American rail system, right? I believe there is a belief that trains don't pollute as much as cars and buses, but is that really true? I'm not so sure. I used to have Amtrak as a client when I worked for an ad agency, and although they had a couple 'green' ads created, I don't think they ever saw the light of day as there was never enough support and confidence that this angle was going to be a strong selling point! I'll look more into that Obama plan to see waddup..

Intro to lacrosse

When I moved to Harrisburg, PA in 7th grade, I was introduced to the sport of lacrosse. I had heard of it in NJ, but never seen or played it. In PA, we started practice on a snow-shoveled parking lot across from the school. It was freezing and even the smallest slap checks smarted incredibly. Maybe it hurt so much just because that was my first encounter with contact sports (soccer isn't 'contact'), but I doubt it- it was COLD. Stick heads were brittle and broke regularly. We weren't bad, but it wasn't pretty. We had poor mechanics and preferred to lay each other out rather than string two to three clean passes together for a highlight goal. We used our sticks like bats and our heads like battering rams. Watching the older high school guys was fun, but for now, just the idea and concept of lacrosse was good enough for us as we practiced our boyish muscles, courage, and testosterone.
**Side note: One day after a number of guys on the team had been quarreling for a while, the coach had all 20-25 of us stand shoulder to shoulder in a tight circle (so no one could see in from the outside). In full pads and helmets but no sticks, guys who had beef with each other would enter the circle, one on one, and beat the shit out of each other. No kicking or dirty fighting, but otherwise full force. The coach would break it up after it was over and make the two guys shake hands. I'd imagine he would've gotten fired if the school or parents found out about that day, but I thought it was a great thing to let the boys do. Looking back now, it reminds me of the warrior training that you see in the movie '300'. Young boys are taught how to fight, deal with fear, and be honorable in that Spartan society, and I'm glad we got a small taste of that in our own Circle of Death. Funny- our schools mascot was the Spartans...**
Florida lacrosse was a completely different game. Of course everyone still appreciated a good bell-ringer from time to time, but it was much more about skill and finesse. This was 'beach lacrosse'...

Signs

I'm a Capricorn and although Catholicism/Christianity is against the idea of our nature and destinies determined by the moon and stars (or anything but God), I've found that a lot of it is fairly accurate. I'm not talking about daily horoscopes- those are as bogus as fortune cookies. But the explanation of signs' characteristics as well as relationship details and compatibility are interesting. Granted, I do read them with a grain of salt, reserving the skepticism that we automatically believe something is accurate ("that's soo me!") even if they're very broad and generalizing statements. Although not everything I've read is dead-on, I've found some decent insights into the way I work day-to-day, the way I work in relationships (actually I've found this to be the least accurate), and how I relate with different signs. Some of the 'Capricorn' stuff says we are creative, independent/self-reliant, stubborn, and realistic borderline pessimistic. That seemed pretty good. I've read that we are fairly stuck in our routine and aren't always spontaneous. Meh, a little. And finally, one thing that stuck out for me is that we're 'cold' in relationships. That we're often over-critical and quiet/introverted which can be interpreted as 'cold'. Shmaybe. I do feel very critical of people, but also very forgiving, caring, and 'warm'. Maybe this makes me feel superior to people though??... haha, I don't know.
What's strange is that I'm defending myself against Astrological sign characteristics!
Why??
Because they haven't had the best things to say about the relationship I'm in right now. Again, not everything I've read is completely accurate, but a good percentage reflects pretty well in my mind. Could it be a self-fulfilling prophesy though?? Those aspects of the relationship have previously occurred to me, but definitely have been brought to the surface after reading some 'signs compatibility' stuff. It's interesting to look at that stuff to analyze relationships (past and current), but I don't like looking at it too much or else my over-analytical side kicks in ;)