The Latest and Greatest

For those of you who don’t know, last week AC Milan recently defeated Liverpool on a soggy field in Athens to win the Mastercard CocaCola Samsung Barclays HSBC Canon UEFA Champions League 2-1.  It’s the Super Bowl of soccer, baby. 

Soccer is generally the most watched game in the world and I reckon that quite a lot of people saw this game.  Off hand I’d guess quite a large chunk of China, South America, Western Europe, Africa, and even a few Americans tuned in.  So it can be deduced that anything that goes on at this kind of event has a sort of ripple effect, given the mass interest and viewership.

Kaka, the great Brazilian attacking midfielder for AC Milan, was instrumental in setting up AC Milan’s winning goal.  He’s an interesting character—he was actually born wealthy, which stands in contrast to the oft-heard story of the kid from the streets of Rio.

Thursday morning most UK newspapers ran images and stories of the big game, and in most of those images Kaka is wearing this tank top / vest.  Just in case you haven’t picked up on it, Kaka belongs to Jesus.

Three years ago a Nigerian player named Jay-Jay Okocka (so good they named him twice!) scored an amazing goal, took off his jersey and twirled it around his head like a lasso.  The vest he wore underneath, now exposed, read, “Thank you Jesus.”  The highlight of this goal and celebration ran endlessly throughout the year.

Having fielded a few questions from friends who do not belong to Jesus, I am thoroughly perplexed by this very public declaration by Kaka.  It feels like the point of confluence of tons of spiritual and cultural streams and rivers.  It’s totally loaded from all sides.

I only have questions.  Why the over-saturation of the Kaka-Jesus-vest image in the UK media?  What is the significance of him wearing it?  What does it say about Brazilian culture, Italian culture, and English culture?  What if Steven Gerrard, Liverpool’s best player, was wearing that vest?  If an English player did “belong to Jesus” would it actually be a bad thing for him to wear a vest saying he “belonged to Jesus?”

I would love to have people comment on this. 

(Just to aid the Americans who don’t care about soccer or even sports, this would be like Kobe Bryant winning the NBA in game 7, or Tom Brady leading the New England Patriots to the Super Bowl, stripping off and breaking out the Jesus-vest.) 

Why do we even care about sports when we know they’re so full of corruption? (I’m asking you, Misseurs Bonds, Giambi, every cyclist ever, Palmeiro, Romanowski, etc.)

I am a big sports fan and I believe STRONGLY that the reason I (Mr. Maximizer) and those like me love sports, despite all of their inherent flaws, is that they give us a glimpse of greatness. 

Some say that sports are a microcosm of war; I say that sports are a microcosm of life.  I think that life, as most human beings on the planet see it, is a big, giant football/soccer game.  (I’m trying to reach the GLOBAL audience here—work with me.)  In this game there are RULES:

1) No HANDS

2) Free kicks for fouls

3) Penalties for fouls inside the box

4) The goalie/keeper can use his hands (lucky guy).

 5) There are lines on the pitch that you must obey at all times.

6) Blah, blah, blah.

You get my point.  Football/soccer has rules, and that’s like life—life has rules.  Life has constructs.  You’re born.  You go to school, you grow up, you like girls, they don’t like you, one of them likes you but you don’t like her, you kiss her anyway, you break her heart, someone breaks your heart, you swear off girls until you meet HER, you get a job, you learn a trade, you become an expert, you make MONEY, you make LOTS OF MONEY, you get SECURITY, you get SECURITY for HER, you go to WEDDINGS and BIRTHS, and BIRTHDAYS, and FUNERALS and you see the WORLD and you RETIRE and you  play GOLF and you get better at golf and you get SICK and you get worse at GOLF and you get WORSE and you FORGET and you FORGET some MORE and you feel FAINT and you wonder why you played so much GOLF and things just go downhill from there.  That is life, and life is like football/soccer. 

 But what if life lookedlike soccer/football, and we played a game on their pitch, but our game had different rules?

 Here in England I play for the Sheffield Sting softball team.  We play in the 2nd division of the East Midlands softball league.  You will not find our results on the BBC homepage with the Arsenal - Manchester United score, no matter how hard you look.  It’s a hardcore bunch of softball aficionados, English, American, Canadian, Japanese, South African, etc.  It’s fantastic.  It’s energetic.  It’s passionate.  And NO ONE in Sheffield has a clue what we’re doing. 

We play on a big grassy patch next to the city ice rink on Thursday nights, and every week there’s s SOMETHING that disturbs our batting practice—either it’s “youths” walking straight through the infield on their way to the teenage skating flirt-a-thon, or rugby players who need the space, or a women’s football club practicing drills, or a local dance or yoga class, or ANYTHING.  Softball involves hitting a small, hard ball LONG DISTANCES at HIGH SPEEDS.  “WATCH OUT!!” we shout.  But people just carry on as if we aren’t there.

Baseball is my favo(u)rite sport.  I love the Baltimore Orioles—always have.  We stink.  I know that.  I don’t care.  I would have you $1,000 to go to Camden Yards with my wife, my good friends, and my big extended family and have a few beers and laugh and do the wave and cheer on the O’s and scream when they hit a double in the bottom of the 8th.  It’s just the best.  I’m getting excited just thinking about it.

But people here in England don’t know about the magic of Camden Yards in Baltimore, or Jacobs Field in Cleveland, or Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park or Wrigley Field.  Here it’s just a different game, with a different history and a different future, with different stars and legends, and different heroes performing different impossibilities.

It’s my game though.  I love football/soccer.  I love the passion, the intensity, the skill.  But I love baseball too. 

I’ve come to realise that my life comes down to this.  I’m playing baseball on a soccer/football pitch.  I’m not playing by the rules of THEIR game, but by rules of ANOTHER game.  ANOTHER game, with OTHER heroes, OTHER legends, and OTHER goals.  People won’t like that.  They’ll boo and jeer and tell me to get lost.  But there’s one thing they won’t be able to deny.

 MY passion for MY game.  They’ll call me a fool, and they’ll call me worse, but they’ll never be able to deny that I didn’t give my all to the game I loved.  They’ll see it in every step I take, in every swing of the bat, in every high-five with every teammates. 

I guess the question worth asking is, “What game are you playing?”  Are you playing THEIR game, or are you playing YOUR game?  (This analogy only goes so far—please accept my apology if I’ve lost you).  It’s all about your frame of mind I think.  If life is football, and if you play football forever, no one will question it.

 I love it when MLS (Major League Soccer) teams play soccer over the American football gridiron markings–starting a new American legacy, or when the Oakland Raiders play American football over the Oakland A’s baseball infield dirt.  It’s the inter-mingling of traditions, of stories, of heroes, of LEGENDS. 

It’s just a patch of grass. 

Yet it’s so much more.

Hello People,

I love this word, “friend.”  My wife Emily was on her Facebook page last night, debating the pros and cons of adding certain “friends” (i.e., people who were in her history class when she was 12) into her profile. 

Our ”lodger” (Emily’s best friend) Ruth, said that she consistently turned away people with whom she rarely spoke.  This was a policy.  They weren’t “friends,” really.     

At this point I subtly interjected, “IF I’VE MET THEM, THEY’RE IN!

This comment was completely disregarded.  This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows the parties involved.

It’s amazing to watch a word be redefined before our very eyes.  Whereas people talk about words which have changed over decades or centuries, like “charity” or ”meek,” FRIEND has basically changed in a few WEEKS, over THE ENTIRE PLANET, from what is used to mean to what it means now.  I’m hesitant to put into WORDS what it used to mean, and certainly won’t risk saying what it means now, because really, NOBODY KNOWS. 

I do know that I have “friends” (new) that are not my “friends” (old) but that certainly doesn’t mean they’re NOT my friends (old).  They’re something in between, or both, or neither.  I think this confusion is at the heart of so much that’s going on with people these days, especially people my age who are disconnected from family, maybe in a relationship, maybe not, maybe living with buddies, maybe not–people are just floating around.

I would say that generally speaking, people don’t mind floating around, as long as it’s their choice to float around, for a while.  People generally don’t enjoy waking up one day and realizing, “Man, what am I DOING?  I’m just FLOATING AROUND!  I never agreed to this!!!”

So what do people do?  They CONNECT.   Well, tryto connect. They go on Facebook, or thismysterious site, or Myspace, or Yourspace, or Ourspace, or Hisspace, or Herspace, and they say, “Oooh, he likes rock climbing, loves “24″, hates carrots, and writes unsophisticated, sarcastic blog entries about television shows—it’s the FRIEND I’ve been searching for!! 

I like to think of it this way.  If I walked around wearing a shirt with all of my likes, dislikes, names of my other friends, pictures of me at costume parties and at the beach, witty vignettes from my other friends, and an invitation to my book club, people would cross to the other side of the street when they saw me coming.

There’s something “sticky” when you share an experience, have a beer, talk about a book or movie, share a meal, whatever, and that “stickiness” is what keeps ”friends” (old) together when life and time and circumstance pulls people apart.

What I’ve discovered, through conversations with Mr. Sam Radford and others, is that in order to build connections around the world, we have to be proactive about ”creating stickiness” with people in a NEW way.  There’s a choice here.  Either you live in the (old) ”friend” paradigm (my parents, etc), live in the (new) “friend” paradigm (scour the Internet for connections but never leave the house), or choose the best of both paradigms (this is what I’m trying to do).  I have ideation by the way, but I never finish things.  That’s your job. 

My brain hurts now.  This is blogging for life, people.   

Let’s get the formalities out of the way—apologies to all of my devoted readers–you have both been so supportive.
And now, my MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT:
This blog will be the home to a plethora of half-thoughts and half-ideas. I am going to dump my mind onto the screen, and you may, if you wish, filter through the mud and sediment to see if you can find any gold or fools’ gold or cubic zirconia in amongst the mess. I’m working under the premise that this blog will (and should) prevent me from ever holding any public office of any major significance. I’m aiming high. This is “Blogging for Life,” people.

This weekend I had a rare treat; not only did I get a real, printed newspaper on Saturday, but I got one on Sunday as well. Needless to say, if you were to walk into my house this Tuesday morning, you would think that The Sunday Times included a complimentary bomb inside that exploded the newspaper all over the house. I’ve seen Style and Fashion in the bathroom, Business and Money by the computer, Sports and the News Review on the kitchen floor, the TV Guide in the living room, and those incredibly annoying advertising inserts are performing an aggressive takeover of wood-protecting duties from the coasters. This is for a newspaper that is already two days old, and showing no signs of leaving anytime soon.
The problem with the Sunday Paper is it’s just too much. And what is it anyway? What do we get? Some people very near and dear to me feel that the one pervading theme you take in when reading the newspaper is that you need to read the newspaper. The paper constantly communicates its own significance in your life. TV does this too, but I can get away from the TV. I just turn it off. The newspaper is everywhere. Literally.
If you needed any proof that the newspaper is not acting in your best interest, consider this…

LIFE-ALTERING OBSERVATION

Today I learned something that falls somewhere between incredibly alarming and international crisis. In 2003 there were 445 registered incidences of piracy. I’m not talking about illegally downloading Mission Impossible 2; I’m talking about Long John Silver, Captain Jack Sparrow, One-Eyed Willie. Right now you’re probably asking yourself,

“Why didn’t I know about this?”

If you’re anything like me, you feel a little bit betrayed. Perhaps against my own better judgment, I trust newspapers to discern for me, to some extent, what news is important.

I consider the threat of pirates on the open seas to be very important!

Just imagine, a Times Reporter spends a year on the open seas with modern-day pirates. Don’t tell me that day’s issue wouldn’t out-sell the Independent.

Next time you read the paper, consider that based on 2003’s statistics, somewhere, some pirates attacked someone yesterday. Pirates attacked someone. Don’t you think that’s a newsworthy event? Or at least more important than Charlotte Church’s choice of bloomers?

Just so I get this out of the way, I called the blog “Sitting Around the Kitchen” because…

1) There’s nothing better to do than sit around the kitchen with friends.

2) In my mind when I see that I assume that someone is baking something.

3) The best conversations tend to happen while sitting around the kitchen.

And now, what we’ve all been waiting for, your…

LIFE-ALTERING OBSERVATION…

What’s in a team name? In America everywhere you go there’s a team called the Bears. Why is it that in England there are no “Bears?” Newcastle United have taken on the name “The Magpies.” That’s like being called “The Pigeons” or “The Mice.” Someone needs to write them a letter emphsizing that “Bears” hasn’t been taken yet. It’s available. And don’t get me started on my adopted Sheffield Wednesday “Owls.” It’s gotta be the only team in the world named after a day of the week.

Also, before the English destroy their keyboards frantically typing the history and tradition behind the team name Sheffield Wednesday (the mill workers had Wednesdays off, it was their day of leisure, so that’s when they played, and “Owls” comes from the nearby neighborhood of Owlerton–too bad there’s no neighborhoods in Sheffield called Bearsburg or Lionville), I must say something about baseball’s Chicago Cubs. Like Wednesday, they have a peculiar history in that they played only day games until the late 1980s, and continue to play many games during the day, providing school children across Chicago a magical reason to blow off history class. Notice that they are still called, endearingly, the Cubs, or the Cubbies. Imagine if they were called the Chicago DayGames.  Ugh.
Perhaps this is just another funny little difference between England and America. Perhaps it’s just tradition. Still, I’m saving up until I can buy my own soccer team, move them to Sheffield, call them the Bears, and take the Premiership by storm. Who’s going to mess with THE BEARS? The magpies? I don’t think so.

Hello internet people.
I have just been reading through the archive of some of Malcolm Gladwell’s blog.  He was discussing the nature of the blog, and the validity of people’s opinions.  Let me give you the context before I get ahead of myself too much.  He wrote a book review for “The New Yorker” on “The Wages of Wins”, an pop-economic deconstruction of selected patterns in sports.  In response to the article and his accompanying blog, he received at least 100 comments.  He notes that after doing “some research”, he found that none of the commentators had actually read the book.

Someone I know very well is quite skeptical about Ryan (me) investing time in a blog when “it’s a bunch of people you don’t know.”  It was neither the time nor the place to get into the whole Voxtropolis deal, the bigger picture, the forest for the trees, etc.

I hope that good things come from the blog.  The way I see it, my opinionated amigo has an excellent point, and Gladwell supplies evidence against the blog.  I, however, am an optimist (I’ve tried other ways, but I can’t seem to turn off the spicket.)  So I am choosing to believe that community will develop through this, even though I have no real idea how.  It’s one of those “beyond my imagination” kind of things that keep the world spinning around, giving us all new reasons to get out of bed, no matter how cool the pillow is.

Just to end, I think anyone who spends their VALUABLE TIME reading this needs some sort of practical information, something they can take away and say, “Hey, I’ve learned something today.  My life will never be the same”  So I will now provide my first…

LIFE-ALTERING OBSERVATION:

Tasting food is one of the best things of being alive.  The five (that’s right, five) taste sensations are sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and my favorite, unami (savoury, like stock or MSG).  However, taste buds form a dynamic duo with the olfactory or “smelly” cells.  This explains why, when you have a cold (Ha-CHOOOO!) and you eat chocolae, you can’t really taste it, even if you can make out some sweet and maybe some bitter tastes.  You may even find yourself saying something like, “This chocolate sucks!”  or “You call this chocolate?”  The nose isn’t holding up its end of the deal!

I think this information could be invaluable to discourage children from smoking.  If a kid says, “Hey man, smoking is the coolest, I love it!” (or something along those lines) perhaps you could put a clothes pin (peg) on the kid’s nose.  (You may want to explain to the child that you are pinning their nose out of love).  Once the nose is properly pinched, treat the child to a feast of all of his or her favorite foods, and ask the kid if the food tastes good (I predict it won’t taste anything like they remember).  Once you’ve finished you can say to the dissatisfied child, “Well Sugarplum, if you start smoking regularly that’s what your food will taste like.  You’ll be so desperate to taste anything you’ll be chomping serrano peppers by the dozen and eating anchovies straight out of the jar.”  If you’re talking to a boy, you can always through in the always persuasive, “You know, I’ve never heard a girl say, ‘If only I could meet a guy with chronic anchovy breath who stunk of smoke, then all of my dreams could come true.”  Mean, but effective.