Where Did Matt Go?

A Message From Matt

Hey guys, I wrote for Life of Adventure from Summer of 09′ till Spring of 10′.  I then left to start my own site.  Please support it with your readership at www.beautywisdomlaughter.wordpress.com

For those who are trying to find somehting I wrote on Life of Adventure, it has all been archived on this page by Brad (oldest posts towards the bottom. ) For those who wish to know the story behind my departure, here is my farewell post from March of 2010.

AN IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT REGARDING THE FUTURE OF LOA

Attention Peeps,

It is with truly bittersweet feelings that I’m writing to report to you on the future of Life of Adventure. When Brad began this site a little over a year ago, it was a web page with many faces. In the spring and summer of 09’, it wasn’t uncommon to see a book review or two around LOA. And up until a few months ago, Brad occasionally posted about his break dancing exploits, certainly adventures in their own right. But lately you may have noticed a narrowing in Brad’s subject matter. It’s nature in every post: hiking, kayaking, rock-climbing, and always, picturesque photos. Often in life and especially in art, we have to experiment a while with something before we really know what we want it to be. That’s the situation before us today. Brad has decided that Life of Adventure will henceforth be a nature site, written by and dedicated to those who adventure there. And unfortunately, that doesn’t leave much of a place for me. So Brad asked me a few days ago very nicely and directly, if I would consider with his support, leaving LOA and starting my own site. Because LOA is a world Brad created and one that still belongs to him, but more so because Brad is my friend, I’ve agreed to leave the Life of Adventure.

You know, about ten years ago when Brad and I were gearing up for college application season, I read an article from a higher-up at the admissions office of a prestigious university (it may have been Vanderbilt.) In it, the woman said that they were looking for students that were “very well rounded but also well squared.” She went to explain that while being good at several things is definitely impressive, it’s also impressive to be truly great and accomplished at just one or two things. Focus is lacking in our world. So many try to be the jack of all trades, but most end up being masters of none. It is for these reasons that I understand Brad’s desire to dial down to a very specific area for his site. And I’m confident that he’s sincere in telling me that this is the reason he wants me to move on, because I already see that new narrowed focus in his own posts. Plus, friends give friends the benefit of the doubt.

Still, it bugs me to have to leave so soon. We had a good number of page views last year but not near enough to make me believe we could thrive on our own. Sometimes, there are situations where you can say, “this town ain’t big enough for the both of us” and really mean it. Other times, it’s more like, “I don’t know if this town will be worth visiting if we don’t work together.” And that’s kind of how I feel about LOA. Brad’s work is great, but there’s over a quarter million other blogs, just with WordPress alone. The best way to pull in new readers and thus compete, is by offering material that appeals to a large segment of the populus. Yes, you can also compete by being great at one thing, but I think that’s the harder path. And when you add in the fact that both Brad and I have full time work outside of LOA, it’s a scary prospect for either of us to go it on his own.

All that bitter being said, let me tell you about the sweet. Brad is going to help me start my own site. I could have never imagined this time last year that I would be able to pull something like this off, but now, it’s happening. WordPress has a very intuitive system for setting up a site, especially when you already write for another one, so I hope to have it up within the next few weeks. I’ll post updates on LOA until it’s ready, then I’ll leave a weekly message guiding anyone who’s looking for my work over to the new page. Brad and I both hope not lose a single reader during this process. It may get a little annoying to see a weekly post guiding people to my site for the next few months, but I want to make sure even the folks who only check out LOA once in a blue moon don’t lose track of me. After that transition period, Brad and I still hope to give each other continued exposure, not just with a link but with bi-monthly advertisements on our home pages. People who visit my site will see a brief summation, written by Brad, about what’s going on with LOA, and Brad will extend the same courtesy to me.

So what will my site be about? Wisdom. Beauty. Laughter. Basically, all the things I’ve tried to encapsulate here. If you like fresh and interesting topics, intelligent perspective, quality writing, a positive outlook, and a little bit of humour, I promise to continue providing those consistently at my new home base.   And the thing is, most of you who visit LOA appreciate and enjoy those things, so please check it out. I genuinely look forward to bringing all the new friends I’ve made in these last eight months along with me on this new adventure.

Thanks Peeps and

See You Very Soon,

=Matt=

PS Hey Nathan Dalton, I never got around to telling you, but thanks for the angels idea that wound up in the short story I posted last year. It was hip the way I never told you I was using it, then you found it on the site.

MY FAVORITE SHORT QUOTES

What’s up everyone?  I’m going up to Nashville tommorow to see an awesome guitar duo perform at the Ryman Auditorium (original site of the Grand Ole Opry).  I’m posting a little earlier than usual since Friday will be so hectic.  The duo is simply known as Rodrigo and Gabriela, and you should youtube them as soon as you can.  They’ve been to Bonnaroo; they’ve been on Letterman.  Still, it seems like no one besides me has heard of them, even though I have a lot of very musical friends.  I did a post earlier this year about great movies you may have missed and maybe I should do a similar one for musicians.  But you know, music is challenging to right about.  (As evidence of that fact, check out the dangling preposition in the last sentence.)

Below are some of my favorites quotes.  I would encourage everyone to start a little quote list like I have.  I sometimes find myself awake at night pondering just how wise some of these pithy statements are.  They’ve  almost risen to the status of  axioms for me,  tools in a metaphorical belt as I go to mend life’s problems.  I could wax poetic about wisdom for a few more paragraphs, but I won’t.  The following words need no hype to be remembered.

“He who, when robbed, smiles

steals something from the thief.”

=Shakespeare=

“Those who dance are considered insane by

those who can’t hear the music.”

=George Carlin=

“One does not have a sense of humor; it has him.”

“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.”

=Albert Einstein=

“There’ll never be a winner in the battle of the sexes.

There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.”

“The future ain’t what is used to be.”

=Yogi Berra=

“Sex is one of the most wholesome, beautiful,

and natural experiences money can buy.”

=Steve Martin=

“If you don’t have enemies, you don’t have character.”

=Paul Newman=

“He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot

keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

=Jim Elliot=

“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can

function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”

=Corrie Ten Boom=

“Hearts will never be practical

until they can be made unbreakable.”

=The Wizard of Oz=

“I would rather entertain and hope that

people learned something than educate

people and hope they were entertained.”

=Walt Disney=

“I have found the paradox that if I love until

it hurts, then there is no hurt but only more love.”

=Mother Teresa=

“Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet

sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”

=Mark Twain=

“If our brains were simple enough to be understood,

we’d be too simple to understand them.”

And finally, I believe it was that great scholar-poet Macho Man Randy Savage who said in an interview in the ring at my first ever pro wrestling show,

“If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room.”

I can’t say I live by it, but it sure sounds cool to say in the bar.  Take care guys.

=Matt=

WHAT’S A SESTINA?

Well, for one thing, it’s a simple pleasure.  That should be obvious since I’m posting it in the Simple Pleasure section.  To get a little more detailed, a sestina is a type of poem with a very specific construction.  Basically, you (or in this case, I) choose six words, which will finish each line in each stanza except in the very last stanza.  That last stanza must be three lines and use all six words, but they don’t have to be at the end of any line.  The last word of each stanza must end the first line in the next stanza. (You should notice that happening.)  And it actually gets a little more complex.  For more details, read the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestina

When I was in high school creative writing class, we discussed the sestina, and our teacher read us a few.  However, of the few examples we were shown, none followed all the rules.  So I wrote one myself.  The word repetition makes it tough, because I specifically try to avoid using the same word over and over again in my stories and poems.  But if you can get a good flow with a great economy of words, you’re pretty poetic.  And if you don’t think my words are smooth, I was seventeen so give me a break!  Anywho, enjoy this brief piece of creative writing, and if you like it, please invest the time with some of my short stories.

A TEENAGE SUPERMARKET LOVE STORY

(my six words: register, way, face aisle, couple, one.)

The boy stands alone at his register,

wanting to escape some way,

wearing a tired look on his face,

staring down the aisle,

at a loving couple,

amazed at how two hearts had become one.

x

He casts his gaze from aisle one

to the other side of his register.

He turns his entire body the other way

and feels the cold hit his face.

Beauty enters, picks up a basket, and floats to the produce aisle.

Wind-swept in a light blue toboggan, she takes his attention off the couple.

x

She stares at a group of pears, picks up a couple,

and after a moment, chooses one.

Now the boy wants a light flashing “Open” right above his little register.

He has to get her attention some way.

He notices her red sea of hair, parted by a virgin face,

as she floats to the next aisle.

x

She makes her way up the second aisle,

passing the amorous couple.

He checks to see if there are any other cashiers, one.

He’s got a fifty-fifty chance with his register.

“She’ll come my way;

I’ll get another glance at that face.”

x

He forces a cool look and wonders what he will face

as she comes up the aisle.

She bites her lip, as she notices opened registers only number a couple,

she pauses to decide which one

The boy yells in his mind, “Please come to my register!”

As if she heard him, she walks his way.

x

The store radio softly plays, “Baby I Love Your Way.”

The boy says to the girl, “You have a gentle face.”

It was improvisational poetry he had created as she walked up the aisle.

Do these kids become a couple

or resume as two parties of one,

separated by that  old dingy register?

x

One poetic boy stands behind his little register.

“Does she live out this way?” he wonders as he parts with the inspiring face.

The loving couple makes their way up the aisle, and the boy tries to forget.

RACISM AND TABOO

Alright folks, this week, I’m writing about a difficult subject. But while it is difficult, I believe I have the maturity to discuss it intelligently and calmly. If you do not likewise have that maturity, please scroll down and look at the pretty pictures in the other posts, because this post is not for you. Now I assume that the vast majority of our regular readers can handle this article, but you never know what random person will stumble onto our page, misread my intentions, and blast me with a ranting reply in the comment section.

When I was in my teenage years, I imagined racism to be a fairly simple, cut and dry subject. It was bad to tell a racist joke, use a racial slur, or discriminate. You tried your best to not do those things even if some others around you weren’t as wise. But then in my early twenties, I interacted with some folks who seemed to make it more complicated than it needed to be, and it made me think deeper on the subject and come to some important conclusions. Brad counseled with me through a few of my conflicts with the above-referenced folks, so some of these details will be familiar to him, but it basically all started on a cruise ship with a Canadian, a tennis match, and my attempt at humor.

I was working on a ship out of Mobile, Alabama and overall things were going fine. I was only about six months into my cruising career and had already made several good friends, though it would be a great stretch to say that everyone loved me. I was eating dinner one night in a near empty crew cafeteria, watching a replay of a men’s tennis match involving the African-American tennis player, James Blake. Now, a co-worker from my department, who I’d only interacted with a few times before, was really into a particular point in the match. He was just ooing and wowing as the ball went back and forth. After the point was over, I asked him if he wanted to know who won the match, since I’d seen the result live earlier in the day. He said he didn’t care so I told him, but I didn’t just say one player’s name.

There’s an episode of Family Guy (which if you don’t know, is written by a white man) in which a black character, Cleveland, gets his white friends to play a board game that is something like, the African-American version of the Game of Life. I think Lois, the mom of the principle (and also white) family, asks Cleveland if anyone ever wins in the game, and he responds, “You don’t win; you just get a little closer every time.” Now, you need to know this, because I referenced the general idea of the black man never winning in my score report for my co-worker. I said, “The black guy loses in the end, just like in society.” I said it with a smile, because it was a joke.

Now this guy immediately got fired up. He said, “You know Matt, you need to think before you speak, because some of the things you think are funny, aren’t.”

You know what I said in response? “That’s probably true.” In that moment, I was willing to concede that not everything that’s funny to me is funny to others. Of course in hindsight, I think about humor being so subjective that a statement like, “that’s not funny” doesn’t even really make sense. If someone’s laughing or smiling, no matter how unfunny you think it is, you’re obviously somewhat wrong to make the proclamation that it’s not funny period.

Anyway, I stayed calm, not out of choice, just kind of in a bit shock that this guy was fuming so much. I tried to explain real quick the Family Guy episode that connected to my comment. I said, “Hey man, you watch Family Guy, right?”

He answered, “I don’t watch anything.” Then he got up and stormed out of the room. He was to leave the ship three weeks later, but he used that time to try and convince our fellow co-workers that I was a racist. I tried to talk to him a little, not even about the argument, just little compliments to him here and there to try to get the dialogue re-opened. But even though I was being conciliatory and in no way taking the offensive role, he would shut down every attempt at conversation in the first few seconds. It was obvious he wanted to remain angry over this for the rest of his time on the ship, and I guess for a considerable time period after that.

I hate to have that much anger turned my way. I fancy myself a caring and empathetic person, so sometimes when someone gets a wrong impression of me or just doesn’t like me, I have a hard time getting it off my mind. I knew the day this young man stormed out of the cafeteria that I wouldn’t sleep well that night, and I didn’t. But the one good thing about all that thought is that occasionally you come up with some good ideas. The other positive of the situation is that you realize with more certainty who you are when someone tries to tell you you’re something you’re not. And the overarching positive of any conflict is that it allows true friends to reveal themselves. Those latter two benefits deserve their own essays some day, but in the interest of brevity, let’s just address the wisdom I gleaned from this situation.

Now, I think empathy really helped me have a forgiving heart for this guy, this guy who I wanted to hate back for the hate he directed towards me. As I mentioned before, he was Canadian. I also think it’s important to note he seemed to be of Middle-Eastern descent. He was an animated and friendly guy to those who got to know him, but when I first saw him, I thought his look was pretty menacing. Perhaps I just touched a nerve on a guy who because of an ugly appearance and a skin-tone similar to America’s current enemy, had often been exposed to the far uglier face of racism by working in the US in the post 9/11 world. When I remember my disputes with him, I try to cut him some slack for that possibility. Perhaps my comment that seemed like such a straw to me, was breaking his back. Still, he’s a grown man, and he acted like a baby.

So empathy aids forgiveness, that’s a big lesson. And while the value of empathy may seem obvious, it appears from looking at the world that most have not bought into it yet. We immediately view anyone that mistreats, disrespects, or in any way harms us as jerks or worse, and we most often assume they meant to hurt us. I think that we could have so much more peace if we ask ourselves whenever we’re feeling that anger, “Am I certain the person did or said that just to make me unhappy?” And you know what? Sometimes, unfortunately, the answer is yes. But not always. Sometimes people love something so much that they defend it to the point of hurting others. Sometimes people have already been hurt, and you just hit a sore spot. Trying to understand why people lash out is not dismissing their bad behavior. They were immature and unwise to hurt you, especially if you were just an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, if you view their hurtful action on a more complex and mature level, it will help you forgive, which means feeling hurt for less time, which in turn means you’re less likely to lash out yourself. Plus, you know, your positive example might help that hurting person who hurt you to find peace. And isn’t there always a third party watching?

My last-ditch effort with this co-worker was to share an article with him. I didn’t want to give him anything I wrote, because I knew he’d tear it up and not read it. In fact, what I did give him I snuck under his door so he wouldn’t immediately know it was from me. It was a three or four page narrative that Brad had written about his travels in Asia. I had kept it on my computer for a few years, kind of not knowing why, though nowadays I often save stuff Brad writes. It was perfect for this co-worker, because he was a veteran of cruise ships, having some times bragged that he had, “been around the world twice.” I wrote Brad’s email on the back of the first page before sneaking it under the doorway. Brad never got a response, but overall, I had peace knowing I had done all I could to repair that relationship, even though the guy was never what I’d consider a friend. I still think about him sometimes, and I do get frustrated, and I worry what will happen if we have to work together again. Still, as I said overall, I have peace.

The last thing I want to discuss is the concept of taboo. Taboos are so fascinating to me, because in our culture, there are so few things that seem off-limits. You can’t punch a woman or tell a racist or homophobic joke. And that’s about it. Now, please don’t misconstrue; I’m not defending those things. But I just think that if someone is going to stand up so firmly for those things they should stand up for others. I’m certain there are men in our country who take some pride in the fact that they’ve never struck a woman. But have they been verbally or emotionally abusive to a woman? Have they ever gone a full week without saying “I love you” to their wife? Why are those things not taboo?

And humor taboos are a big issue too. If a person tells a racist joke, they get ostracized or sometimes even fired. And you know what, I think we should have a low tolerance for truly racist remarks. I think firing is too far, and I also think we should all, before passing judgment, take the step back and make sure a joke is genuinely racist (implying innate inferiority of a people) and not just racial (like my joke above, poking fun at a broken system or differences in upbringings and cultures.) But overall, I think it’s silly to the point of being sad that racist jokes are the only ones that offend. Once in a meeting on my Mobile ship, we were talking about an article in the Mobile paper on our company, and the co-worker that thought I was a racist, had no problem blurting out, “people in Alabama can read?” I guess, as I said, humor is subjective.

A person gets yelled at for a racist remark (or even a racial remark in the my case), but “dead baby” jokes produce giggles and wry smiles. You may say that racism is so much more widespread than baby killings, but should frequency have anything to do with something being taboo? And what about sexually violent jokes, misogynistic stuff? Some women will titter at these disrespectful lines then lambast someone for racial humor. They’re standing up for the dignity of their fellow human beings but not themselves.

I’m not saying be offended at more stuff. I’m not saying let’s all get more PC. To clarify what I am trying to say, connect what I said in the last paragraph with what I’ve said in the previous ones. When the jokes are getting out of hand, before laughing, (if you can, if not, then at least after laughing), think about what a joke is making fun of or implying. Choose to take some things seriously all the time. But don’t get on a soap box and don’t storm out. Ask yourself a modified version of that follow-up question I mentioned earlier, “Is the person saying this to be hurtful?” Probably not, right? Hopefully, you’ll walk away from the table feeling not only like a better person but also one more at peace. A little more righteous but a little less self-righteous, that’s the goal.

I could write about this for days, but I’ll leave it there.

Thanks peeps,

=Matt=

SNOWY HOUSES:  THE WHITE TIGERS OF THE SOUTH

Hello everybody, first and foremost, sorry this post wasn’t ready for those who checked this morning.  (I try to get my posts up late Friday so anyone who only has leisure reading time on the weekends can check out the new posts with their Saturday morning coffee or cereal.)  It has been quite a busy last few days for me.  I started substitute teaching on Thursday, and I certainly believe that adventure may eventually yield a few posts.  I also had a nice open mike night later day, doing a lot of new bits and jokes that mostly went over well.  I got about five-and-a-half hours of sleep after that and then did another day of subbing on Friday, so  I was too worn out from burning the candle at both ends to post last night.

But now, I got the energy coming back, and I have a fun little post for you peeps this week.  The southern United States has gotten an unusual amount of snow this year, and while I haven’t gotten any sledding in, I have been able to snap a few pictures around my neighborhood.  Snow makes houses lovely, and  most of these homes were pretty nice to begin with.  I’m not going to point out which one is mine (And yes, I still live with my parents when I’m back in Chattanooga.  I never stay for more than half a year at a time, so I just can’t  justify an apartment lease.  And the folks need some chores done anyway. )

Snowy houses exude a peaceful vibe.  I love them, and I hope you dig them too.  Have a good week peeps.  Oh, and just let me know if you want to see my comedy act.  I can email upcoming dates.

In order to take our snowy house tour, you must first ascend the road less traveled…

 

It’s not as steep as it looks, just take a few steps, it won’t be too hard.  Go on.  Go ahead now; just be a little brave.

There you go.  Now it’s just a few more paces to our first house.  Oh, there it is, just right… down…. there.

And over there, there’s a few more.

And only a few more paces down the path, and there’s these.

=Matt=

LESSONS FROM THE STUDY OF SPANISH

Hello Peeps, Thanks For Stopping By.

So, as those of you who’ve read the About the Authors page may know, I met Brad in an introductory high school Spanish class. Well, here we are almost ten years later, and I still haven’t mastered the language. You’d think I would have known when to quit. To be honest, after one year of Spanish in high school and then one year in college, I’ve never made a consistent effort with it. I’ll brush up here and there, maybe even for two or three months at a time. Still, I eventually move on to something more pressing. That’s the way we are with our hobbies. But you know, I’ve always wanted to make that one big push, commit that one year of dedication to the language so I can become fluent (or something in that neighborhood.) This last month or so, I’ve begun making that push, to some extent at the expense of my music (the trombone has gone in the case for the longest break since high school.) But I’m willing to accept that trade-off. I might need to settle into a high school teaching position soon. I don’t have a teaching degree, and one of the quickest paths into a teaching job without going back to college is mastery of a foreign language. Plus music, specifically my trombone, has been the dominant extra-curricular in my life for basically the last eight years. And I think I’m ready to move on.

Wow, I didn’t realize till I wrote that how sad that makes me feel; perhaps I’m not as ready as I thought. Then again lately, I’m beginning to realize that my years of investment in the horn mean I can play pretty well without putting in double digit hours every single week, so “moving on” and all the sadness that phrase encapsulates, sort of belies the situation. That being said, the bottom line remains, to be good at anything, you can’t seriously pursue more than a few things in your life at any time. Make choices wisely, and don’t be afraid to close one long-open door, if you are opening another. If you try to have it all, you won’t have enough, because you won’t give yourself the time and resources to be really good at any individual thing much less the “all.” The drive for a well diversified life and/or resume’ in our country has diminished the importance of focus. I think the most consistent path to success is dialing in on a few specific areas and working hard. We don’t need any more Jack-of-All Trades who are masters of none. Substantive achievement takes great investment, which requires true focus, not an occasional “brushing up” session. Shakespeare may have said it best: “Half measures avail us nothing.”

Now that’s a lesson I’m still learning, but there’s another one I wish to share with you this week. I knew when I first started my study that there were great benefits to learning Spanish, and I knew the benefits included so much more than how a second language can help you get a job in business. My uncle married into a very nice Mexican family some twenty-six years ago, and it’s hard to deny that every new word of Spanish I learn brings me closer to those kind and funny people I’ve grown up with. And on the cruise ships, I’ve played in bands with people from various Spanish speaking countries and backgrounds. The fact that I was trying to learn Spanish helped break the ice and form friendships when we could have otherwise just been bandmates or worse, coworkers. But even if I didn’t know any friends or family who were Spanish speakers, there would still be the general cultural travel value. Outside of the US, Canada, and Brazil, the entire Americas are Spanish speaking. If an American wants to see a culture besides his/her own and really get the most out of the trip, there are two options. Take a ten to fifteen hour plane ride to a less-than-lovely English speaking area of Europe OR Learn Spanish and take three hour plane rides to different, beautiful and exotic places for the rest of your life. Just in light of basic geography, it seems Americans who choose to learn Spanish are making a wise investment.

So I knew there were great rewards to learning a language, professionally, personally, and culturally. And I thought that because of those realizations, I had an enlightened view of the value of language study. But in working on it this last month, I’ve learned a little something else. It’s hard to explain, because it’s a brand new concept for me, but basically I’ve realized that language study has value even in a vacuum (though not an absolute one.) What I’m saying is that even if my uncle wasn’t married into a sweet Mexican family, even if I never worked with a native Spanish speaker, and even if I never traveled to any Spanish speaking country or read any Spanish authors or heard any Spanish songs or even ate at a Mexican restaurant, there would be still value in learning the language, just as there is value in learning any language. Why? Because buried in each language are lessons about the human condition, who we are and who we could be if we just listened to what our words are telling us. Like fish that don’t know they’re wet, we can’t often see or appreciate what our own language has to teach us. By never really learning it, we never contemplated it. But that opportunity for reflection is available with your second language, if you choose to have one.

Que mas da? That’s a pretty simple Spanish phrase. Some of you can probably translate it. Que means “what,” mas is “more,” and da is the third person form of dar, to give. So the basic translation is “What more does it give?” The beauty is not intrinsic to the phrase; the beauty is in its usage. See, if a person in an English speaking culture is fretting or worrying about something, what do we say? “Stop worrying. Don’t worry.” And may I ask candidly, has this approach ever worked? If it was just a matter of telling someone not to worry, no one would ever worry. You’ve heard of cure-alls. Well the “don’t worry” approach is a cure-none. And yet we persist, hearts in the right place but somehow consistently impeded. Maybe we’re just stumbling over a weak spot in our language (and I’m certain if one language has weak spots, they all do.)

When someone’s worried in a Spanish speaking country, and a friend wishes to help ease their mind, the friend says, “Que mas da?” And because they’ve heard it their whole lives, they probably don’t contemplate its insightfulness. But when they say it to me, it’ll mean something. It will put the object of my worry and the entire practice of worrying into perspective. What more does it give? Nothing. Now I don’t need to wait till I’m expressing anxiety to a bilingual person to reassert that perspective. I’m becoming a bilingual person, week to week, month to month. When I’m stressed, I can say it to myself. It helps me more than any of those English cliché’s.

It’s the discovery of little gems like this that have spurred me to continue my study. Sometimes it seems that the language is so large and that I’ll never be able to learn enough to be fluent. I picture myself always asking people to speak slower. The prospect of never getting there worries me a bit, but then again, Que mas da?

Hasta Luego, Peeps,

=Matt=

A FEW GREAT MOVIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED

Hello My Peeps,

Well, now that the 2000’s decade is officially in the books, people are busying themselves with a new task. No, not figuring out what to call this new decade (The twenty-teens? But we don’t hit teen numbers for three more years!) Can you believe we never came up with a good name for the previous decade? Seriously, you’d hear music stations saying, “the best of the eighties, nineties, and now.” That of course worked in 2001, but by 2003 “eighties, nineties, and now” sounded inaccurate. We still need a good name for the previous decade, if only so those contemporary music stations have a less clumsy tag line.

No, what I’m talking about are all those best of the decade lists popping up left and right: sportsmen, movies, news making moments, etc. Well, I could give you a list of my favorite films of the last ten years, but I’m not quite a movie aficionado. I try to watch good movies as much as I can and avoid crummy ones. Still, there’s so many respected, popular, or acclaimed films I haven’t seen from the previous decade that I know my list would be lacking, even if it was technically a personal “favorites” list and not a “best of” one. So instead of going after that challenge, I’m just going to tell you about three films from this past decade that I thoroughly enjoyed that were not super blockbusters. They aren’t art films or independent stuff from Sundance. They’re just movies that, when I ask a circle of friends if they’ve seen them, get more no’s than yes’s.

1) Comedy

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

This movie is basically a parody of the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk The Line. John C. Reilly (who you may know from Step Brothers or even Gangs of New York) plays the title role and is hilarious. What makes it great is that it doesn’t just beautifully parody the Cash film. It parodies and pokes fun at pop music in general.  And when you think about it,  the music scene is seldom tackled by our modern humorists; it receives very little flack in comparison to politics, sports, and Hollywood. The movie also has a go at such varied topics as the life-long journey of an artist, the Ray Charles movie,  drug use, 70’s variety shows, people with no sense of smell, and all heavy-handed biopic pictures ever made. It’s making fun of things that don’t often get made fun, and being dang funny while doing it. That’s enough to make it a good film, but this one has many bonuses. The songs all have silly lyrics, but man, the music’s actually really good. Also, this is the first comedy turn for Jenna Fischer from The Office. She lets her hair down, literally and figuratively, playing the female lead, and I can’t believe she kept from bursting out laughing with some of the lines they gave her.

2) Drama

Shopgirl

Brad’s heard me talk about this one before. Some of you may know that Steve Martin does more than comedy movies, but most of you might not know just how prolific he’s been. He plays banjo in a bluegrass band that has actually performed at Carnegie Hall. He’s also written several serious plays and a few novels. This movie was adapted from one of his books and while its source material was not a heavy dramatic romance, it would be hard to call it a comedy. The story centers around an older and somewhat affluent businessman (played by Martin) courting and then sharing time with an unassuming and single shopgirl. There’s also another guy in the picture, a young rocker, sound tech type who is super positive but nowhere near anything career-wise as the film begins.

I loved this film for how real it felt. The female lead is a sweet, though somewhat shy and slightly awkward young woman, alone in the city. She’s the kind of girl we all know (and usually like) but rarely see portrayed on film. The ending is also one that feels more authentic than what most movies offer. The beautiful extras in this movie are Martin’s narration, which I assume came right from the book, and also some nice starry night cinematography. I read reviews online after watching this one, and some criticized it as being not substantial enough to fit a full length movie. Now, I generally dislike movies where nothing happens, but I wouldn’t put this movie in that category. Stuff happens, it’s just real life stuff, when movie-goers are conditioned to expect (and unfortunately in these critics cases, unknowingly demand) unrealistic plot developments. This movie is too real for Hollywood cliché, and if I had to describe it in one word, it would be splendid.

3) Documentary

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

This film follows a man trying to set the world record in the classic game of Donkey Kong. Along the way it teaches you about the interesting world of classic gaming fanatics and provides a nice retrospective of video games’ first golden age. Now I assumed this was going to be a light film, by geeks and for geeks, celebrating a certain sphere of geekdom, but it was so much more. There is no narrator, which is a fresh change from the documentaries I’ve seen. This allows you to get lost in the story of our would-be-record-holder, a man who friends and family paint through their stories as the dude who should have won something a long time ago, but due to bad luck here and there, never did. He comes off as such a sweet guy that you can’t help but root for him. That stupid record in that stupid sphere of geekdom becomes important to you. You cheer when it appears he’s about to take his place in history, and your heart breaks a little when yet another piece of bad luck knocks him off the podium. Honestly, this guy reminds me a bit of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, and if you haven’t seen that one, you should rent it tonight.

So do yourself a favor and check into these movies. If you need someone to watch them with you and explain more thoroughly why they’re awesome, I’d be more than happy to bring the popcorn.

=Matt=

PS I’m starting to work up a comedy bit at open mike nights around Chattanooga. If you live in town and would like to check me out, just leave a comment on one of my posts.

WHY I THINK I LIKE BELGIUM OR THERE’S SOMETHING GREAT ON TV TONIGHT … AT 3:30 AM

As you may be able to tell from the pictures below, this is a sports-heavy post. For you non-sports lovers, especially you ladies, please hang with me. On the surface, I am talking sports tonight, but this post is really about sharing neat stories of admirable women, women whose accomplishments perhaps should be a little more celebrated by those women’s groups out there. The ladies I’m writing about tonight are both Belgian,  both tennis players and both kind of cute. The first is Kim Clijsters (the J is silent.) Here’s an action shot.

Kim is twenty-six, which is about middle-aged for women’s tennis. She’s been number one in the world in both singles and doubles, and in 2005, she won the US Open. That tournament is one of four tournaments known as “majors,” the four yearly tourneys that are head and shoulders above the rest in both prestige and purse. (The other three are the Australian Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon, which is in England. You‘ll need to know that for later.)

You don’t get to Kim’s level of success without being great in many areas of your game, but one of the things that makes her stand out is her ability to hit shots while sliding. She is one of only about three elite women’s players that slide on all surfaces. Now, there are nearly no flattering photos of this athletic feat, because of the muscle work it takes to pull off. But it’s impressive in live action so check out this Youtube video.

Kim retired from tennis in May of 2007 to start a family. Two months later, she married her long time boyfriend and fiancé at a secret 6:00 AM ceremony in her home city of Bree, Belgium. The town’s mayor got up and came to the courthouse to officiate the wedding, and a few family members were present but that was it.

In February of 2008, Kim gave birth to her first child, Jada Ellie Clijsters. By my math her daughter came just under ten months after she announced her retirement. So when she said she was leaving to start a family, she meant it. And she wasn’t really planning on coming back either. She’d won her major, she’d held the top spot in the world, queen of the mountain. Now, it was time to be a mother. That worked for a while, but then there was an invitation.

Every now and again, a tournament event’s officials will set up a doubles match that pulls a few stars out of retirement (often for charity) . Kim got the call to play in one of these matches at Wimbledon in May of 2008 and agreed to participate. Not wanting to embarrass herself, she picked up the racquet a few weeks before the match and was surprised at how quickly everything came back after barely playing over the previous year. The experience stuck with her, and she eventually decided that while she wouldn’t necessarily return to full-time tennis, she would at least play some tournaments in 2009. She fared decently in her first two tourneys back, winning a few matches in each but not threatening for the titles. And then, though she hadn’t qualified officially for the US Open, she was invited by the officials of the tournament to play as a wildcard entrant. (They weren’t being that generous, considering she had won the event in 2005.) All the commentators talked about how nice it was to see her back, and how she looked to be in good shape. And then as the tournament progressed and she kept winning, the talk was no longer “nice to see her again” but “wow, she might have a shot at winning this thing.” And you know what? That’s exactly what she did.

Kim was the first mom to win a major in 29 years, and so it was only fitting that her daughter Jada, then two-and-a-half, joined her on the court to celebrate. The camermen all tried to get a picture of Kim and her daughter holding the championship trophy, but Jada kept looking away.

The best pictures though, came when Jada noticed she was on the Jumbo-Tron.

It’s kinda like when parents get their kid a nice expensive toy, and they just play with the box.

The next Belgian lady I’d like to talk about is also very accomplished. In fact, she really is the only women’s tennis star of this era that has a resume’ on par with the Williams sisters. Her name is Justine Henin, and she is 5’ 6” of pure altheticism. Here’s an action and studio picture.

As a child, Justine’s mother would often take her over to France to watch the French Open. (Taking a day trip to another country is something so uniquely European.) It was there,  watching the best players in the world, that Justine dreamed of being a professional someday. Many girls’ dreams don’t come true, but Justine’s did in spades. She not only became a great professional, but she has gone on to win the French Open, the very tournament that sparked and stoked her passion for the game, four times.

But much like with her countrywoman Clijsters, Henin has had to take time off from sports, though not always for as happy of reasons. You see, Justine Henin for a little over four years was Justine Henin-Hardenne. Then in early 2007, she took off for three months to go through the arduous divorce process that rid her of the hyphen, the Hardenne,  and the guy that gave it to her. One positive of the ordeal, which Justine was open in sharing with the media, was her reconciliation with her family, with whom relations had been strained due to conflicts with the former husband. She returned for the French Open that summer, and of course, much like with Clijster’s return, everyone said it was nice to see her back but wondered how competitive she could be.

Well, she won. What’s more, some of her siblings were attending her matches for the very first time in her professional career. And considering what a career she’d had up to that point, it really shows that their was some major strain behind the scenes between her former husband and her family.

With the divorce behind her and her family, in a much nicer way, finally behind her as well, Justine went on a winning streak which may be the best in the history of women’s tennis (or even women’s althetics.) She won ten of fourteen tournaments, including the next two majors, earning over five million dollars.  The success no doubt made the year pass quickly, and soon it was time for the French Open 2008. Justine was number one in the world, dominating her sport, and the obvious favorite to once again win the tournament that she had loved since childhood . So what did she do? She retired ten days before the event.

She wasn’t leaving to start a family. She didn’t have a man to marry. She was just burnt out. She needed a break. How come male athletes never do this in the middle of a career? Maybe she doesn’t appreciate what she has. Or maybe they don’t.

What did she do with her time off? Well, isn’t it obvious? Belgian television! Her first show was called Les 12 travaux de Justine Henin or The 12 Labors of Justine Henin, in which cameras followed her as she completed twelve personal challenges. After that, in June 2009, she hosted a musical show that revolved around Belgian-Italian singer Lara Fabian (Doesn’t this background paragraph seem so crazy-European?)

Then in September, in a move that no doubt plunged many a Belgian television producer into a deep depression, Henin announced her planned return to tennis. Her first tourney back was a few weeks ago in Brisbane (a tune-up for the Australian Open.) She looked good in her return, making it all the way to the finals, before her defeat in a long, competitive match with our other new Belgian friend, Kim Clijsters.

The Australian Open has been going on for the last two weeks. Henin was invited as a wild card, and she’s playing great. She actually had a rematch with Clijsters last week and got the better of her this time, knocking Kim out of the tournament. Now, Henin is in the finals, playing Serena Williams for the championship. It’s a Saturday night match, but since they’re 16 hours ahead in Australia, it will start at 3:30 Saturday morning, Eastern Standard Time. I’m posting this right around midnight on Friday, so it’s a bit of a cliffhanger. If you’re reading this post in an insomnia driven search for entertainment in the middle of the night, I say get off that computer and turn on the TV. There are some women I admire on this evening, that is, if you can stay up.

=Matt=

PS If you want to learn more about these players and women’s tennis, check out WTA.com

MATT’S BAHAMAS PHOTO JOURNAL III

“Saving the best for last,” is a phrase we use all too often in our society.  We also use the word hero too much.  While we’re at it, I don’t care much for hot enough for ya? either. I’ll tell you what words and phrases we don’t use enough:  thank you, love, honey how was your day, higher pay for public school teachers,  Matt, you’re so handsome, genuine,  brutally honest yet simultaneously caring and so forth.  What does this have to do with pictures?  Absolutely nothing.  Enjoy the pictures.

Through those gates is a very historic and important government building.   The reefs are white flowers with black ribbon, which I don’t know if I’d ever seen before.  The Governor General’s wife had passed away a few days prior, and I think the flag even hung at half-mast.

Just up the road there is the Governor’s House.  That’s the home and home of operations for the Bahamas’ head of state.  (You could never get this close to the White House without being tackled. ) Now there are some rules for walking around this beautiful site.  You may see a white line there on the road.  Visitors must stay behind that as they walk by.  If you choose to violate the sanctity of the line, you’ll force a response from one of the guards.

You know, the Bahamas are a pretty laid back country.  You can see it in the gate and posture of the people as they move down the streets and talk in the cafes and bars, but when I asked to take a photo of this young man, he locked into an attention position like the Governor himself was walking by.  (Bonus points for anyone who knows what the RBDF on his hat stands for.  Now before we go any further, I’m sure some of you would like to know the history of this historic site.  Well,

Okay, now for more pictures of the house.

There’s also some beautiful trees on the grounds.

I came in from the side gates, but here’s some views from the short walking trail in front of the building.

From in front of the statue.

And from behind.

To finish up this last photo journal post, I present to you a few non-Bahamian photos.  The first is a view of Cocoa Beach from about eight decks up as we sail by it on a fairly clear day.  It’s a unique perspective to look at a beach from the side, that high up.  It’s really something that you have to see for yourself, because my friends and I didn’t have the cameras or expertise to do it justice.  Perhaps this will at least whet your appetite.

With the naked eye on a nice day, you can see that cool wave effect another mile down the beach.  I promise.

And lastly, to finish out, here’s  some hip Halloween photos.  First, I’ll show you what I looked like on the afternoon of October 31st.

I’d had facial hair for over two months.  Now I always shave my neck and under my chin and a little on my cheeks, but the rest of the beard hadn’t been touched for over three weeks.  People said I looked like a mountain man, and I took that as a compliment.  But then, on Halloween night…

The force was with me.  I love the irony of actually taking off something  in order to create a disguise.   There was supposed to be a vote that night for best costume.  I don’t think it ever happened, but here’s a picture of the two I think should have won.

That spider web rocks.  This girl is eastern European, Croatian, I think.  And her name is Zeljka or Zjelka, I always forget.  Only on ships do you find yourself saying things like, “I think I could get a date out of that chick, if I could just pronounce her name.”  Water, water everywhere, in more ways than one.

Peace out, my peeps,

=Matt=

MATT’S BAHAMAS PHOTO JOURNAL II

Here we go again peeps.  Let’s check out a few more photos of the ship and the Bahamas.

I’d call this the path of least resistance.

You may remember this fountain from last week.

Late Day Sunshine

Find a good angle, and you can even hide the sun.  (Sounds like something a political strategist would say.)

Another church bathed in light.

I know I tilted the camera, but it fits in a jazzy sort of way.  Bars, then arches, fountain, palm tree.

Stop and think.  What’s weird with this photo?  Without ever thinking about it, we always associate lighthouses with the dark green and almost marbly waters of New England, not the shimmering blue or clear waters of the Caribbean.

This is Cabbage Beach on Paradise Island.  That’s where the Atlantis Hotel is.  I dig those pines.

Here’s the view from the front of the ship sailing into the pier in Nassau.

And right in front of that bell is the coolest thing I’ve seen on a ship: a tree that grew out of the dead wood planks.  God, there’s gotta be a sermon or motivational speech there.  I mean really it’s inspirational with no further exposition.  Here’s a look at the roots.

I’ll post some photos next week from ship Halloween and the Governor’s House (that’s the Bahamas’ head of state.)  Meanwhile, let’s all catch up on Brad’s much more adventuresome adventures.

=Matt=

MATT’S BAHAMAS PHOTO JOURNAL I

Bahamian Flags Line the Pier (the blue of the flag represents the blue of the water)

Oh hi there peeps, I didn’t notice you come in.  Have a seat; make yourself at home.  I’m cracking out the old slide projector and dimming the lights to show you some images from the beautiful town of Nassau on the island of New Providence in the island chain country known as the Bahamas.  I’m not the photographer that Brad is, nor have I invested in as high a quality of camera as Brad has.  Still, I think I used my cleverness and perspective to pull off a nice little collection.  Enjoy!

If you seen the commercials for the Atlantis Hotel, this is basically the same angle the hotel is shot from.

This is Carnival’s newest, biggest ship. 5,000 total passengers. There was only one spot on the entire pier that allowed me to get it in frame.

This is the building you walk through as you enter the country. Colorful.

But I prefer the natural look.

Cool Fountain

Cool Restaurant Name

Cool Sign (and Quintessentially Bahamian)

Cool Church

Cool Stained-Glass (bonus points if you know why the dice are there)

I won’t say cool anymore. Besides this sign is beyond cool. You won’t see that too often in the U.S.

One Last Sun-Washed Island Photo.

More to come next week.  Till then,

=Matt=

MATT’S MILD CHRISTMAS GRIPES

Hey Peeps,

I’m keeping it light and short this week.  Come on, cut me some slack.  It’s the tale-end of the holiday season and everybody’s phoning it in (My family’s on their third take-out dinner of the week.  How about yours?)  Now, when I tell my friends about Life of Adventure, I usually start out saying, “I write for my friend’s website” or even, “I write an online column.”  I never start out saying, “I write a blog,” though I sometimes admit it’s a blog style site.  I avoid the b word, because most blog writers don’t contribute much substantive or stimulating writing to this world wide web.  I associate blogs with self-important people, who need a hobby, instead railing on about their generic nights out and their uninformed opinions on issues.  Just add a few drunk photos, then you’re all set.  Now that is a stereotype.  I don’t peruse random blogs to see what percentage really contain practical knowledge or real life wisdom.  So maybe it’s just my misunderstanding that keeps me feeling so superior about LOA.  Maybe I just fear what I don’t understand, and then avoid what I fear and never understand it.  A truly dangerous cycle…  But what are you gonna do?

I say all of that to say this:  I am about to sound like a classic blogger for the next few paragraphs.  Bear with me peeps, a little thing is bugging me, and I feel like telling the world.  That little thing is called gift card etiquette.

If you don’t see certain old friends or family members but once or twice a year, gift cards are perfect.  They’re not quite as impersonal as cash, but they don’t risk disappointment like any actual purchased item.  There are some situations where gift cards shouldn’t be given, however.  On my dad’s side of the family, we have a tradition of doing Christmas lists, which has really helped everyone over the years.  But let me tell you, in recent years, folks have been slacking.  A few people only e-mailed me one item that they wanted this year; that’s hardly a list.  And then there were four or five people who didn’t e-mail me lists at all.  I’m sure they were busy, and maybe they’re just burnt out with always sort of knowing what they were going to get (admittedly, a downside to having lists.) But you’ve got to have some empathy for the other busy people.  I don’t have time to figure out a good gift for you.  Okay, so maybe I do have the time (and the creativity) for some family members, but not everyone every year.   And what happens when you get them a TV DVD of a show they love, but find out when they open it, it’s a season they already have?  Of course they can return it, but do you give the casual “oh sorry” like you usually would? ( I wasn’t sorry.) Or do you stick it to them?  Tell them, “hey, that’s why you gotta give me that list.”  That would be rude, but it is an important point to emphasize.

And with that we get back to the gift cards.  I tried to get the Christmas list ball rolling by mailing out my list (and request for others’)  in the first week of December.  And my list is not a bunch of random things I want.  It’s mainly popular books and CD’s.  I keep it simple because I want the older folks in the family to be able to pop down to the Best Buy or Books-A-Million or even Target or Wal-Mart, plop down fifteen or twenty bucks, and within a few minutes, have their shopping for me done.  I even list a few places I would like gift cards from if they can’t find the other stuff.

So the list is by no means a requirement.  There are some family members who know me well enough to go off of it.  There’s always a risk there because, while you get a greater surprise from an awesome unrequested gift, bottom line is they may not like it.  Still, some of my favorite gifts each year come from the people who “venture off the list” as my brother says.  But if you’re going to venture, be smart about it.  This year, I got gift cards from places I didn’t put on my list.  I know the season isn’t about getting stuff and that I should be thankful for whatever I receive.  That being said, there is some room for etiquette in this process.  Think about it.

First off, a gift card shows that almost zero thought was put it in.  And in my case, with my list of easy-to-find, affordable items, it means that the person walked into a store and instead of walking the 100 steps back to the CD or book section and taking five minutes to locate something on the list, they simply turned to the little rack beside the register.  It’s almost the least you can do, especially if you grab a card from a store off my list.  Now, I know, it’s nice to have a few gift cards after the holidays to buy a few things that you listed but didn’t receive.   That’s why the cards are okay sometimes, but do you know those people who give gift cards every year despite the fact you’re pretty close?  It’s kind of annoying.  You put some real thought into their gift, and you had to go to two stores and talk to three clerks before you tracked it down.  By comparison, their offering is a little paltry, right?  And after a few years, this pattern even seems kind of rude, yeah?

I didn’t mention any of this to the fam over Christmas.  Frankly, I was a little disappointed in myself for how much this little stuff got to me.  We can all lose perspective around holidays, even if like me, you went to a church service on Christmas Eve. Eventually, I did get some perspective on it, as my thoughts actually drifted to my grandmother who passed away back in 2003.  You don’t realize how much the matriarch does to keep the holidays, and the communication that goes with them, running smoothly until they’re no longer there to help.  Since her passing some relatives have told she was the “strong one.”  I think I understand that more and more every Christmas, but that’s a post for another day.

Happy New Year Everybody,

=Matt=

PS  As I write this, I’m watching the New Year’s Rocking Eve on TV.  How old is this Selena Gomez?

A LETTER TO THE FATHERLESS GIRLS

Hello guys,  I hope the holidays have been kind to you so far.  This letter was a goodbye gift for a good friend.  Her name is Laura and though we had a blast for the little over a month we worked together, I haven’t seen her since.  That’s forgivable because she’s from London and has barely been state side since finishing that one cruise ship contract.  I don’t know if she checks out Life of Adventure, but she’s received a few message about it.  I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Laura is a dancer who was given the ballet feature in our show.  Those ballet skills combine with her fair skin and classy English accent (which not all Brits have it) to form a surface which totally belies her personality.  She can talk a mile a minute (or a kilometer) and she made me laugh more consistently than any girl I’ve met.  Along with her Australian rooommate Lisa, they were a comedy team that brightened my day seemingly everyday.

Laura and I only spoke about serious matter a little in our time together.  I learned about her family situation one night, but the group conversation shifted so quickly I didn’t have much time to respond.  She knew I was a Christian, and she told me how she hoped those things were real.  However, she wasn’t raised religious.

This is one of my very favorite writings, because it demonstates what’s fun and special about my faith.  Sometimes, I feel I must say the hard things, things people don’t wish to hear, things that might cause them to walk away from our friendship.  I speak those hard words because I believe that some people are at points in their lives where them hearing the truth is crucial enough that I must risk the friendship.  I hope those people realize I’m being a friend in what I say, but they don’t often do that.

The special moments start with when I find a good person who is desperate to hear something, not a general something that we all want to hear, but something vey specific.  And when I find someone with that need, that void, that hole in them, sometimes my faith allows me to tell that person exactly what they’ve been needing to hear,  all the while meaning every word.  That’s what I did with Laura, I think:

Laura,

A few weeks into my contract, I was sitting outside on the crew deck, and I was explaining my faith to you and a guy whose name I thought was Jermaine.  During that conversation, you told me that your father had run out on your family, and you asked me what I thought about that.  I don’t know if you really wanted my answer, but if you did, I certainly would like to give you my response.

First and foremost, it makes me sad.  I read once that raising a child is like handling a pane of glass, and there’s no way for a parent to leave the glass looking untouched.  There will be smudges and imperfections, the flaws the parents pass on and the wrong lessons they accidentally teach.  But later on as adults, the children can wipe those away.  Some parents, however, make mistakes so big they put cracks in the glass, and those children will never finish dealing with their parents’ poor decisions.  I personally know many attractive, skilled, and intelligent young women who struggle with some aspect of self-confidence or wise decision-making because they didn’t have a real man as a father.  It is in seeing these friends struggle that I’ve come to realize there’s more than one way for a girl to break your heart.

But right after sad, it makes me angry.  You will likely never get an apology out of this man who ignored you.  (And while it’s not often given due credit, almost nothing hurts as badly as being ignored.)  I don’t think this man will ever experience any real consequences for his actions, and that makes me even angrier.

But then I think, yes, there are consequences.  He won’t go to jail, and maybe none of his friends know he did something so crummy.  Still though, he has lost something.  He’s lost his chance to witness you grow into the funny, caring, talented, and absolutely lovely woman I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.  And when I really think about it, that is a pretty high price to pay.

Lastly, it actually makes me hopeful, hopeful that these next words will mean something to you.   As you know, I am religious guy, and you may not know that much about my faith but please hear this.  As a Christian I base my whole life on the fact that just like Matt Morris, Laura Flaherty has a father who never, ever left her and who never will.

On the subject of heaven, you said you hope it exists.  The Bible says that faith is “evidence for things hoped for.”  If you ever have interest in looking into my evidence and building some of your own, please let me know.

=Matt=

Merry Christmas My Peeps

=M=

 

LA LUCHADOR PART 4 OF 4

Alright guys, I am back home in Chattanooga now after a long, long drive on Monday (over 10 hours on the road.)  I am posting this last segment tonight, but I still have a Christmas post to put up in a few days.  It’s not holiday-themed, but it’s probably my favorite thing I’ve written, so I consider it my present to you.  Check it out whenever you can, even if you only have a few minutes.  It will be short but hopefully fufilling.

=Matt=

Here we are, three months together, and the fans still love us.  Tonight, I’m in the middle of a match with El Leon.  That’s right, the champ, the main event, the big time.  It’s weird.  I haven’t won a match all summer thanks to my ditzy young lady friend, but I’ve managed to move steadily up the card.

 “Vamos a casa,” I say to Manny.  We’ve put on a solid ten minute match, and the crowd stands with excitement, waiting to see the unique way I’ll lose this week, and how my valet will attack me afterwards.

“Alright,” he says.  I hook his head down under my legs, with his face pointing towards the mat.  This is the setup for my finisher, the piledriver.  Ideally, I’d finish the move by lifting him up by his mid-section and then sitting down, dropping him on his head.  Of course, El Leon still has something left in the tank, so before I can get him off the ground, he thrusts with his legs and runs me backwards into the nearest corner.  Conveniently the referee was in that corner, and we just squashed him.  He falls limpid, like a rag doll, and the crowd groans at his weakness, recognizing the ref bump as a natural forbearer to a screwy finish.

Still on my feet, I call out to Karlita, “Yo, silla!”  That means, I want a steel chair in the ring now, please.  She goes and grabs one from the timekeeper’s table.  El Leon has regained his energy and clips me from behind.  Now we’re both on our hands and knees, with about three feet between us.  Karlita slides the folded chair towards the center of the ring.   Unfortunately, she’s slid errantly, and it comes to a stop right in front of El Leon.  He picks it up, bashes me in the head, and tosses it out just as the referee is waking up.  Then he covers me for the win.  The fans cheer big, and he showboats in the ring for several minutes.  Most shows, much of the crowd leaves right after the main event is over but not tonight.  As I slowly rise to my feet, I see that everyone is still here, waiting to see what Karlita will do to me.  I’d say this is the real main event.

“Karlita!  Aqui!  Ahora!”  Get in here now, Karlita, I’m saying.  She comes in the ring timidly, and I berate her.  We’ve been making this sequence longer and longer, where my anger starts restrained, then builds to an explosive climax right before she snaps.

I’ve been going for about minute, when I get to her cue.  “No mas, Karlita!  No mas!”  I’m saying.  And on the third “No mas!” she jumps me.  We roll around and after several seconds, I’m finally able to toss her off, hard onto her backside.  I straighten my attire with an air of formality, then turn around and walk calmly towards the ring steps.  Right as I’m almost out, she jumps me again, this time from behind.  (We added that last week.  It really works.)  After another struggle, I eventually disentangle myself from Karlita’s flailing arms and slide out of the ring.  But this time, it’s not over.  I grab the mike, ready to rock the fans’ worlds.

“Estoy harto, Kalita!”  I’ve had enough.  “La semana proxima, te quiero, en uno partido!”  I hear a gasp from the crowd.  Next week, a man wrestles a woman?  Can it really happen?  They’re going to find out, because Karlita is standing in the ring with her hands on hips, nodding her head yes.  She’s definitely accepted my challenge, and the crowd quickly breaks from their shock and starts chanting her name.

 “La semana proxima, la semana proxima,” or next week, next week, I keep saying into the mike as I walk back towards the curtain.   When I finally get backstage, I pump my fist over and over again as I wait for Karlita.  It couldn’t have gone off any better.  It was set up perfectly.  Next week, I’ll beat her in a short match and take my place as one of the most reviled rudos in all of Mexican wrestling.

“Tres meses,” or three months, I say to my novia (girlfriend.)  We’re having our anniversary dinner at our favorite place, Juan’s Taqueria.  Yeah, I know it’s not the Ritz, but despite our popularity, Karlita and I still aren’t making much money.  And it is a somewhat classy affair.  We have a candle lit room to ourselves.  It’s nice just to be able to eat at the restaurant with each other.  This whole week, we’ve tried not to be seen in public together, since our characters are now feuding.  We’ve also been working our asses off at the arena preparing for our roughly four minute match.  Tomorrow is the big show, and there’s no question that we will once again be in the main event.  It’s going to end with Karlita taking the piledriver, a genuinely dangerous move, but we’ve practiced it a lot, first on a heavily cushioned mat, then in the ring.  When executed correctly, as I am now accustomed to doing, the opponent’s head still hits the mat but just barely.  The person giving the move holds their opponent up high enough to protect them.

“Tres meses,” I repeat.

“Si, tres meses bonitos.”  Three beautiful months, she said.  You know, they really have been nice.  We’ve kept it simple and taken it slow physically, and I think we’re helping each other’s language skills.  As far as hangouts, most of the time we see each other at the arena, though my apartment and the taqueria are common stops as well.  I’ve asked her a few times if she wanted me to sneak her into the over eighteen discos, but she said that scene wasn’t really for her.  She’s never really talked about her family again, and I haven’t tried to push her in that department.

We just finished our meal a few minutes ago.  I scraped off all the pineapple from my tacos and gave them to her, because she digs them.  It works out well that way.  “Oh, I have something for you, for, you know, the anniversary.”  I grab my coat from behind my chair.  I’m nicely dressed for this dinner, wearing my only suit, gray, a maroon shirt, and a white tie.  Karlita is wearing a dress covered in large daisies.  I reach in the coat pocket and pull out a red rose wrapped in a damp paper towel.  “I’ve got something else, but I’m not going to give it to you till tomorrow.”  I hand her the rose, and she smiles at me warmly.  I think there might even be a tear in the corner of her eye.

“Gracias,” she says, lifting it to her nose.

“De nada,” I answer.  She runs her fingers over the flower for another moment, then picks up my beer bottle.  She swigs the last little sip, puts the rose into the bottle and places it back on the table as the new center piece.

“Well,” I say, “what a sweetheart you turned out to be.”  I extend my arms across the table, and she takes them.  We each stare at the flower and beyond it to each other.  “Don’t hurt me too bad tomorrow.”

“I won’t,” she answers.

It’s the afternoon before the show, and I’m sitting on the couch in my apartment, when someone knocks on the door.  I pop up quick to open it.  Hopefully, this is what I think it is.  At the door a Mexican guy in a UPS uniform holds a medium sized box under his left arm.  “Hilbert Awkins?”

“Yes,” I say.  “I’m Gilbert Hawkins.”

“Sign,” he says, putting a clip board in my hands.  I find the right line and scribble my signature.  He hands me the box.

“Hasta luego,” I say, shutting the door with a quick smile.  I dash over to the kitchen table and pull a knife from the drawer.  I cut the tape and dig my hand down into the peanuts to pull out the contents.   “Very nice,” I say outloud to myself, staring at the lovely, ladies’ size five wrestling boots.  They’re silver with blue and yellow flames.  Karlita will love them.  She’s going to keep that color scheme on her costume but now that I’m becoming a serious rudo, she’s going to make me a darker outfit.  Tonight will be the last time we match.

The plan is for me to leave the ring after my win, with the smuggest look of dark satisfaction that I can muster.  Karlita will still be down in the ring, when El Leon will emerge from the back, running down to help her to her feet, the chivalrous hero.  This will set up a big feud between him and me for this fall.  I haven’t heard anything definite, but I may even get to wear the title for a little while before the years out.

I move the boots from their packing box to my gym bag.  I check my watch.  We’re still several hours away from show time.  I take a deep breath.  “Alright, well, I guess I could do a quick work out.”  I grab the barbells next to the door, full of nervous energy.

Riding my bike, I am now only about a block from the arena and I’m wondering if any of the fans will notice me.  I try to keep the hood of my gray jacket up over my head most rides, but it’s a gritty hot night.  (Guadalajara in August is full of them) and so I left the jacket at the apartment.  After a few more minutes of pedaling, I arrive at the bike rack near the backstage entrance.  I put my pad lock on and walk into the building.  It’s fifteen minutes before show time but still a while before my match.  I see Hector walking towards the office.  “Eh hombre, sabes donde esta Karlita?”  I asked if he knew where Karlita was.

“Uh, pienso fue en ahi.”  He said that he thought she went in there, pointing to a door about twenty feet down the hall, which I think is just a small office space.  Maybe she didn’t want to change in the girl’s restroom.  If our bathroom is any indication, I’d guess hers is not so lovely.  I go to the door and pull the boots out of my gym bag.  It seems a little rusty, so I torque the handle a bit and shove with my shoulder.  It pops open.

There I find, staring at me, frozen, Manny and Karlita, having just pulled back from a kissing embrace.  After a few seconds, I say in a voice almost calm-sounding but more detached, “I bought you these boots, Karlita.  I hope you like them.”  I toss them on the ground, hard.  Turning away, I take a moment to compose myself, then turn back to stare holes through her.  “How could you?”  I walk out of the room, briskly, down the hall, and shove the metal door open.  I’m outside now, and the last of the setting sun pounds my face, as I grit my teeth in silence.

Eventually, Karlita walks outside.  “Gilbert, we need to talk.” Her voice is cracking.  I look at her.  She’s got tears in her eyes, this time for sure.  “Gilbert, sometimes things, dey only happen.  Dey only happen Gilbert.  You understand, dey suddenly happen.”  I know what word she’s searching for, but I don’t feel like giving it to her.  Things just happen Karlita, but that’s bullshit.

I speak in a monotone, barely able to pull my teeth apart.  “I don’t want to ever see you again.  But I am a professional.  We have a match tonight; you better clean yourself up and get ready.”  There’s a pause, as I shift my far off stare to a look of pure derision.  I could ask how long it’s been going on, but I don’t really care.  I walk back over to the door and open it.  “How could you being crying right now?  How could you be crying?”  I slam the door and walk to the men’s locker room, where I plan on spending the next two hours till match time.

I stand in the ring for my match, and the lights seem to be burning brighter than usual.  No question the crowd is white hot, and I sure hope we can still pull this off.  Karlita’s music hits, some current Mexican pop tune she picked out earlier in the week.  She comes out looking nervous and takes her time making her way to the ring.  She’s wearing the boots.

“Zapatos agradables.” Nice shoes, I say as she climbs into the ring.  She doesn’t seem to want to look at me.  She turns to the crowd and waves a bit, until the opening bells summons us to the center of the ring with the referee.  He runs down a short list of do’s and don’ts, then we go.

We start by circling each other slowly for several seconds.  Karlita slaps me in the face, not as hard as we did in practice but passable considering the circumstances.  I raise a hand to my cheek and stutter a few steps back.  Then I come back in and slap her firmly back.  She staggers into the ropes.  The ref steps over to check on her, and the crowd barrages me with the loudest chorus of boo’s I’ve heard since I’ve been here.  I turn to them and smile.  Some guy throws his half full cup of beer right into my face.  Damn, I hope this doesn’t cause a riot.

I turn around and right as I do, a re-energized Karlita tackles me to the ground for something equivalent to our usual post-match shenanigans.  I throw her off quickly, but after a few seconds, she’s back on top of me.  I throw her off again, then fall back into the corner for our first big spot (move.)  She gets up and runs towards me.  She then jumps onto the second rope, basically straddling me, then puts her hands behind my head.  From there she rolls onto her back while shifting her legs into my stomach.  As she rolls backwards, I jump over her and tumble forward.  It’s called a monkey flip.  I think it went off well.  The crowd’s really behind her now.

She comes over and clamps a head lock on me.  This is a rest hold.  While in theory it’s supposed to wear down the opponent, it actually gives both competitors a chance to catch their breath.  With me firmly locked in the center of the ring, Karlita takes one hand off my head to wave at the crowd again.  Some start to laugh, and a few are snapping pictures.  Little do they know, we’re about to get a lot more serious.

“Vamos a casa,” Karlita whispers into my ear.  This is my cue to slowly stand up.  She wrenches the hold harder on me, but I still continue to rise.  Once on my feet, I elbow her in the mid-section.  She holds on tight.  I elbow again, but she continues to hold.  Before I can try it a third time, she leaps on my back, still wrenching the headlock.  I lurch slowly around the center of the ring with Karlita’s dead weight on my back.  Then, I walk close to the corner, turn around, and fall back into it, with her sandwiched between.  Dazed, she releases the hold, and I step out to give us a little more space.

I pull her by the hair out of the corner and tuck her head between my legs.  Everybody knows what’s coming, but they can’t believe it’s really going to happen.  The crowd is now a mixture, boos, gasps, murmurs.  “I got you,” I whisper down to Karlita.

“Okay,” she whispers back.  “Let’s go.”  With that I wrap my hands around her trembling mid-section and lift her off the mat.  I hold her upside down for just a second, then I sit down.  She slides down my arms, just a little bit, enough that I think everything is still fine, but when my hips land on the mat, I see Karlita’s body go limp.  Not the limp like we practiced, something much more real and awkward.  The crowd grows from cacophony to silence in the course of five seconds.  The ref puts his head down on the mat beside Karlita’s.

“Hablame, hablame, hablame.”  Talk to me, he’s saying, trying to see if she’s still conscious.  But there are no words from Karlita.  No English.  No Spanish.  Just a barely audible whimper, like an injured animal in the middle of the wilderness.

A dozen wrestlers run out to the ring, along with the team doctor, Hector, and Raul.  Hector grabs me.  “Necessitamos a salir.”  He said I needed to leave.  He points to the crowd.  “Va a estar en el hospital esta noche.  A menos que quieres juntarle, debes salir ahora.”  He said Karlita was going to be in the hospital tonight and that unless I wanted to join her, I should leave right now.  I know he’s right.  There may well be someone in the crowd who wants to kill me, and I’m not exaggerating.  With Hector escorting, I hop out of the ring as inconspicuously as I can and run backstage.  Once there, I grab my bag and go out to my bike.  I ride back to the apartment quick, real quick.  I want to know if Karlita’s alright, but I have to wait.  Me being at that areana right now would only make that place more dangerous.

It’s about 1:30 that morning when I make it to the hospital.  I find out from the front desk that Karlita was released from the ER about an hour ago, and that she’s now in a room on the third floor.  I take the elevator, then walk out to a sort of hub for all the floor’s rooms.  I ask one of the nurses passing by, “Which way to 353?”

“Que?,” she says.  “No entiendo.”  She doesn’t understand.

“Um, que manera, uh, para, ah dammit.  I want 353!  I just want to see the person in 353!  Tres, cinco, tres!”  I’m so worn down right now; I can’t translate another word in my head.  Luckily, the gracious nurse checks her papers.

“Ah si, la luchadora, ahi.”  She points down the hallway to her right.

“Gracias,” I say.  I walk down and look in the open doorway.  In the bed Karlita lies in a pink hospital gown, sleeping, as the beeps and clicks of the few machines she’s hooked to mix with the chirps of the crickets outside.  Next to her, holding her hand, is Manny.  His head is dipped low and at first he doesn’t see me.  There’s already a whole bouquet of roses on the table.

Eventually, Manny looks up.  I glance at him for only a second before returning my gaze to the girl in the bed.  I stay in the doorway; I don’t come a step closer.  You know, I haven’t cried in a long time.

“Gilbert,” I hear from behind.  It’s Raul; he’s standing in the hallway.  “Gilbert, come here.”  I walk over.

“Raul, I am so sorry.  You know, we practiced that so many times.  I have no idea what happened.”

“No, no,” he says, putting a warm hand on my neck.  “There is no need to apologize.  You’re a good kid; I know that.  You work hard. You’ve been good to Karlita.”

“Thank you.”  Then, after a few seconds, “What’s the diagnosis?”

“A few vertebrae, they’re fractured.  It will take time to heal, months, but no permanent damage.”

“Well, I guess that’s not terrible.”

“Yeah, she will recover.  So do you want to take a week off?”  I haven’t even thought about my work yet, but time off sounds like a good idea.

“Yeah,” I say, “That’d be good.”

“We can’t wait too long.  You’re going to be the most hated luchador in Mexico.”

“What?  You mean, you still want to use this as a storyline?”

“Of course, this is still your opportunity Gilbert.  There’s no reason to throw it away.”  A few seconds pass, as I think about what Raul just said and where I’m at in life.

“Raul, I can’t be your top rudo.”

“Why amigo?”

“Because I quit.”

The next morning I pack my things and leave the remainder of the rent money with the guys in the apartment.  One of them gives me a ride to the airport, where I buy a one way ticket back to Salt Lake.  On the two plane rides it takes me to get home, I manage to read the first three chapters in my economics book.

I guess I could have just taken that week off.  I could have gotten back up and given it another try.  I know I had the in-ring talent for the main event level, and Manny and I were already having some nice matches.  I could have been the most hated rudo in all of Mexico.  I could have been a legend.  But sometimes it doesn’t feel right to get up.  Sometimes you just fall too far.

LA LUCHADOR PART 3 OF 4

Honk!  Honk!  I push down the horn in the beat up VW bug I’m driving.  Karlita has just walked out into the school yard, and I’m trying to get her attention.  It’s been a few days since our fiasco of a match and things have settled down.  Raul is meeting with some potential advertisers this afternoon and so he let me borrow his car to do him this favor.  Not the average grunt work for a rookie in the company, but it’s painless, which is a welcome rarity in our business.  I honk again and stick my head out the window.  “Yo Karlita, tu tio esta trabajando, vamos.”  I just told her that her uncle was working and to come on.  She parts company with the girls she was giggling with, walks over to the car, and hops in.

“Hola,” she says, with a big smile.  “Que tal?”  She’s asking how it’s going.

“Bien.”

“Do we have to go back to the arena today now?  I have no work there.”

“I don’t know.  Raul is sort of trusting me with this.”

“Oh,” she says, “He will not care, if we go to the internet café for a while.  Trust me.  If me work es done, der is no problem.”

“Well,” ah man, this is tough.  I guess there’s no problem with a short stop.  But I don’t know how protective Raul might be of Karlita.  He did put her in that match pretty easily.  Then again, that’s not real life.  “Alright, let’s go by for a little while.  I need to e-mail a few folks back home anyway.”

“Cool, man,” she says, over-pronouncing each word.  So we drive over to the internet café closest to the arena and go in.  This is usually where I do my surfing, so I know Jose’, the owner.  The place is sparsely populated in mid-afternoons, so we have our choice of several different computers.  Karlita goes over to the one in the corner, plops down in the desk chair, then pulls the adjacent chair closer to hers.  Patting it, she looks back over to me.  “Come on,” she says.

“It certainly is,” I answer under my breath as I walk over.  “Hey Jose, can I get a coke for me and uh…”  Karlita looks up from two instant messenger conversations she’s already started.

“Coca light,” she says.

“Sure,” he answers.  We sit and sip our drinks and surf around.  After a few minutes, Karlita puts the headphones on to watch funny videos on YouTube.  She tries to suppress her laughter but over and over again she succumbs to outbursts that make me thankful the only other customers are an elderly couple on the other side of the room.  I meanwhile am writing my e-mails.  I send a short one to Ron, telling him how I’m getting sharper in the ring every day and that we’re looking for the right angle and character.  (Yeah, I know, it’s a bit of a rosy rendition of things.)  Also, I tell him he needs to get some new tapes from my promotion.  Not just to see the little bit of me that makes it on there but also to check out El Leon.  “He’s still on his way up, but he’s the full package,” I write.  “If you don’t know about him yet, you will.”

Next, I send one to mom.  I tell her my body is feeling better, which is true.  And also, that the pain is nearly gone, which is more than just painting a rosy picture.  Hey, sometimes a lie can save some worry, so I think it’s okay.  “Who are you writing?” Karlita interrupts.  She has closed the windows on her computer and taken off her headphones.

“My mom, give me a few minutes to proof-read it, then we can head out.”

“Awww, how sweet.”  And then she puts her head on my shoulder again.  “You write your mom.”

“Yeah,” I say.  “Just give me another minute.”  I get back to proof-reading.  Karlita eases her head off my shoulder.  I am just about done when, out of nowhere, she shoves my chair, and I roll five feet to the left.  She gets over the keyboard of my computer and starts typing.

“Dear madre,” she says.  “P. S.  I know a pretty girl.  Her name is Karlita.”

I slide my chair back over.  “Alright, very funny, now let me see the keyboard.”  She makes like she’s going to hand it to me but instead hits Send.  She bites her lip mischievously.  “Oh Karlita, why’d you do that?  I am never going to hear the end of this, you know?  Let’s go, come on, vamonos.”  She stands up, and I push our chairs back in.  “Say, do you know what the word annoying means?”

“Que?”

“Oh, now your English is bad.”  I walk up to the desk and hand Jose fifty pesos.  “Typical, eh Jose?”

“Girls,” is his one word agreement.

When we get to the arena, no one makes mention of our late arrival.  Raul, having just wrapped up his long meeting, must have too much on his mind to notice.  From his office door window, we can see he’s reviewing notes and paperwork with Hector.   Karlita parts company with me to walk into his office.  “Adios,” I say.

“Ciao, gracias,” she answers as she enters.  I walk back towards the locker room.  I’m trying to bust tale on the weights this week.  I might be getting a little flabby.  Hopefully, my body is up for a full gym and in-ring workout tonight.

“Gilbert!” I hear my name from further back up the hallway.  It’s Raul.  “Get back here for a minute.”  Aw crap.  I knew we shouldn’t have made any stops on the way to the arena.  I double-time it back to the office, avoiding Raul’s eyes the whole time.  He shuts the door behind me as I walk in.  “Please, sit down.”  Karlita is sitting in a folding chair, pulled up to the desk.  I take the seat beside her.

After sitting down himself, Raul continues.   “I wanted to bring you both in here, to ask you if you’d be comfortable doing a follow up to last week’s angle.”  Wow, well at least I’m not in trouble.

“Are you serious?” I ask.

“Always,” Raul says.  “Sure, it wasn’t what we planned, but the crowd seemed to love it.  We put it off another week or two, and they forget.  Wrestling fans have short memories.  They’re fickle.  You must give them what they want when they tell you that they want it.  And you guys were definitely getting a reaction.”

“But it was a cheap joke.  It was embarrassing enough for one week.  There’s no way anyone’s going to respect me as a wrestler this way.”

“Well,” Raul continues, “As much as I want the fans to appreciate your abilities, the bottom line is that they appreciate this comedy.  There have been a few famous wrestlers who hooked the fans with the jokes.  And besides, if you put butts in the seats, I could care less about how it affects your legacy.  I like you kid, but this is a business.  You don’t got room to be arguing.”

Of course he’s right.  If anything casts me in a favorable light with the boss at this point, I’d be wise to hang on to it tooth and nail.  Fortunately in this case, I won’t need to argue my way out of anything.  Karlita was so uncomfortable with last week’s show, she certainly won’t do it again.  “If that’s the case,” I say, “I guess I’ll do my best.  But you know, I don’t think Karlita’s really up to going through all that again.”

“I’ll do it,” she interjects, excitedly.

“What?!” I say, turning to her.

“Last week, I was not ready.  This week vill be different.  It vill be cool.”

She puts her hand on my thigh, but we’re pulled up enough to the desk that Raul can’t see it.  He continues, “then it’s settled then.  This Saturday, we do the same basic deal as last week.  You go down.  You get pissed.  She attacks you; you run away.”  Dammit, I hate this idea.  And what’s her hand doing on my leg?

“Yes sir,” I say with the fakest of smiles.  “We’ll just, see how it goes.”

It’s just moments before the show starts, and this time, we’re the opening contest.  I’ll be fighting El Angel Rojo tonight.  Karlita, having had some time to prepare during the week, has put together a nice costume for herself, one which matches the colors of mine.  Her tight shorts are silver, with two thin belts of yellow and blue, which she’s tied together in a fancy knot at the front.  Her top is a tie-dyed combination of the blue and yellow, and she even has silver cuffs around each of her wrist with yellow flames.  She is popping up and down with excitement.  “What do I look?” she asks me.

“How, you mean, how do I look.”  Her brow wrinkles for a moment.

“Si, how do I look?”

“Honestly, it’s a very neat outfit; you did a great job.”  I glance down to her footwear.  Just tennis shoes again.  I guess there were no silver shoes around her closet.  “You know, I honestly can’t believe you want to do this again.  Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

“Oh yes, dis week, totally different.”

“Alright,” I say, nerves no less calmed by Karlita’s confident assurance.  Angel Rojo walks up to join us.

“Eh man,” he says to me.

“Sup.  Hey, break a leg out there.”

“Alright,” he says with a toothy grin as he makes a wrenching motion with his hands.

“Here we go!”  I hear Hector yell from the other side of the curtain.  Angel’s music hits.

“See you on the other side,” he says to me, then walks through the curtain to a modest reaction.  After about a minute, his music fades out, and it’s our turn.  My generic upbeat rock plays.  Karlita cues up directly behind me, and we step out into the arena.  What I see blows me away.

Amidst the crowd, there are at least a dozen posters and two dozen homemade shirts, that say, “dale una bofetada a el chico blanco.”  And the fans have absolutely erupted, each one seems to be on his or her feet.   And they’re all cheering, “Bo-fe-ta-da!  Bo-fe-ta-da!”  Karlita, nonplussed by the reaction is smiling and waving at the crowd again.  I pull her close and, due to the current decibel level, yell into her ear.

“What does bofetada mean?”

“Uh, to hit in face,” she answers.  Oh great, three thousand Mexicans are cheering, “Slap the white boy.”  Well, then again, three thousand Mexicans are cheering for me.  They feel something deep down, down in that place where Raul tried to poke me on my first day.  Maybe he’s right.  This could be a stepping stone.  All I need is a chance.

So we’re nearing the end of our match, and the crowd hasn’t calmed down much since our entrance.  The finish will be similar to last week’s, but Karlita and I have decided to modify it a bit to keep it fresh.  We’re using an even more frustrating loss for the white boy this time.

I throw Angel into the ropes and duck my head.  When he comes back, I flip him over with a high back body drop.  Then I pick him up and tap my head in Karlita’s direction.  She once again returns the gesture, and the already boisterous crowd gets a little louder.  I toss Angel into the ropes, he reverses, and my absent-minded valet once again trips the wrong man.  I get up, but instead of facing an immediate beat down, I turn towards her, and we start arguing right then.  Without having to execute any more offense, Angel comes from behind and rolls me up.  I’m caught off guard and can’t kick out.  He wins.

I roll over and pound my fist on the mat, then stare down Karlita.  I point a finger at her, then point it down to the mat.  “Mujer, aqui, ahora”  or “woman, here, now.”  At this, she climbs in the ring tentatively, and the chant starts again:  “Bo-fe-ta-da! Bo-fe-ta-da! Bo-fe-ta-da!”  I grab her by the arm, then start dressing her down, but I’m only two sentences in when she jumps me.  Now, I can honestly say this is loudest that I have ever heard this arena for anything.  To milk it, I stay under her for a little longer, before finally shoving her off and rolling out of the ring.  I run away slower this time, with a shameful look on my face, and I glance back to the ring several times as I make my way back up the entrance ramp.  Karlita is standing there proudly taking in the crowd’s enormous appreciation.  When I break through the backstage curtain, Raul is clapping for me.

“Beautiful performance,” he says.  “Absolutely beautiful.”

I’ve just changed and come out of the locker room.  El Leon is going to win the world title tonight, and I want to make sure and check out the match.  The bout probably won’t start for another half an hour, but since Raul won’t let us go out in the crowd, I need to get into the break room (where we keep our only television monitor) nice and early to stake out a good seat.  Turning to walk down the hall, I’m blindsided by a hug that nearly takes me off my feet.  Karlita has leapt into my arms, still in her full gear.

“Oh,” she says, “I tried to find you right after the match, but you walked back here.  We were awe-some, no?”  I put her down.

“Uh, yeah, it definitely went as planned this time.  The fans love it.  They think you’re absolutely great.”

“Dey think we’re great,” she corrects, with a light punch to my arm.

“Yeah.  So are you going to go in and watch the main event?”

“Oh, yes, I forgot about dat.  Yes, I will go, but I have something to give you first.”  She runs both hands through her hair as her cheeks go flush.  I notice a berry smell in the air.  Did she put on perfume after the match?

“What is it?”  I ask.  At this, she leans forward and goes on her tip-toes to kiss me on the lips.  I take three steps back and look around.  God, if anybody saw that and told Raul, no, I don’t want to think about it.  I look back at Karlita, who is hanging in her head.

“I’m sorry.  I-I thought you like it.”  I step back towards her and put a hand on her shoulder.

“No, it’s not that.  It’s just, I don’t know how Raul would feel about this.  Remember, you live with him because he sort of protects you.  And I think getting too close to any of the wrestlers would worry him.  If he’s worried about what I am doing then maybe I get fired.”

“I don’t want that to happen,” she says, looking up.

“No, no I know you don’t, but, but we’ve got to be very careful.  I’m sorry.  You’re a very cute girl, (and I’m not lying, that outfit is very flattering) but it’s not going to work out, I don’t think.”

“Okay,” she says, her head once again down.  “If it is alright, I will not watch the match with you.”

“Sure, that’s fine.  Whatever you feel like.”  She turns to walk away.  “Adios.”

“Hasta Luego Gilbert.”

The show has wrapped up and Manny is backstage at a make-shift banquet with the belt on his shoulder, cracking open a bottle of champagne he brought in for the occasion.  He pours it out into Dixie cups for all the guys who’ve stayed behind to congratulate him.  Hector and Raul are there, as well as Karlita, but she’s staying glued to her uncle’s side.  I’m giving her some space for now.

Once everyone’s gotten a cup, Manny clears his throat at a comically loud volume.  “Voy a preguntar nuestro jefe brindarlo primero.”  He’s requested that Raul toast first.  There’s no surprise on Raul’s face, so I assume Manny has mentioned this to him earlier.  He walks over to join Manny at the center of the medium-sized room.  Then they raise their cups together.

“Esta noche, brindo por nuestro campeon mas joven y accidentes de exito.”  On that last part, he gestured to me and then across the room to Karlita.  As I drink, I’m once again nervous, because I didn’t really understand what he was saying about me and his niece.  The first part of what he said was, “Tonight, we toast the youngest champion in history.”  But I don’t know what that other part was.  I go and grab my gym bag.  Good, I’ve still got my dictionary in here.  Okay, so if accidentes is accidents, what does de exito mean?  It’s taking a few moments to locate, since there are many Spanish phrases that start with de.  There it is.  De exito means successful.  He was calling our new angle a successful accident.  That’s not too bad.  I’ll take that.  I’m relieved for now, (though I’m beginning to think the combination of my hard-nosed boss and this new language will make me go gray by age twenty.)  I mingle a few minutes with some of the guys,  then go over and shake Manny’s hand.

“Cuantos discotecas vas a visitar esta noche?”  I ask him how many clubs he’s going to tonight?

“No se, tres, quiza cuatro.”  He’s undecided, but he thinks maybe three or four.

“Eh Gilbert,” I turn around.  It’s Raul.

“Yes sir?”

“Can I speak with you for just a moment outside?”

“Sure,” I say, with another fake smile.  I follow him out of the room to the end of the hallway and out the nearest metal doors.  Outside a light breeze blows, but it’s still a typical muggy June night in the city.  My fears are ever so slightly relieved by the fact that Raul didn’t put down his Dixie cup to come out for this conversation.  At least he isn’t going to try to physically pummel me.  I hope.  He paces a few moments, then grabs some nearby railing and starts talking.

“Karlita, she likes you.”

I respond quickly.   “Yeah, I know sir, but I told her to back down, because I knew you wouldn’t want any of the guys around her.  She made it clear early tonight , but right then I put her in her place with it.”

“In her place?” Raul says, with some anger in his countenance.

“Respectfully, respectfully I put her in her place.  Don’t get me wrong.  She is a sweet girl and talented and probably mature for her age.  Uh, but, uh, I understand why you wouldn’t want it.  I think she does too.”

Now Raul smiles.  “I don’t think she does my friend, because after you put her in her place, as you say, she came right to my office to beg me for my blessing.  She has not given up on you easily, and you should not give up on her.  I told her it was fine.  You’re still a kid too, so I don’t worry so much.  You just show her respect, and everything will be fine.”

“Really?”  Raul’s been surprising quite a bit lately.

“Yes, really.”

“Okay, alright.”  She is cute, you know.  I guess we could hang out some time.

It’s Friday night, a week since my conversation with Raul.  I’ve invited Karlita over to my apartment to watch one of my favorite movies in a dubbed Spanish version.  I got a copy of Raiders of the Lost Ark from the local Blockbuster this afternoon and hooked up my portable DVD player to the TV.  It being a Friday, it was fairly easy to convince my three roommates to spend a few hours out and about tonight.  Of course, they didn’t leave without teasing me thoroughly about dating the promoter’s daughter.  “If it doesn’t work out buddy, you’re gone,” one of them said.  “But if it does work out, you’ll be the champ by next summer.”  I’m trying to not let of their joshing get to me.  Raul is cool with it, so I’m in the clear.

The doorbell rings, and I go to the door to answer.  The meeting time was 8:00 PM, and it’s 8:02.  She’s being very prompt.  I open the door to find Karlita looking lovely and different than I’ve seen her before.  (Admittedly, I usually only see her in the plaid skirt and plain polo shirts of her school uniform.)  She’s wearing a flower print dress of pink, red, and purple.  Her brown hair is shimmering, and there’s a little bit of glitter on her chest.  And I think, she’s actually wearing a little lipstick.    “Hola,” I say.  “Come on in.”

“Hola,” she says.  “Como estas?”  She leans in and kisses me on my left cheek, then the right.

“Bien, y tu?” or Good and you?

“Muy bien,” she answers.

“I was able to get that movie today.”

“Oh, great.”  We step together over to my dingy white couch.  She sits down smoothly, gently cupping her hands over her hips and smoothing out the back of the dress.  I plop down beside her, with a little bit of space between us.  She scoots slightly to fill the gap as I lean forward to grab the remote off the table.  I turn to the right channel and hit play.  She scoots even a little closer.  I think she’s trying to be subtle.

“Some of this is scary; some of it is a little, well, do you know the word disgusting?”

“Yeah,” she says, a bit puzzled.  “Will I like it?”

“It’s a very cool movie; you just got to give it a chance.”

“Oh, okay.”  I put my arm around her shoulder.  Before Indiana even makes it back to the plane, Karlita’s already leaned her head on my chest.

The credits are now rolling, and I’m asking, “So what did you think?”

“It was neat,” Karlita says.  During the mummy scene, and the final one where the ark is opened, she jumped out of surprise.  After each time, she somehow managed to reset herself even closer to me on the couch.

She sits up a bit, and I get up to take the disc out of the player.  “Well, I guess Raul is going to be back to pick you in about fifteen minutes.  That’s the thing about a movie; you don’t get to talk as much.  We won’t watch a movie next time, so maybe we can just talk.  That is, if you want to.  You do want to hang out again, right?”

“Yes,” she says, face suddenly brightened.  I sit back down; she’s staring at me.

“Gilbert.”

“Yeah?” I answer.  Then she leans in to kiss me.  Her lips are soft, and she presses them very lightly.  After a few moments, she scrapes her cheeks gently across my bottom lip to guide my mouth open.  Then her tongue moves in, and she trills like she’s rolling a double ‘r’ word in Spanish.  I pull back because it makes me chuckle.

“What,” she says.  “You don’t like?”

“No,” I say.  “I like it.  Uh…yeah.” She puts her hands together behind my neck and pulls me in again.

 

It’s our second date.  Karlita has once again come to my apartment, but tonight we’re on the roof of the four story building.  We sit in two old lawn chairs talking, passing the dictionary back and forth often.  We’ve already ask each other about favorite foods and colors and animals.  (We’re both dog people by the way.)  Now things are getting more serious.  Karlita is thumbing through the little book, as I wait patiently.   We’ve run our goofy angle a few more times at the shows, and the fans have continued to go crazy for it.  Raul thinks the sky’s the limit.  I sure hope so.

“So,” she eventually says.  “What you miss most about home?”

“You know, I haven’t really thought about it that much.  I get a feeling sometimes of missing something, but it’s not that one singular thing.  I mean, I guess I do miss my family a little, although it’s nice to be away from them and have that independence.  Growing up, you know?”

“No,” she says.

“You don’t understand?”

“No, I think I understand the words.  I don’t feel da same about family.”

“Oh, okay.”  I should have thought a little more before saying that, considering the drama she’s endured.  No one talks for several seconds.  We stare out over the ledge of the building, past the parking lot, past the laundry mat and the convenience store, and the next apartment complex and all the way down to where the sidewalk bridges into darkness.  Eventually, I think of a better response to Karlita’s question.

“I’ve thought of something I miss.”  She turns her head to me, smiling.  “When I wrestled in high school, amateur wrestling, I would look across the mat and see another guy who was going to work his ass off to beat me.  And I wouldn’t know for sure how it was going to end.  Most of the time I won but not always.  Now, wrestling down here, I always know what’s going to happen.  There’s something neat in the mystery.  It’s a part of the thrill that comes with sport.”

“Cool,” she says.

“So, you are away from home as well.  What is it that you miss?”

“Uh, I miss, lots of things.  I had many friends I had to leave.  I had my own dog, and I think he misses me too.  But the thing I miss most is my mom.”

“Is she alive?”

“Yes, but she wants to keep living with my dad.  An de other people in my family are telling her it is not safe, but she does not listen.  She sends me away but doesn’t send herself away.   She stays.”

“Oh wow.  When was the last time you saw her?”

“Um,” she starts counting on her fingers.  “I think we have lun-ch together five months ago.”

“Man, just lunch, damn.”

“Yeah, it is bad.”

“Well, at least you have Raul.  And it’s great that your family was able to convince your mom to put you in a safer place.”

“Yes, Raul loves me, and I love him too.”

“Yeah.”  She sits up to yawn, stretching out her arms, then she checks her watch.

“Do you want to kiss some more?” she asks.

“Sure but not right now. I think we should just keep talking.”

LA LUCHADOR PART 2 OF 4

It’s ten minutes till show time, and our valet is nowhere to be seen. Raul contacted Consuela a few days ago, and she agreed to come in and play the role. She’s apparently an old pro, who’s been in semi-retirement since her third kid was born. At 38, she may be a little old for me, but we think we can stretch it for the angle (storyline). I’m sitting in my full gear backstage outside of Raul’s office, watching him and Hector through the window, as they try to get Consuela to answer her phone. When she finally picks up, I can tell. Even through the door I can hear a male voice yelling on the other end of the line. Raul pulls the phone off his ear. After a minute or so of conversation, he hangs it up with disappointment on his face. He sends Hector out to talk with me.

“Lo siento amigo. El esposo de Consuelo dije no quiere su esposa hacerlo.” It seems Consuela’s husband had caught wind of the angle and didn’t want his wife participating. My heart sinks. Hector continues, “Aun, tienes el partido primero.” I still had to wrestle in the opening match. Man, this sucks. I’m just going to go out and lose again tonight to no reaction. “Quiza podemos encontrar una mujer par la semana proxima.” Maybe they’ll find a girl for next week? Maybe? So I might have to wait around for weeks to do this thing? I don’t have that kind of time. The fans are growing more callous to me by the show. No, this has to happen tonight.

“Necessito hablar con Raul.” I have to talk to Raul and express the urgency of the situation. Hector gives me a look that combines puzzlement and wariness. Then I hear the flopping of flip-flops coming down the hall. Karlita walks by in khaki pants and her school’s uniform navy blue polo shirt, drinking a Pepsi light.

“Hola,” she says to Hector and me as she passes. Then she steps into Raul’s office and closes the door. I start thinking. Yeah, wait, that just might work. Hector notices my pondering and his look grows much more wary.

“No mi amigo, no,” he says.

“Voy a hablar con Raul,” I say as I begin my stride back to the door. Stepping in, I find him still on his feet and pacing, while Karlita reclines comfortably in the chair in front of the desk, sipping her soft drink. “Raul, I want to still do the angle tonight. And I want to use Karlita.”

“Que?” she says, having heard her name but probably not understanding the context. Before Raul can object I continue.

“She’s a lot closer to my age than Consuela would have been, and she’s still innocent looking. People are going to buy into it for sure this way. And there’s not much for her to do. Give it a chance. I’m dying to do this.”

To his credit, Raul actually considers it for a second. (He’s a promoter, so he can never dismiss an idea until he’s first contemplated its money-making potential.) Karlita stares at her uncle then back at me with wide eyes, waiting to be clued in as to what is going on. Her posture has now switched from relaxed to straight up. “I tell you what,” Raul says. “We see what she wants to do. If she is fine with it, I am fine with it.”

“Alright,” I say. I have no idea how she will respond. Outside of the occasional “Hola” or “Hasta Luego,” I haven’t really spoken with Karlita since the day we first met. Raul turns to his niece to break down the offer in Spanish. She is smiling up until Raul makes the slapping motion, then she shows a look of concern. He stops talking and there is a pause, as we now wait for her to respond. She turns to me and asks a question in fast Spanish that I can’t understand.

Raul translates. “She wants to know how hard the slap will be.”

“Nada mucho,” I quickly answer, slapping my own face with moderately light force. “Nada mucho.” She looks down to think.

“Pues, lo creyo que hago.” She thinks she can do it.

“Todo bueno,” I answer. Raul tries to hide his surprised face.

“Well,” he says. “I’ll move you to third match so you can have more time to go over everything.” Karlita interjects, again with quick Spanish. Raul answers, and she walks out of the room. “She is going to change clothes. She has her gym shorts from school. It’s the best we can do on the short notice. Make sure she understands exactly how you want to do it. You got your Tumba Burro?” This is a slang term for the Spanish-English dictionary.

“Yeah.”

“Well, get to it. You’re up in about half an hour.”

“Alright,” I answer and get up to leave. As I walk down the hall, I wonder about what this will be like for Raul. Tonight might be a big moment for him, watching Karlita perform out there. When a girl has more luchadors at her quincenera than school friends, it seems inevitable that she’ll grow deeper (or sink further, if you prefer), into wrestling as she grows up. Perhaps tonight Raul will experience the same joy other adults get from watching their kid ride a bike for the first time or hit a homerun in a little league. Maybe while everyone else is booing me out of the building, he’ll be back here getting misty.

I come to the rarely used women’s changing room, and after a moment Karlita steps out in green Umbro style shorts and a white under shirt. She’s changed back into her plain white tennis shoes.

“Listo?” She’s asking if I’m ready.

“Pienso.” I think.

“Siete! Ocho! Nueve! Diez!” The crowd counts the punches that Guerrero Nuevo lands on me in the corner. He lets up, and I stumble out and fall crumpled in the center of the ring. So far the crowd heat (intensity) has been good. They must anticipate something with my new valet, and the fact that two technicales are fighting each other. Karlita wasn’t too nervous as she came down the entrance ramp with me moments ago, but in the few glances I’ve been able to make in her direction during the match, I’ve noticed a somewhat stressed out look on her face. That’s good though. Her man is starting to lose, and she’s concerned. At least, that’s what the fans will think. It’s coming time to finish the match, and I feel some nervousness welling up in my stomach. What happens in the next few minutes has the potential to establish me as one of the most hated heels in Mexico. This is not just my career; it’s my life.

Guerrero stops posing for the crowd and returns to me, his still grounded opponent. He bends down to bring me up, but I scratch him in the eye, a clear affront to the rules. This draws a few audible boos from the front row. Then I send him into the ropes and rise to my feet to deliver a mean clothesline. I look over to Karlita and tap on my head with my index finger around the temple, and she mirrors the gesture. This tells the crowd that we have a scheme plotted and that we are about to execute it. She turns around to face the fans, hopefully wearing the devious smile we practiced backstage.

The idea is that I’ll throw my opponent into the ropes on Karlita’s side, and she, with her back turned to the action, will reach a hand into the ring to trip him. However, the trick will go awry, because Guerrero will reverse the move. Karlita, with the most confident look on her face, will accidentally trip me instead.

I pick up Guerrero. “Vamanos,” I say. And then I thrust him hard towards the ropes. He plants his feet nicely, and whips me. Karlita sticks her hand behind her back and into the ring, and as I turn to hit the ropes, she trips me perfectly. I stand up with my hands on my nose, then walk right into a dropkick from Guerrero. “Uno! Dos! Tres!” I lose. The crowd is kind of excited at this point but not quite what I’d hoped for. I sit up slowly, and Guerrero leaves quickly, so as not to get in the way of this last part.

Karlita comes up the side steps and into the ring with pure contrition on her face. She has her hands over mouth, observing my defeated state, but she moves them every few seconds to say, loud and clear: “Lo siento. Lo siento.” I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

After a few more seconds, I make it to my feet and start fuming. “Que pase? Que pase?” I’m asking, what happened to our plan? She turns to leave the ring, but I grab her by the arm and pull her close. Now I’m screaming, “Que pase!? Que pase!?” The crowd is already starting to hiss. This is great. Now for the coup de grace. Ever so slowly I raise my hand up, nice and high so that even the cheap seats can see what’s coming. The crowd begins to roar. I rear back and…Karlita jumps on top of me. I fall back onto the canvas. The fans are now going crazy. Wait, I don’t know what’s going on here. I mean it; this wasn’t part of the plan.

She’s pummeling me with rapid fire punches. “No!” she shrieks. “No! No! No! No! No!”

“Karlita, Karlita,” I talk-whisper, totally out of character, trying to calm her down, but she can’t hear me. I manage with much difficulty to throw her off of me and run out of the ring to the back. As I get close to the curtain, I can hear some people in the crowd actually laughing at me. Laughter, this is terrible. When I get backstage, Raul is right there.

“What the hell happened?” He asks.

“I don’t know man. Karlita, I don’t know, she went nutso out there, started beating the crap out of me.”

“What?”

“I said she went psycho on me, right as I was about to slap her.” Hector comes walking through the curtain with excitement on his face.

“Raul, necesitas a verlo.” He said Raul needs to see what’s going on in the arena. The three of us quickly crowd up to the curtain to peek a view. What we see stuns Raul and me into silence. There is Karlita, strolling back up the ramp, waving abashedly at the crowd, to a standing ovation.

When she finally makes her way into the backstage area, her expression changes from happiness to worry, as she breathes a deep sigh. I think she knows what’s coming. Though I want to speak with her immediately, I know I must let Raul handle it. He knows more than me about never trying to change an angle on the fly. He walks over and really starts to let her have it. Of course, I can’t tell for sure what he’s saying, because it’s the fastest I’ve ever heard the Spanish language fly. Karlita locks her eyes on her shoes. But then, after several seconds of tirade, she finally pops her head up, with tears now coming down her cheeks. “Sabes por que!” she yells and then storms away, to the women’s restroom. That translates, you know why. Of course, I have no idea what the situation is, but whatever she was referring to, I think Raul understood it. He doesn’t follow her, and he doesn’t yell for her to stay. When he turns around, his face is totally devoid of anger, blank, stunned. He strides slowly over to me.

“Ah, kid, I think you should give her a few minutes to get cleaned up. And when you talk with her, try and listen. If her reason is what I think it is, it’s probably a good one.”

“Alright,” I answer, obviously still confused. To kill some time, I go ahead and hit the locker room to change out of my gear and take a quick shower. My back didn’t get beaten up too bad tonight, but I pop a pill anyway and rub on some Icy-Hot. If I don’t, it’ll hurt in the morning. Trust me. Then I gather up my things and go back down the hallway to look for Karlita. After pacing the hall a few times over, I’m surprised to find her just now coming out of the women’s bathroom. She must have been in there for twenty minutes. She notices me standing here, and she immediately tenses up.

“Podemos hablar?” I ask if we can talk. She lets out the same heavy sigh from her first steps backstage, then she concedes.

“Si.” We sit down on the bench close by.

“Pues, Que pase? Tienes miedo porque de la muchedumbre?” I’m asking if she got scared because of the crowd.

“No, no es.” It’s not that, she says. “No quiero decirte.” She said she didn’t want to tell me.

“Es bien, pero no voy a ser enojado.” That’s fine, I said, but I wasn’t going to get angry either way. She thought about that for a little bit.

“Okay, um, pues, sabes que vivo con mi tio?”

“Si,” I answer. She said, you know how I live with my uncle?

“Pues, vivo con Raul, porque cuando estaba viviendo con mi padre, me estaba golpeando.” I didn’t understand all of that. She said she used to live with her father, but wait, what does golpeando mean? I’ve heard that before.

“No comprendo,” I say. “Un momento.” I reach into my gym bag and grab the dictionary. Paging through to the G section, I find the word golpear. It means, oh damn. I look up from my little book to clarify. “Dices tu padre te golpeo?”

“Si,” She answered quietly, and my eyes fell back onto the page. Golpear, to strike. She had come to live with Raul, because her father was abusive. I put my arm around her. It feels natural because she looks so sad.

“Lo siento. Lo siento mucho.” I’m saying I’m sorry. I don’t really know how to express deep regret in her language, so I hope she gets my sincerity.

“No,” she answers in English. “You deed not know. I am sorry about your mat-ch.”

After this, she leans down and puts her head on my shoulder. She sniffles a little bit but manages to hold back the tears. “It’ll be alright,” I say. “It’s going to be okay. Everything, everything’s going to be fine.”

LA LUCHADOR PART 1 OF 4

Hey guys, thanks for coming back. First and foremost, a little info on me. I will be in Tennessee by Christmas. For now, I’m still on a cruise ship running from Port Canaveral to the Bahamas. And I know some of you must be wondering, when is Matt going to post some cool Caribbean photos? All he ever does is write.

 

Well, my peeps, the Bahama phots are coming. I walked around Nassau today and grabbed a lot of cool shots. I plan on posting a photo journal of the island in January, after my travels are over. Also, for those of you who dig the Better Know a Country section, I have made contacts with quiete a few interesting international folks in recent months. While those interviews are the most time intensive thing I do for the site, I will try to get another completed in early 2010. That’s a quick look at the future; now back to today.

 

This story centers around two things I love: Mexico and pro wrestling. If you’re not interested in either of those things, I hope that you still give it a chance. I was never athletic enough to consider wrestling as a career choice, but the WWE was the first company I applied to when I finished college. I’ve been a wrestling fan since 1st grade and have seen 16 live shows, including two in Mexico. So this story is sort of a love letter, and I guess if you extend the metaphor, it’s to a girl that otherwise doesn’t receive many. I hope you enjoy the tale and hey,  maybe you’ll even learn some Spanish along the way.

Bam! My back hits the mat from a hard running power slam. 2,000 cheering Mexicans rise to their feet. “Vamos a casa,” my opponent says to me. In English that translates, “Let’s go home.” In the ring, it means we finish the match. Of course, I didn’t need to be told the contest was about to end. Every Mexican wrestling fan worth their salsa knows that El Leon always sets his opponents up with the power slam before finishing them off with the desnivel hemorragia nasal or nose bleed drop. He picks up my limp carcass and hoists me on his wide shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Then with incredible grace for a 6’ 7” guy, he walks with me still across his shoulders, up the ropes to the top, then falls back, with my crumpled body breaking his twelve-foot fall. Our sixty-three year old ref slides in. I stare at the ceiling lights. The crowd counts as the old man’s hand comes down. “Uno! Dos! Tres!”

Okay, so I could have kicked out. And while I lay there for several moments unmoving, I could have opened my eyes. I could have gotten up. Yes, I was playing dead, faking it. But Manny’s (El Leon’s real name) move is great that way. It’s such a solid, cool-looking finisher. When you fall that far, it doesn’t feel right to kick out or get up. You feel like if you didn’t sell it (act) like you were dead, you would be spitting in the face of the wrestling gods. It’d be like…like kicking out of Hogan’s leg drop. That finisher is just one of the reasons the fans love Manny. He’s also got an impressive physique and an unflinching and intense interview style. He’s only 25, but with all those attributes there are already plans to move him into the world title picture in the summer. While I’m younger, having just turned 19 two weeks ago, I too have main event aspirations. Of course, everyone in this business does.

How did I get here, you ask. How did a white boy from Utah end up wrestling in a musty old arena in Guadalajara, Mexico, living in a two-bed apartment with three other young wrestlers and riding his bike to the shows for a flexible salary of $250 a month? Well, it certainly didn’t come easy. I always enjoyed amateur wrestling in high school, and I was good, really good. I was third in my weight class state-wide my junior year and then won it all in my senior. Up until that junior year I never dared imagine myself as a professional. I thought I’d go to a decent state school with a wrestling scholarship, get a degree in something not too difficult but very practical (my mom suggested accounting), find a nice girl, get married, have a white picked fence and 2.5 kids. The good life, you know.

But I had these friends, Marcus and Ron. They loved pro wrestling. Each of them had to have over a hundred tapes and DVD’s under their beds of pay-per-view shows going back thirty years. I never really got it. I mean, everybody knows that crap is fake. And all the ex-stripper women in their tight outfits. That isn’t sport, I thought. Marcus and Ron were persistent, though. They kept showing me the videos and eventually Ron brought in a tape from a company called CMLL out of Mexico. The style was called lucha libre or free-style wrestling. It was fast, it was fluid, sometimes even high-flying and dangerous. Now this really is sport, I thought. From then on, I was in love.

I had Ron order me a half dozen more tapes from Mexican promotions and then watched them all within a week. By that point I was already tired of studying; I wanted to train. But as you may have already guessed, there were no lucha libre teachers in the Salt Lake City area. So I took to the internet and found a few schools in the border states. That summer, I flew down to Tucson in the best shape of my life and worked my ass off for the six free weeks I had to learn all I could about my new passion.

After senior year I put off three very solid wrestling scholarships to return to Arizona to study again with Ignacio, the ex-wrestler in charge of the gym. After two months, he’d seen enough to connect me with his friend Raul’s promotion out of Guadalajara. The money was of course not so great, but I was pretty sure I could live down there without dipping too deep into my savings or getting another job. I informed my worried parents of my decision and tried to convince my mom there was no chance of me getting hurt, though we both knew that was a lie. After a few days, they reluctantly relinquished their blessing.

Ignacio knew I was good, and after my first workout in Mexico, Raul agreed. Sweaty and sore, I climbed out of the ring of the 3,000 seat arena with a toothy grin on my face. All my spots (big moves) had been on. “Beautiful,” Raul said, as I grabbed a towel from my gym bag. “You got it kid, but don’t you get a big head. I’ve known guys with twice your talent who still couldn’t draw flies if they were covered with [expletive deleted]. Listen, maybe one day people will cheer you because they respect you, but amigo, that’s a good ways down the road. Right now, you need to figure out a way to make everyone who comes into this arena love you or hate you. You can become a very rich man in this business if you can make everyone hate you, and I think it’s funner, you know. I was almost always a rudo (bad guy) in my days. But either way, they gotta feel something whenever they see you walk through the curtain, down here.” At this, the stout middle-aged man with a handle-bar mustache began poking me in my stomach. “You get no reaction. Eventually, you got no job. Comprende?”

“Yes…sir. Yes sir.” I knew he was trying to intimidate me, and it was working.

“Your first match is in two weeks. We’ll start you out tecnicale (good guy), then we’ll see. You’ll fight Pepe. He’s been around awhile. Make sure you don’t party too much early on. I want you training with Pepe at least three times before the show. And we gotta get you a costume.” He turned towards the shabby office area. “Karlita!” Turning back to me, he continued, “My niece is the, how do say, seamstress?”  The girl who stepped out of the office must have still been in high school. In baggy jeans and a gray t-shirt, she had short, wavy brown hair, gray eyes, and no make-up. She wasn’t very pretty, but her skin was that bronze tone that every non-hispanic girl is tanning for.

“Yeah, seamstress is the right word.” Raul turned to Karlita and began speaking Spanish at super speed. Despite my best efforts, my public high school courses had not prepared me for this practical test in the language. I caught a few words as Raul gestured towards my legs and chest. “Azul…Amarillo…Plata.” I knew the first two were blue and yellow. But what was plata? I guessed I’d find out soon enough.

When Raul slowed down, Karlita interrupted, pointing at my head. “Que acerca de una mascara?” No, she wasn’t asking about eyeliner. I knew from my wrestling tapes that mascara was the word for mask. Raul turned to me and rubbed his chin, pondering the decision. The mask is a reverent subject in Mexican wrestling. Your mask is your honor. You end the most heated feuds of your career by either cutting off your opponent’s hair or taking off his mask, both humiliating and devastating fates to face.

“Pienso no mascara,” Karlita said. Then she pointed to my blonde hair. “Rubios les gustan a chicas.” She said the girls like blondes. Despite my best efforts, I think I was blushing.

“Bueno,” Raul answered. “Pero no va a ser un guapo.” That meant I wasn’t handsome enough to play the pretty boy, and at that, my red cheeks lost their redness. “Okay, no mascara.” It seemed my career wouldn’t bear the weight of the mask.

Karlita turned to me. “Vamos,” she said and walked backstage to the office. I followed.

“Try to speak Spanish man,” Raul said. “Her English, it’s not so good.”

“Sure,” I answered. Beside the office, there was a small wardrobe room, which Karlita led me into it. Inside I looked around to see a sewing machine on a card table in the corner and piles of fabric scattered around the floor.

“Here,” she said, handing me measuring tape. “May-shure yourself.” She grabbed a pencil and pad from the table, and I gave her my neck, chest and waist measurements. “Legs,” she said. I held one end of the tape to my waist and let it drape down to my shoes.

“I think it’s forty inches. Uh, cuarenta.” She wrote it down.

“Ah-ther one,” she said.

“Um, I think they are the same length.” I put the tape on the other leg. “You know, same, el mismo.” She started to giggle. “What? Que es? What?”

“No, no,” she said. “Put it on da…um.”

“What is that? I don’t understand. No entiendo. Donde lo pongo?”

“It’s the, un momento,” she said with a raised index finger. She went back over to open the door. “Raul!” she yelled. “Si?” he yelled back. She jogged out to him. “Que es la palabra para …?” she asked. He answered something and she jogged back to the room. With a relieved smile, she declared, “Put it on da ca-rotch.”

“Oh,” I said. I’d forgotten about the in-seam. I measured. “35. Treinta y cinco” Karlita was giggling again. I couldn’t help it; I started laughing too.

“Okay,” she said. She put the pad and paper down and headed to one of the piles of fabric. “Amarillo, azul, y plata,” she muttered to herself. “Amarillo, azul, y plata.” She pulled a hunk of dark blue from the pile. “Azul.” Down a few more layers, she found some bright yellow. “Amarillo.” It looked a little flamboyant.

“Um, no necessito mucho de el amarillo.” I said I didn’t need a lot of that color.

“Yo se. Solo un piquito,” she said, which means I know, only a little. She pretended to flex her muscles. “Tienes ser macho, si?”

“Si,” I had to be macho. She finished digging through the pile, then moved on to the one next to it.

“Plata, plata,” she said. I still didn’t know what this mystery color was. Whatever she was looking for she didn’t find it in the second pile either and so she checked out the third and final pile on the other side of the room. “Plata, plata, ay ay ay.” She finally tracked it down. “Aqui,” she said, yanking something out. Then I saw it, a lovely silver chest plate.

“Cool,” I said.

“Si, es cool,” she said. “I vill put da blue and yaylow on it tonight. Come back tomb-orrow.”

“Okay, thank you. Eres una estudiante?” I was asking if she was in school.

“Si, tengo diez y seis anos. Trabajo despues de colegio.” She said she was sixteen and worked here after school. “Como te llamas?”

“Gilbert.”

“Gil-bert,” she repeated back to me.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Pues, hasta manana Gilbert.”

“Hasta manana.” With that, I walked back out into the arena for two more hours of hard training.

I stumble through the curtain to the back stage area after my match. Manny grabs me gently by the arm. “Nice stuff out there man.”

“Thanks,” I answer and we walk over to the locker room. Once there we find our gym bags and start taking off our gear.

“Crowd’s a little dead tonight,” Manny says, pulling off his tanned mask with blonde mane. His face is a little beat up, but he’s got that rugged look girls find sexy. “It’s a shame.”

“Yeah.” The truth was, the crowd wasn’t really dead that night. They just weren’t into me, even when working with a hot talent like El Leon. The ring attire Karlita had made was beautiful: the silver chest plate with dark blue trim, which matched the blue of the pants with silver and yellow side stripes, then metallic black arm pads to match my boots. Despite all this quality fashion, after nearly nine months in Mexico, the fans were yet to show any serious interest in me. I had pulled every nice guy trick in the book. I had fought two on one against the top rudos. I had signed autographs for kids during my ring entrance. I even ran in to save one of the defenseless announcers when a frustrated rudo tried to beat him up. Yes, all of these were set ups, but I did them with the most courageous and sincere look on my face. And yet I wasn’t met with cheers. I was met with indifference. Raul has been very reluctant to move me to rudo, because I’m so young and don’t look like a mean guy, but I think we’ve got to make a change and soon.

At this point, my ego may be bruised but not nearly as bad as my spine. My back has been [expletive deleted] up for the last month. I don’t use that type of language usually, but if you felt the way I did after some of these matches, you’d understand that is the only fitting word for the situation. You’re sort of your own pharmacist in Mexico, but I’m really trying to keep my prescription pain-killer intake low. I confessed my mounting frustrations to my mom on the phone a few weeks ago. Yesterday, I received her response from UPS, a freshman level economics book. It’s nice to know she supports my dream.

Having changed into my street clothes, I grab my bag and head for the door. Hector, the back stage manager pops his head in the room. “Eh Manny, tienes algunas aficionadas afuera.” Manny has some lady fans waiting for him outside. At this, I quickly turn around to help Manny pull one of the benches over to the wall. Then we both hop up on it to get a good look out of the only window in the locker room. There, only about twenty feet away, stand two very excited, very hot women with skirts that climb higher than Sherpas. Manny hops down off the bench, unbuttoning a few more buttons at the top of his dress shirt. He fishes his hand into his gym bag to retrieve his mask.

Putting it back on, he declares, “Ay, work never ends.”

“Poor guy,” I answer.

“Yeah,” Hector adds, as Manny walks briskly by him and out the door. I know it sounds weird to put a mask on to go out, but like any superhero, El Leon must protect his identity. Although, I sometimes wonder if any of the discotech owners ever realize that two of their wildest and best customers (Manny and El Leon) never seem to come in on the same night. “Oh y tambien, Gilbert,” Hector says. “El jefe quiere verte.” That meant Raul wants to see me. My stomach tightens up immediately. What now? Another lecture on wrestling psychology? Another warning about what a short leash I’m on? I grab my stuff and walk less than eagerly down to his office. I knock on the wooden door with closed blinds.

“Come in,” Raul says. I hesitantly step in, only to find Raul not his usual stern self, but wearing a warm smile on his face. “Please Gilbert, sit down,” he says, gesturing towards the chair in front of his stark desk. I want to be relieved, but I also don’t want to assume anything. He may only be smiling because he’s so happy to be dropping dead weight from his roster. “Gilbert, I brought you in to let you know the situation. You’ve worked very hard since you’ve been here. And you’re not near as green in the ring as some who have been doing this much longer, so I am going to hold on to you. But I am done trying to get the fans to like you. I know you’ve wanted to turn (switch from good guy to bad guy) for a while now, and we’re going to make that happen at next week’s show.”

“Awesome.”

“Yeah, you’re going on first, in a tag team match with El Suave against Los Bufalos. When you lose and Suave tries to help you up, you punch him in the mouth. We’ll have you guys feud after that.” It’s an old formula, time-tested but not fool proof. Considering the importance of this turn to my career’s future, I feel I’ve got to object to something so unoriginal.

“Um, may I say something?” Raul looks surprised.

“Okay, let’s hear it.”

“Well, it’s just that, that setup depends on the fans really being interested in me and Suave as a team. We’ve only tagged together a few times before. Also, while Suave is more over (popular with the fans) than me, he isn’t that over. I don’t think he’ll necessarily be able to pull me up with him, even if our feud gets really heated and violent.” Raul was obviously taken back by my critique.

“Then what do you suggest?” I was waiting for that.

“Well, you know how you said a rudo must be hated? Well, I’ve been trying to think, what’s the easiest way to make people hate you? Now you mistreat a friend, everyone’s done that. Yeah, it’s not cool, but it’s kind of hard to look down on. What I need to be is something worse.” I pulled an old copy of the local paper out from the bottom of my gym bag. In the center of the front page, there was a picture of a man in a business suit wearing handcuffs and being led out of an office building by the police. Above the picture, the Spanish headline translated to, “City official arrested on charges of spousal abuse.” I tossed the paper on the desk and continued. “If some punk gringo disrespects a woman, the people will pay to see him get his ass kicked. What about next week, you find me a valet? During my match, she distracts me somehow, so I lose. Then I bring her in the ring, get on the mike, berate her, then just once, slap her across the face. That’s all it’ll take.”

At first, Raul’s gaze stays down on the paper. “That’s dastardly, cowardly, evil stuff Gilbert.” It takes him a few more seconds but eventually, he looks up. “I love it.”

A LETTER TO THE FRUSTRATED GIRLS

Hey guys, welcome back. This letter was written to a Welsh girl named Kayleigh, who worked as a dancer on a ship with me back in the spring. Kayleigh was a total sweetheart, but she had a few moments during our time together when she was stressed by her romantic life. I won’t go into any details there, other than to say that she would kind of jokingly ask me from time to time, what’s up with you guys? And by “you guys,” she wasn’t talking about musician guys or American guys; she was talking about the entire male population. I gave her this response right towards the end of our contracts as a bit of a goodbye gift. I’m pretty interested in comments on this one. Enjoy.

Well, you asked me what’s the deal with guys. Maybe you wanted a serious answer; maybe you didn’t. If not, this should be a lesson to you to not ask for something unless you really want it. But hopefully, this will instead be a little wisdom that will serve you well the next time you try and understand us.

Many women say a good guy is hard to find, and while it’s true in some cases, it’s not quite accurate. And frankly, it sort of reflects a misunderstanding of the whole situation. Forgive me for putting the onus back on the fairer sex, but I would say a good guy is rarely found, only because good guys are rarely sought. I mean, come on, what women do you know who initiate romantic relationships by first asking the question, “Who’s the best guy I know? Is he single?” That’s simply not the way it’s done. So what do women do? Much like men, they give the immediate physical attraction way too much credence. When the attraction is mutual, both persons try to be extra nice to one another, because we’re nice to people whom we find good-looking. There really is nothing wrong with that, but the problem comes when we mistake that mutual kindness being shown for compatibility, which it certainly is not. Then, because we believe we have found a compatible person, we begin making an internal commitment to the individual and the relationship. This allows couples to continue to cling to each other for weeks, months, and even years after their incompatibility has become clear to everyone around them.

And where are the “good guys” in the whole process? Well, they often fall to the wayside, and here’s why. Many (and I would guess most) times, a guy “gets” a girl by being two things: a salesman and a hunter. A salesman has confidence in what he’s trying to sell, in this case himself. He builds a case of why you should buy his product. He pushes but is careful not to let you notice he’s pushing. And in the end, he is determined enough to make a sale that he won’t mind bending the truth a little bit to make his product look better. And a hunter is someone going after something with a hunger. They’re focused, they’re persistent, and in the end, they’d rather take from others than have nothing.

Now, it’s a problem if guys are perennially in these states of mind. However, many a nice guy has become the salesman or the hunter for a few weeks in order to make sure he got a chance with a girl he was really into or really cared about. And it’s human nature to pursue the opposite sex with a certain measure of focus and intensity. These aren’t necessarily evil sides of the male persona. But the bottom line truth of it is, some of the best guys feel very uncomfortable being salesmen or hunters. They don’t want to slyly brag on themselves in conversation. They don’t want to work any kind of strategy when it comes to romance. They don’t want to ever risk forcing a girl to do anything she wouldn’t want to do. And sadly for all concerned, as a result of those noble choices, those guys often do without. The girls never get around to finding them, because they’re too busy listening to a sales pitch or being pursued.

I could never be objective enough to tell you how good a guy I am, but I didn’t come up with these ideas by looking in a mirror. I have a friend who for privacy’s sake, we’ll call Jimmy, who I consider one of the good guys, and he told me the story of a girl who we’ll call Noelle (we are getting close to Christmas time, and it’s such a pretty name anyway.) Jimmy and Noelle spent their first few years of college as close friends. And all their friends were whispering around them about how they’d make a great couple. Those friends had a point because Jimmy and Noelle got along really well, shared many conversations over mutual interests, and were both majoring in music at the time. She had a boyfriend though, who we’ll call Red. Yeah, he was kind of a jerk, but Jimmy was respectful and never tried to make a move, even though Noelle seemed to be into him. He didn’t want to be the guy who swoops in and steals the girl away. He wasn’t a hunter.

Then finally, Noelle broke up with that jerk boyfriend, and Jimmy had it on good authority that she broke up with the boyfriend because of him. So after displaying great patience, he started to “make his move.” Nothing big, just trying to talk to her after a performance or offering an occasional invitation to a movie or dinner. It was weird though. After being so close to Jimmy while she was with another guy, Noelle all the sudden became very evasive. The dinner invites were turned down, the post-performance talks abruptly wrapped up. See ya later’s came quicker than ever before. She soon enough moved on to another boyfriend, and it all led to a falling out that left Jimmy and Noelle not talking for a whole semester. They eventually reconciled and began rebuilding the friendship, but Jimmy to this day is still kind of frustrated talking about it. As he told me when we discussed it recently over e-mail, “once she broke up with Red, any romantic interest in me apparently ended as well.” I don’t think that was a coincidence.

But like I said, they did reconcile and spent the rest of their time in undergrad. as friends. In fact, a few days after graduation, Jimmy took Noelle out to a new restaurant, because there was a dish on the menu that was made up of several different foods he knew she liked. She was a little too tired from a busy symphony schedule to fully appreciate the gesture, but it was still a decent meal. They ate, they talked, he drove her back to her apartment. They said goodbye and parted ways. A few days later both left town. It’s not an exciting story, and it’s not a real happy ending. And yes, I know, Jimmy could have been a little more aggressive. But I’m glad there are guys like Jimmy out there, who err on the side of respect and refuse to give into bitterness when their choices don’t work out. And you know, I think women should be too. I doubt there are many hunters or salesmen who would have kept their distance like Jimmy did while Noelle had a boyfriend. Most would at least have laid some groundwork. I also doubt those guys would have finished college still friends with Noelle had they been in the same situation. Instead of spending their time reconciling, they probably would have spent their time telling all their buddies how she was a tease, or worse.

So Kayleigh, my friend, if you find yourself re-reading this note years after I give it to you, once again frustrated with the male population, I guess I just have one question. Who’s the best guy you know?

=Matt=

A LETTER TO THE FUNNY GIRLS

What is up, my peep? The next few weeks I’ll be posting letters I’ve written to girls. I may have edited them if there was something too private or changed some names, but for the most part you’re getting my exact correspondence. Now for this post, I’ll be sharing a letter I wrote to an Australian girl named Jessica. When I met her, we were both just starting out working on cruise ships, I with my music and she as a social host. For those who don’t know, social hosts run all sorts of activities around the ship to keep the guest entertained: bingo, trivia, battle of the sexes, pool games, etc. I felt this job suited Jessica quite well, since she exhibited a fun-loving personality and also because she was flat-out hilarious. Jessica was also a fellow musician, and I still have the demo CD of original songs she gave me.

 

A few weeks ago, I posted an essay on humor, and this letter continues on that topic. I think it will be especially appreciated by those readers who have been told they were funny before, especially the females. Let’s face it, almost everyone lists a sense of humor as something they desire in a mate. So humor in the context of romance, which this letter certainly focuses on, should be of interest to all of us. But that cross-section is rarely discussed, at least in my experience. Perhaps this can be a starting point. Please post your thoughts on this one if you have time. Oh, and just one side note, this letter often refers to “goofy” guys or girls. That was really just a catch-all term for any funny people, not just those of the silly style.

Jessica, I think, it’s a real shame that you’re good-looking.  Let me explain.  See every good-looking girl always has guys interested in her.  And if she is even half-way down to earth or nice, the flood of guys practically never stops.  Now some of those interested in you will be nice guys; others will just be pretending.  I don’t think you have had or will have trouble figuring out which is which.  That is neither my business nor my interest as this time.

No, my concerns lie elsewhere.  You see, you’ve got this certain goofy side to you but not just goofy.  You also have a quick wit, which I think no one can have without a certain degree of intelligence.  I’m sure you remember that I’ve complimented you on these things a few times since I’ve been here.  Now that type of stuff attracts a different type of a guy, and that’s the thing that I want to focus in on.  With these good looks, kindness, conversational ability, you probably won’t have a problem finding one of the genuinely nice, smart, caring guys.  But I speak now not only for myself but also for my goofy brethren throughout the world.  There are a great number of goofy guys out there, and many of us can’t seem to connect with the girls.  We embarrass them with some stupid dance or offend them with a joke.  Or maybe we just get bored with the demure or the subtle.  And every time it doesn’t work out, we’ve got those friends who say, “Don’t worry man; there’s a chick out there for you.”  And it’s true.  There are a few goofy chicks out there but only a few.  And it sucks to find one who’s still busy with the average nice guys.

I say it sucks, but it doesn’t just suck for us, the goofy guys.  It’s not the best for those rare goofy girls either.  Of course, I don’t really know if you’re one of those girls.  I have an inkling that you are, but I don’t know.  Now, I might be completely off base here, but I am going to try and tell you about yourself.  If you like what you’re hearing than it will prove me right.  If not, then at least we’ll know.  There is a possibility that you have a goofy side, but you’ve never really contemplated it.  In that case, make sure you think through this a little bit before dismissing it.

This funny side you possess, has it gotten you into trouble before?  Or maybe not into trouble but got you real close to it?  Have friends and family told you to turn it down, mellow it out, or pull it back at various moments in your life?  And have you found that even when you try to pull the reins in on it, you can’t really do it?  Asking you to change that side of your personality is like asking you to change the color of your hair or your eyes by mere force of will?  It can’t be done.  But that’s okay with you, right?  Because you didn’t really want to pull it back or change it anyway.   And whenever people critique your humorous approach, you remember back to that time, when you made the people around you laugh during a moment when they should have been crying, when your silliness made people forget about their pain.  You remember all the times you’ve looked in the mirror in an empty room and made funny faces for no one but yourself.  And you remember lying in bed at night and using that comic perspective to pull yourself out of a bad mood, without relying on even one other person’s help.  And it’s those things, that so few people notice, that ironically make you take your comic side very seriously.  Your jokes are no joke to you.  They’re in your soul, as much a part of you as your hometown or your childhood friends.  As much a part of you as your songs or your prayers.

You might not understand any of that.  If that’s the case, then I have misjudged you.  It’s completely my fault, and I apologize for wasting your time.  But if even part of that felt like something you would actually say or think or feel, then never forget what I’m about to tell you.  It would be a crime, a crime, to both you and all the guys like me, if you ended up with a nice guy instead of a goofball.  The average smart, nice guy may tolerate your humor.  He might even enjoy it, but he won’t be able to really appreciate it, not like a goofball would.  And it’s because he’s never cured a bad day like you have.  He’ll think you have a quirky personality, but he won’t understand it’s magic.  You shouldn’t be with a guy who makes you smile but never makes you laugh.

There’s another letter on the way next week.  See you then.

=Matt=

ONE OF MY FAVORITE POEMS

Hello  all!  I’ve loved this poem for a long time.  It was written by my paternal grandfather while he was serving our country in Europe during World War II.  It was my honor to read it at my high school graduation, but I haven’t shared it with a big group since.  My grand-dad celebrated his 87th birthday on Halloween, so I figure now’s a good time to share it once again.

 

Ode to My Unknown Buddy

No doubt the world looks strange to you my boy

As now you gaze upon the open road

It’s true you’ll find a lot that you’ll enjoy

But just outside your door there waits a load.

A load of sorrow you alone must bare

Of heartaches, disappointments, pain, and strife

For you and you alone must pay the fare

Yes this my lad is what makes up your life

You’re waking in world that’s made with rage

Where man fights man and yet he knows not why

And now as history turns another page

It’s true the strong will live, the weak must die.

With eager eyes the people now await you

And at one trivial fault the whole world scorns

But you can find a place where man won’t hate you

If you can pick the roses from the thorns.

The world will pass you by and never wonder

If they can lend a hand to ease your pain

So watch your step my lad and never blunder

For you must find a refuge from the rain.

You must attain the heights where words don’t harm you.

When cursed you turn your head and carry on

When others fall don’t let their fall alarm you

Forget what’s left behind for it is gone.

Arise my boy you know now what’s before you

It’s up to you to even up the score

And with success the whole world will adore you

Then you will find this life worth fighting for.

I hope you all can find the shelter and pick the roses in your own lives.

That’s all for this week.

=Matt=

A QUICK DEFENSE OF MY FAVORITE SENSE

I’m not trying to brag or anything, but hey, I’m a pretty funny guy. You’ve only seen a little bit of it in my posts, because I consider this website a serious project. But Brad and other friends will tell you, I can be anything from a witty raconteur to a flat out goofball depending on what I’m feeling literally in the second that I’m talking with them. Most people seem to get my humor; some don’t. It bugs me a little when people don’t laugh, but what really bugs me is some of the presumptions people make about people with a sense of humor. Some unfunny people label us as not just disrespectful, but even immature and irresponsible. I find those perceptions quite erroneous.

Now I could see how someone could arrive at the false conclusion that the folks with goofy personalities are immature. Let’s face it, you can’t watch an American comedy movie without seeing a grown man behave like a little kid. It’s sort of a hallmark of Western film. But come on, you’ve got to remember that’s acting. Jim Carrey isn’t Ace Ventura in his day-to-day life, and he never has been. He lives and faces the real world as much as anyone else, including his father’s death at an early age from depression and his step-child’s battle with autism. If a person really assumes you’re immature because of the characters you play, that’s a sign of their immaturity. The inability to differentiate between real life and movies is common among younger children but not adults. If someone thinks the guys in the comedy movies are really goofballs, what do they think of the actors that play murderers? Now you may say, “Yeah, I know Jim Carrey probably has a serious side, but it’s his job to make people laugh. I’ve got a friend who just seems to joke around all the time, and he’s no professional comedian.” Well, it is important to be serious sometimes, if the situation calls for it, but don’t you think people were saying the same thing about Jim Carrey 25 years ago? Whether they’re making millions or just lightening up the room, funny people are only acting immature. Don’t be fooled by false indicators. You want to evaluate someone’s maturity, you look at their life choices, not how many jokes they cracked at dinner.

Along those lines, I had an exchange with an English teacher back in high school that may always stick with me. We were watching a movie version of Tennessee Williams’ play The Glass Menagerie. In the climactic scene, the female lead and the young gentleman caller exchange a deep kiss. Then the gentleman steps back and after a pause offers the girl a stick of gum. Now, in reading the play at home days before, I was really into the story and loved when the two characters finally did kiss. But in the class, as we watched it, I decided to be funny. When the gentleman offered the lady gum, I said, “Hey, she must have had some pretty bad breath.” It got a solid laugh. Then my teacher, a woman named Mrs. Ireland said, “Matt, you’ve totally missed the beauty of that moment.” Now, I was pulling an A in her class at the time, so she could have cut me some slack, but let’s dig a little further than that.

Why would she assume I didn’t get the poignancy of the scene just because I made a joke? Did she presume that my joke could only come by looking at the scene exclusively as potential joke fodder? Did she believe it impossible for me to simultaneously view something on both a comedic and a more serious critical level? Because I know it certainly is possible to maintain those dual perspectives. Perhaps it’s just inconceivable for a closed-minded person.

And that’s really where this whole immaturity claim falls apart. As we look seriously at what being funny entails (and yes I note the irony), we see the humorist doing a lot of thing not associated with immaturity. First of all, to be considered funny you must have a quick mind. Beyond that, you must be analytical and eager to constantly look at things from different perspectives. Comedians, by nature, approach every new idea and situation with that general mentality, and that’s why they seemingly “find the funny” in the moment before everyone else does.

We even have a word in English that connects humor and intelligence: wit. It’s hidden in plain sight smack dab in the middle of our language, but it’s a clear indicator that at some level, Western culture recognizes its funny people are smart. Despite this, I’ve already experienced several times in my life when my comedic personality has caused people to underestimate my ability to do my job, lead a project, and generally just “take care of business.” I’ve enjoyed slipping under the radar and proving people wrong, but man, I’d prefer higher expectations. They keep me honest, and they are, in the end, a way of showing respect. On the flip side, low expectations are a sign of disrespect. Yes, comedians can be irreverent to the point of disrespect themselves, and it is important to find a good line. But often times, our sternest critics end up sounding very hypocritical. When you choose to pigeon-hole us as goofballs despite our hard-work or professionalism in our work or school life, then you try to turn around and lecture about respect, you really don’t have a leg to stand on.

Oh, one-legged man, that reminds me of a joke.

Peace Out Till Next Week Peeps,

=Matt=

PS If you dug this post, I suggest you find a copy of the Charlie Chaplin film The Great Dictator. If you can rent a copy with a documentary of Chaplin’s quest to make the anti-Nazi movie in the late 1930’s, it would definitely be worth your time.

SOMETHING I’LL BE DOING SOON

I’ve got something on my to-do list that I keep avoiding, but I know I should start it soon. You see, it’s one of those things that won’t be fun, in fact it could even be heart-wrenching, but the more I think about it, the more essential I think it is. I’m going to create an insurance policy for my family and friends. Now, it’s probably not what you’re thinking. This policy won’t involve an agency and won’t have anything to do with money. No, this is strictly emotional insurance, but before I explain any further, let me first tell you about the events led me to this idea.

My kindergarten teacher was a woman I called Mrs. Ratchford. And in all the years since leaving her classroom, I’ve honestly never learned her first name. I do know her husband was a cop, and she had two boys, both a little younger than me (I’m now 25 for those who don’t know.) I also know, through a friend who lives near her, that her family has remained in Chattanooga for the twenty years since I moved on to 1st grade. I know my brother had Mrs. Ratchford the year before me and that my mom really liked her. I even remember once back in my elementary school days going with mom over to Mrs. Ratchford’s house, and of course, being at a teacher’s house seemed totally neat to me back then.

Unfortunately, I’ve recently learned some new things about Mrs. Ratchford and her family. I know one of her boys suffered from migraines. I know that one day, not even a year ago, her son had a particularly bad headache, and they assumed it was a migraine. I know it got so bad they decided to take him to the hospital. I know he fell down walking out to the car, collapsed I guess you’d say. I don’t know how long he laid there on that driveway, but I know he didn’t get back up. Mrs. Ratchford’s son died at his home of an aneurysm at only twenty-three years old. I’m sure his family would still appreciate your prayers.

“Life is precious.” We’ve all heard it. “Treat each day like it’s your last.” That one too. I’d advise you to never ignore a saying just because it’s become cliché’, but I don’t just want to leave you with a few good words today. I want to give you something practical. A home owner knows there might be a flood, so he buys flood insurance for his house. A car owner knows he might have a wreck, so he gets collision coverage for his car. Many people with families also have something called life insurance to help pay for their funeral, as well as to give their families a financial cushion while they get back on their feet. And these life insurance policies are sold on the idea of “taking care of the one’s you love.” But that sales pitch begs the question, in the case of your death, will your family’s only needs be financial? God, I hope not. If you have any type of family or any type of friend in your life, they would experience a deep emotional need if you passed away unexpectedly. But you can be wise and plan for the future.

Five letters, to whomever you choose. Tell them what you like about them, what you love, what experiences you’ve shared and have since always treasured. Tell them everything you were afraid to talk with them about, but you know is important. And most importantly, encourage them in what you believe they are and can become. No guilt trips. No promises. Just as much love and honesty as you can muster. If you can only think of four people that are close enough to you do this for, that’s fine. If you want to go for six or seven, that’s okay too. If you want to write some of the letters to families instead of individuals, go right ahead. You can update the letters every year or every ten. The details are totally up to you.

Once you have your final drafts finished, make copies. Put a complete set of letters in an envelope and give them to a someone you trust. Then give the other set to another person you trust who has never met and will likely never meet the first person. This is so that there’s little risk that a group tragedy (like a bad car wreck) could kill you and your two insurance holders at the same time. You might even want to give it a third person just to be safe. I know this is getting a little morbid for some of you, and that’s the reason a lot of people don’t plan for the unexpected. They’re scared to talk about it, or it just makes them too uncomfortable. But I have to be honest in saying that yielding to that discomfort is a form of selfishness. You do love these people that you’re going to write to, right? Well, sometimes tough love takes on a whole new meaning.

Speaking of tough, I’m being pretty tough on you, my readers, especially considering I’ve yet to tackle this project myself. But I promise I’m going to. Those around me will be better off for it, and there not the only ones. I have a feeling in the moments of deep reflection that these letters require, I’ll take a few steps in becoming a better son, brother, nephew, and friend. And on top of all that, I’ll rest a little easier knowing I’m insured.

That’s all for this week.    Take care.

=Matt=

THOSE KIDS ARE GONNA MAKE IT PART 3 OF 3

Hello all,

I know I’m posting a day earlier than usual but I figure better than a day late.  I am still working on a cruise ship and since we are back in port on Thursdays, it’s just more convenient for me to post then.  The writing still gets on the site in advance of the weekend, which is the only thing that really matters to me.  I’m guessing you guys don’t mind.  Thanks for being cool; enjoy the rest of the story:

On the morning of May 2^nd, I sat in my car outside of a medium-sized brick church with stain-glassed windows of mixed pink, blue, and yellow.  A winding concrete pathway cut through dewy grass and led up to two large white doors, the church’s main entrance.  But I wasn’t interested in the main entrance.  I wanted to go behind the scenes.  I wanted to find Annie.   I felt like I had something worth telling her.

So I walked through the parking lot back behind the chapel to the adjoining two-story rectangular building.  There I found an unlocked door and entered to a long hallway, flanked by Sunday school classrooms.  The carpet was green, and the walls were a fresh white, probably recently painted.  Down the hallway, what I assumed were Slomans and Wavermyers scurried around, nervously addressing last minute details and paying no attention to the stranger standing at the end of the hall.

The closest person to me was a little girl, maybe eight or nine, in a purple dress and white sandals, holding a white basket in front of her full of purple and white flowers.  I stepped over to her.  “Hello, my name’s Warren.  What’s yours?”

“Jacqueline,” she said, with an air of formality which was completely undermined by her two missing front teeth.

“Well you look very pretty today Jacqueline.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“Say, you wouldn’t happen to know where Annie is right now, would you?”  Jacqueline took one hand off her basket and pointed to a closed door about fifteen feet down the hall.

“In there,” she said.  I moved in that direction but then turned around for another question.

“Do you know if she’s alone, Jacqueline?”  She cocked her head to the right as her shoulders did a high shrug.  “All right, well thank you anyway.”

“You’re welcome,” she said.  I was at the door.  I leaned my forehead gently against it and held that position for a few seconds, gathering myself, before reaching down to the golden brass handle, turning, opening, and walking in.

Annie was alone, sitting down, but she quickly stood up.  Her hair was straight once again, except at the ends, and it hung down in front past her shoulders.   Her wedding dress had a veil (still up) and a plunging neckline, which showcased a golden necklace with pink gemstones.  Something borrowed?  I didn’t know.  The dress only went slightly past her knees, so her heavenly ankles and her rope bracelet were still in clear view.  Her lips were a darker shade of red than she ever wore to the cafeteria.

“Wow,” I said, “You look beautiful.”

“Thanks,” she answered.  Then with a nervous laugh, “I’m sorry, have I met you -already?  There were just so many people at that rehearsal dinner last night that I-”

“No, I wasn’t around last night.  I’m an old friend of Josh’s, and I just wanted to give you some advice I guess before you go out and, you know, tie the knot.”

“Oh, okay,” she said.  “Hey, I like your vest.”

“Thank you. I-I’ve always worn a lot of blue.  Some people think of it as a sad color, but I never understood why.”

“That’s kind of interesting,” she said with what seemed to be genuine interest, nodding with wide eyes.

“Really?”  I said, digging into my jacket pocket and pulling out the crumpled sheet of paper where all my questions had waited for her.  “I actually have been trying the last few years to, keep this list of questions, and,” then I stopped.  What I am doing, I thought.  “I’m sorry, I realize your time is limited.”  I folded up the sheet and put it back in pocket.  “What I want to share is an important lesson I’ve learned.  Just always give yourself a chance.  It doesn’t matter if you look stupid some times.  It’s okay to lose, but you never have to forfeit.”

“That sounds good,” she said.  “I’ll try to remember that.”

“Thanks.  Well, good luck.”  Then I leaned in and kissed Annie Wavermyer on the cheek.    I’m not really sure if that was appropriate, but I promise it wasn’t planned.  And she didn’t seem bothered by it.  “Take a deep breath,” I said.  “It’s going to be great.”  As Annie breathed, I turned and walked back to the door.

“Wait,” she said.  “I don’t think you told me your name.”

“My name is Warren.”

“Nice to meet you, Warren.”

“It was nice to have met you, Annie.”  Then I walked out the door.  That’s was all I had really come here for.  I stood there wondering, should I stay for the ceremony?  Would it be tough to watch?  Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw Josh with a bow tie in his hands walking into one of the rooms.  And I suddenly had the urge to go talk to him.  If that advice I had just given was good enough for the bride, shouldn’t it be shared with the groom?  So I walked down to the hall and knocked as I opened the door.  A man with a short gray flat top was fixing Josh’s bowtie as he craned his neck upward.  They both glanced over to me but continued with their task.

“There,” the gray-haired man said.  “You look great.”

“Thanks Dad,” Josh said.

“Um,” I interrupted. “I’m sorry; can I speak with Josh alone for just a moment?”

His father stared at me for a little bit, then answered.  “Sure, I guess.”  Then to Josh, “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”  He walked out.  Josh turned to me.

“You look familiar,” he said.  “Where do I know you from?”

“Well, uh, I’m actually an old friend of Annie’s and I just wanted to give you my best wishes and tell you to always give yourself a chance.”  For some reason my advice didn’t sound as sincere this second time.  I tried to keep going.  “You see, you can or your might, feel stupid sometimes about stuff, but, uh…”  My words weren’t coming back to me.  Something was clouding my mind.  And as I stumbled through the beginnings of my little speech, I realized what it was: anger.  Why was I giving Josh advice?  Why was I sharing one iota of the knowledge and ideas I had been forced to save up because he was two people in front of me in some God-forsaken lunch line?  “You see Josh, there’s, well, there’s a lot of people in the world and a lot of opportunity and, aw hell.”  Then I stopped talking, balled my fist tight, and punched Josh Sloman right in the nose.  He fell back to the ground.  Now, I’m sure that wasn’t appropriate, but I swear it wasn’t planned.  He looked up at me with a small stream of blood trickling down his chin, but the look on his face wasn’t one of rage.  It was one of absolute bewilderment.  He didn’t want a fight; he wanted an explanation.

“Uh, um,” I muttered.  What could I say?  I’m sorry? No! I wasn’t sorry.  Why did I do that?  Temporary insanity?  No, it was a desperate escape from torture.  I just couldn’t bear one more second standing face to face with the only nice guy in history that didn’t finish last.

“Well, uh.”  My voice was like a whisper.  Come on Warren, I thought to myself, don’t back down, not now.  Then it came to me, the thing I’d been wanting to say to Josh every day in the cafeteria since the first time I saw him, scarfing down ribs and flirting with the prettiest girl in my world.  “Stop talking to my girlfriend!”

Josh was still puzzled but getting to his feet.  Someone was opening the door to check on the commotion.  I ran past that person and into a full sprint down the hall.  In my mad rush, I managed to knock the flower basket right out of Jacqueline’s hands and can only hope that she heard me yell, “I’m so sorry!” as I exited the building and continued running over to my vehicle.  If you’ve never seen a man do the Dukes of Hazard slide over the hood of his car in a tux, then you should have come to Annie’s wedding.  By the time a group of men got out to the parking lot, I was already at the end of the church’s driveway.  I pulled out and drove back to the dorm, checking the rear view mirror often and taking back roads, just in case any of the wedding party tried to tail me.

Twenty minutes later, I walked into the Gibbs Hall’s lobby, and Wendy was behind the front desk.  She must have just started sorting mail, because she had several stacks and piles of it all around.  My hair was disheveled, and my collar was uneven.  She noticed.  “Whoa, what’d you do?”

“What I had to,” I answered.

“Ah.  Well, how’d it go?”

“Crazy, weird.  But overall, okay.”

“Good,” she answered, obviously unbothered by my mystery.  “Oh,” she said, then began digging through one of her stacks of magazines.  She pulled out one with a more than half nude chick on the front.  The girl was blond, and her only coverings were small red ribbons.  “Here, have a Playboy,” Wendy said.  “On the house.”  I stared at the girl on the magazine, then at the one holding it.

“Thanks, but if it’s just the same, I think I’ll pass.  I need to get away from all that stuff for a while.”

“Oh alright, that’s fine.”  Wendy sat the magazine back on the pile with a quick frown to let me know she cared.  Then, looking back up, she pointed to my left arm.  “What’s that?”  she asked.  I looked down to find a purple and white flower, desperately clinging to my tux coat’s sleeve.

“I don’t know,” I said.  “Some flower.  I guess one of them fell on me when I bumped into Jacqueline.  That was the, uh, flower girl.”  Wendy stared for a while at the flower and then with slow hands, she plucked it from my coat and placed it in her hair.  She smiled.  It was the kind of look that made me wonder if in this avenue of life, getting is really the highest pursuit.  I stood there in the silence for a moment, then flashed a quick smile of my own before turning and walking over to the door which leads out to the first floor rooms.  I ran my card, swung the door open, and strolled down the terrace to my home of three years, dorm 103.

Like always, my dorm room door squeaked a little as I opened it.  I walked in and grabbed a beer from the mini-fridge, then flopped down on the bed.  I took a sip and turned on the TV.  It was the women’s tennis I’ve been watching for the last hour.  I’m still a little stiff.  It probably was the shoes.  But like I said, it felt damn good.

THOSE KIDS ARE GONNA MAKE IT PART 2 OF 3

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I watched Josh and Annie.  And it was Josh and Annie.  Never just one alone.  Occasionally, I would be close enough to listen in a little on conversations.  On the day we had banana pudding, Annie ate three bowls and barely anything else.  “Oh my gosh, this is so good,” she said.  “I love this stuff.”  I heard about their worst accidents as kids.  At the age of nine, during a bicycle race, Josh flew over the handlebars and broke his left cheekbone.  At the age of eleven, Annie jumped out of the swing at school and broke one of her precious ankles.  Annie’s architecture kept her busy and sometimes sleepy.  Josh said he mainly worked nights at the shelter.

Meanwhile I was keeping a list of questions waiting for Annie’s attention.    Do you think love is a choice or a feeling?  Do you think fish know they’re wet?  Was Jimmy Hendrix a genius or just a stoner?  Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

And I kept thinking back to that first day in the cafeteria, back to those ribs and Annie and Josh.  Eventually, all that pondering led me to another memory.  Back in high school, my slightly genius, slightly crazy friend Nathan once told me about a dream he’d had where he was leading this team of sprits or angels.  Their task was a series of moments, an event.  It was a child’s fifth birthday.  They were to sit behind the scenes of the real world and make sure everything went smoothly, that everything lined up, and what was supposed to happen did happen.  It was supposed to be a special day, and they would preserve that.  After telling me about his dream, Nathan asked me to think about those significant, seemingly accidental moments in life, like when you have a car wreck or bump into a stranger that later becomes a great friend.  Whatever you did up until that moment, he said, whether it was stopping to tie your shoes or hitting the snooze bar on the alarm clock that extra time or skipping breakfast because you were running late, maybe that was all there to either slow you down or speed you up to make sure you hit that important moment.

So I’d go back to that day, in the hours before I saw Annie and Josh in the cafeteria.  Maybe if I would have just jaywalked on the way back to the dorm I could have made it into the cafeteria before Josh.  Maybe if I would have asked all my questions before Physics class Professor Rahimadleana wouldn’t have run over.  Maybe if I hadn’t of stopped to talk to Wendy…

But these thoughts wouldn’t have played on my mind at all if I had just gotten one minute with Annie.  By the end of the year, she and Josh were sitting beside each other instead of across, holding hands under the table.  Summer came and I went home.  When I returned for my junior year that fall, I pretended to forget about her but secretly hoped her and Josh’s relationship had fizzled with the degree of separation summers brings.  I didn’t see her in the cafeteria at all for the first few weeks back; in fact it wasn’t until the Tuesday after Labor Day.  Her hair was longer, half way down her back and her cheeks had some redness on them like she’d gotten some sun over the long weekend.  She was alone.  I could feel the endorphins fire, as the dizziness gathered in my head.  I went over to the other side of the cafeteria where they kept the small barrels of fruit.  I grabbed a green apple and kissed it for no reason other than joy.  I didn’t like apples, but I put it on my tray and was ready to eat it all while providing Annie with the most stimulating conversation she ever had.  I’d ask if she ever thought there’d be peace in the mid-East.  I’d ask what made blue such a sad color.  I walked with purpose, head held high.  I turned the corner to meet Annie’s sun-bathed features, only to find she had been joined.  Josh was there, in what appeared to be a brand new white t-shirt that had the word Pensacola on the front in big, cursive letters.

And so I watched them that day and in the weeks to come.  I tried not to.  I tried to sit where there was an obstructed view, far distant, where there was no chance of hearing any more conversation.  There was always a part of me that wanted to look, a desire from that weird corner of your brain that makes you tap the brake and turn your head towards the car in the ditch on fire.  But every time I looked, I regretted.  They were smiling and laughing more and more, falling dangerously closer to that thing called love, that thing which threatened to make the hope on my friends’ faces even more false.  Days turned to weeks turned to months and suddenly, it had been a year, a year since that first meeting of Annie and Josh, now the sweethearts of the Gibbs Hall cafeteria.  I couldn’t take it anymore.  That spring I switched cafeterias; it didn’t matter that the food was great at Gibbs.  Dining is an experience, and the package just wasn’t worth it.

I continued to live in the hall.  It took some time to adjust to walking across campus for meals, but by my senior year, things were back to running smoothly.  Wendy still did the mail, and Craig was still an RA.  I still thought about Annie sometimes but never for too long.  My list of questions had grown, and I never had the heart to throw away the old sheet of paper that contained such gems as, do you ever feel cool and what’s the deal with bad yearbook pictures?  The months were winding down until my graduation, and my forced evacuation from the dorm I loved so dearly. I hoped to let some things go.

It was a foggy day in late April, when I walked out of my dorm room to the elevator in the lobby.  I was carrying a hefty basket of dirty clothes, and I was going to ride the elevator down to the basement to use the laundry room.  Craig and Wendy were behind the front desk, alone.  Craig was in the nice computer chair and Wendy was on his lap with a small red blanket draped over her knees.  They were watching a Family Guy DVD on the computer.  Entranced by the screen’s glow, they didn’t notice me standing there.  I had the feeling that Craig wasn’t routinely checking the row of security camera monitors on the top shelf area below the ceiling, and so I also felt that anyone who wanted to sneak in something or someone could.  I wasn’t planning anything though.  I swiped my ID in the chute beside the elevator and pressed the down button.

“Hey guys,” I said.  Craig hit pause, and they both looked over to me, blinking as they turned their eyes back to the non-animated world.

“Oh hey Warren.” Craig said. “What’s up?”

“Not too much, man, just going to do some laundry.”

“That’s cool.”  We nodded at each other for a few seconds, before he looked down and grabbed a folded section of the Knoxville paper off of the computer desk.  “Oh listen to this man, John came by today.”

“Don’t,” Wendy said to Craig firmly, turning her head to stare right in his eyes.

“What?” he said to Wendy.  “I’m sure he’s over her by now.”  Then turning back to me, “It looks like that cousin of John’s is getting married.  He said they’ve been going together for two years now.  Can you believe that?  It still seems a little quick to me, but hey, what do I know?  Check it out.”  Craig stood up, walked over to front desk, and held out the paper.  “Here.”  The elevator opened.  I let it close as I grabbed the news from his hand.  There it was in big, bold letters:

The Sloman Wavermyer Wedding

Annie Louise Wavermyer and Joshua Daniel Sloman will join in the union of holy matrimony at Hillsdale Baptist Church.  Tuesday, May 2^nd 2006

Above the announcement there was a picture of the two of them, Annie in curls and Josh in a button down plaid polo shirt.  She was standing, with Josh sitting behind her with his head leaned out to her left.  His arms were wrapped around her waist, and she was holding them.

“Crazy, isn’t it?” Craig asked.

Wendy took the paper from me gently.  “You have some laundry to do right?”

“Yeah that’s, um, that’s right.  I think I’ll just take the stairs.”

On the way down to the basement, I heard Wendy say “You’re such an idiot sometimes, Craig.”  But I didn’t see any harm in his information.

The next week I was out running errands.  I had picked up some groceries and browsed the scratched CD section of McKay’s (our used book store), then went by the liquor store to get more empty boxes for the upcoming move-out.  I was driving home after these errands, when I noticed for the very first time Michael’s Formal Wear on the corner of Caledonia and Kingston.  I decided to stop in, see if I could rent a tux.  I was lucky; they had my sizes in for both pants and jacket.  I also got a nice dark but not navy blue vest and some shoes.  The lady who was working with me was short and chunky with poofey brown hair and big pieces of jewelry.  Her name tag said, “Faye.”

“So Faye,” I said, staring with her at our images in the full length mirror.  “Is there anyway I could get some more comfortable shoes?”

“I’m afraid not; they just don’t make tux shoes for comfort.  Are you going to be on your feet a lot in them?”

“Oh,” I said.  “I really don’t know.  I might be going to a wedding this weekend.  It’s out at Hillsdale Baptist.  That’s out towards Alcoa right?”

“Yes it is” Faye answered.  Then she asked with a pursed lip smile, “So are you a groomsman?”

“No.”

“Well,” she asked, still smiling.  “Are you friends with the bride or the groom?”

There was a pause.  “Um, I need to kind of wrap this up.”

“Oh of course,” Faye said.  “Silly me, always so curious about people’s weddings.  I’m sure you’re very busy with something helping to prepare.  Come over to the register, and I’ll ring you up.”

“Thanks,” I said, embarrassed at my poor manners.  The damages came to $75.18.  I ran a debit card and walked out to my car with a heavy garment bag, which I threw across the backseat.  Then I hopped in and headed back for campus.

On the morning of May 2^nd, I sat in my car outside of a medium-sized brick church with stain-glassed windows of mixed pink, blue, and yellow.  A winding concrete pathway cut through dewy grass and led up to two large white doors, the church’s main entrance.  But I wasn’t interested in the main entrance.  I wanted to go behind the scenes.  I wanted to find Annie.   I felt like I had something worth telling her.

THOSE KIDS ARE GONNA MAKE IT PART 1 OF 3

Hey guys and gals, it is with great pleasure that I present to you one of my favorite short stories.  I wrote this in between my junior and senior year in college, and I tried to make it the quintessential college story.  I hope you dig it:

Like always, my dorm room door squeaks a little as I open it.  I walk in and grab a beer from the mini-fridge, then flop down on the bed.  I take a sip and turn on the TV.  Women’s tennis, alright.  I’m feeling a little stiff; maybe it was the shoes.  The only thing I know for sure is that it felt damn good.

Today was the day.  I was going to go into the Gibbs Hall cafeteria, sit down right beside her and say, “Hello, my name is Warren, and I think you’re pretty.”  Okay, I wouldn’t tell her immediately that I thought she was pretty, but I’d get to it eventually.  I’d begin by asking if the seat was taken.  Then I’d launch into a set of questions custom- designed to get her talking about herself.  What’s your major?  Where you from?  You like the food here?   I’d also ask if she played a sport, since the dorm sits right next to the athletic offices and houses many student athletes.  In past romantic situations I had left notes for girls, sent e-mails, ask friends.  But this chick I knew nothing about, so I couldn’t weasel in.  I had to be a man; I had to be conventional.  And I was willing.

She has big brown eyes and crooked lips.  She’s always tanned, like an Eastern European, and her hair is long and black and a little messy.  She wears spaghetti strap tank tops, a gray zip up jacket, and on the days when God smiles down on me, blue bicycle shorts that reveal the smoothest set of legs I’ve ever seen.  Usually a girl’s knees would turn me off.  In the past I’d never claimed to be a leg man.  But the first time I saw her, she was in those shorts, and I was converted.  From the freckle on the slight inside of her upper left thigh, all the way down to the rope ankle bracelet and sandals, which hold in line ten unpainted but always pristine toenails, the kind of toenails you could eat off of or see yourself in, amazing.  When she walks, a swish emanates from her shorts as they rub against each other between those upper thighs and up into to her forbidden zone.  That is the soundtrack to a lonely guy’s dream.  That is all you could feel when your heart stops beating.  When she smiles, it’s incredible.  I want to lick her teeth.  They are like pearls half buried in the desert: the kind of treasure that could only be secured by a series of crazy, stupid risks that an adventuring man might just take.  In short, I’m attracted to her.  And so I was willing to play by the rules.

My 11:10 AM physics class ran over, which put me in a rush to the cafeteria.  We have an exam next week, and Professor Rahimadleana loses track of time when he’s got a lot of material to cover.  But it being a Tuesday, I knew I wouldn’t miss her. Tuesdays and Thursdays are sure fire; she must have an 11:10 class like me, because she’s always walking into the Gibbs Hall cafeteria around 12:30.  Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are hit or miss.  I still see her in there some times, but it’s always a surprise.

At 12:40 PM I walked briskly through Gibbs Hall’s front entrance.  Wendy was sorting mail behind the front desk.  She’s a red head with fair skin, and her boyfriend Craig is one of our RA’s.  The mail sorting job is just a way to spend more time with him.

“Hey,” she said. “Where’s the fire?”

“I don’t know,” I answered slowly.

“Well, you’re moving a little faster than usual.”

“Oh yeah.  Um, this is stupid but I’m, uh, going to talk to this girl today.”  I pointed towards the cafeteria doors.

“Ah,” Wendy said with a brightened smile, the kind of facial expression that always made me wonder why other people rooted for me.  I walked over to the short line in front of the cafeteria.

Sure I was a little late, but I thought, that’s okay.  It’s better if she’s already seated and settled in.  By coming in second, I could just sit down across from her.  I don’t quite know how I’d planned to work it if I was in the cafeteria before she was.  It would have been ridiculous to start eating, wait for her to sit somewhere, then get up and move to her table.  She might think I was creep if I did that, like I had intentions, you know, those kinds of intentions.

I swiped my student ID at the entrance, put my books into a cubby, and grabbed a tray.  We had barbeque ribs today.  Wow, I mean, this is the best cafeteria on campus we’re talking about.  Entrees like fried chicken, Cajun shrimp pasta, chicken cordon bleau, and even steak are not that uncommon when half your customers are athletes, the very athletes you’re not supposed to be pampering.  But even Gibbs has never had ribs before.  This is great, I thought.  It’ll open up a whole new line of discussion:  “So, ribs today, you like the ribs?  Say, what about these barbeque potato chips with the ribs?  I know, it’s crazy.  Barbeque with barbeque.  Ha ha ha.  I love you.”  But that’s not the way it worked out.

After quickly grabbing some food, I spotted the chick sitting at the table right behind the condiment area.  She was in a black tank top and light green parachute pants, which were short enough to expose her perfectly cylindrical ankle bones, the bracelet around the left leg, and just a parching glimpse of her ever-graceful shins.  She was as lovely as always, but she wasn’t in the state I’d wished to find her in: alone.  No, there was another guy there.  He was what modern American society would call attractive:  6’ 2”, 6’3”, clear but not pale skin, short curly blonde hair, and worst of all, he was sitting right across from her.  It was general admission at this cafeteria, and he had taken the best seat in the house.

I tried to be calm, keep an open mind.  This guy might be some old friend; he might be her brother.  He might be gay.  So I sat down two seats to his right, beside the window.  It was only the three of us at the table and so my proximity to them might have been suspicious.  I planned to eavesdrop, but I could always use the window as an excuse.  “Eavesdropping?  Hey man, I just like to look out windows.  You think I care about your conversation.  Geez, get over yourself.”

But I did care, passionately.  I needed to know what this guy was saying.  So I listened in:

“So what’s your name?”  he asked.  That’s when I realized, he had just sat down.  In fact, this guy was right in front of me in line two minutes ago.

“Annie,” she replied, or it could have been Danny, like Danielle.  I really wasn’t close enough to be sure.

“I’m Josh.  So what about these ribs?”  He was using my material!

“Yeah, they’re good,” Annie answered.  She picked up one and took a bite, jerking a little bit to get the meat off the bone, then looking up at Josh and laughing as she licked her fingers.  Dammit, I said to myself, I knew those ribs were a conversation piece.

“So,” Josh said, “Where you from?”

“Around here.  I went to Central High.”  Annie’s voice was deeper than the average girl’s, and she had this spacey cadence that made her sound like she was high.  She wasn’t.

“What’s your major?” he asked.

“Architecture.”  She was happy; she was enjoying talking about herself.  I was in trouble.

“I’ve heard that’s like hard stuff,” Josh said.  “How’d you get into that?”

“Well, I was always pretty good at art in high school, and I’d heard about the program, so I figured I’d put together a portfolio.”  After this Annie got up, left her tray, but grabbed her orange and white cup.  She was going to refill her drink.  Josh sat with a smirk as he finished off his third rib.  She moved out of sight and ear shot, and I couldn’t bear the silence.

“Hey,” I said, trying not to sound accusatory.  Josh turned towards me.

“Yeah, buddy?” he answered, holding that stupid smirk.  And who said that I was his buddy?  Anyway, I had to say something, so I asked what I already knew.

“You like this girl, don’t you?”  I called her “this girl.”  I was trying to sound informal, just barely interested but wise and perceptive enough to notice this young man’s attempts.

“Well, yeah,” he said.  “Am I that obvious?”

“No,” I said.  “I just see things some times.”  I was playing it cool. I was staring at one of the worst hands college social life had dealt me, and I was bluffing.

“Hey, maybe you could critique me when this thing is over, give me some pointers.”  Oh God no, I thought.  I’d just been asked to be a pallbearer at my own funeral.  Critique him!  Now I’d not only have to watch this guy flirt with Annie, I’d have to tell him how good he was at it after he was done.  Well, I thought, at least he didn’t shake my hand or introduce himself.  Annie was walking back to the table, and the perfect critique came to me, one I yelled so loud in my head that I’m surprised Josh didn’t catch it through telekinesis.  “Stop talking to my girlfriend!”  Okay, I knew Annie wasn’t my girlfriend, but a part of me already felt she was mine.  (Call me a freak for saying that, but I’d bet if you thought back real hard, you could remember a time in your life when you felt that same way about somebody.)

Annie sat down and kept talking with Josh.  He said he was majoring in social work and was already volunteering at some shelter.  She said she didn’t play any sports but just heard how good the food was at this cafeteria.  He said he plays soccer but not for the school.  He asked if she had gone anywhere for Spring Break.  Sacramento, she said, to visit her aunt.  He had stayed in town.

Soon Annie and Josh were finished with their meal and their conversation.  She stood up and told him it had been nice talking to him.  Then she walked away.  Josh turned to me, “Hey, how’d I do?”   I had a mouthful of food so it took a few seconds before I could answer.  I could have put him down.  I could have been like, hey, don’t waste your time, buddy.  She’s loose, she’s taken, she’s queer, she’s crazy.  She’s out of your league, out of your sport, out of your world, and you’ve got no shot.  Trust me, I could have said.  You’ll thank me later, I could have added, and then maybe I would never see Josh again.  I could have said all of that.  And I would have, but I really couldn’t.  So I was honest.

“You did fine.”

“Really, thanks.  I guess we’ll see.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey,” Josh said.  “My name’s Josh.  What’s yours?”  He extended his hand.  Crap, not this.

“My name’s Warren.”  I shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Warren.”  Then I had to tell a lie.

“Well, it was nice meeting you, Josh.”  He got up and left.  I finished my ribs and headed out.
I walked back by the front desk area on the way to my first floor room.  Wendy’s piles of mail were nearly diminished, and the blue notebook where she kept records was closed.  Craig had joined her and was sitting in front of the computer playing games.

“Hey, how’d it go?” Wendy asked, once again sporting that mysterious and hopeful expression.

“How’d what go?”  Craig interjected.

“Warren was going to talk a girl in the cafeteria today.”

“Oh yeah,” Craig said.  “That girl you were talking about.  What was her name?”

“We didn’t know it,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s right,” he said.  “We didn’t know.”

“It’s Annie.  Or Danni, like Danielle.  I’m not for sure.”

“Well, what happened?”  Wendy asked.  “Didn’t you talk to her?”
“I couldn’t.  You see there was this other guy Josh, and he got there right before me.  And he was asking her all the questions I was going to ask.  Now I can’t just go in there tomorrow and ask the same questions.”

“Did it seem like she was into him?”  Wendy asked.

“I don’t know.  I mean, she was laughing some, but she didn’t give him a number or anything.”

“Where’s she from?” That was Craig.  “She play any sports?”

“She said she went to Knox Central.  She doesn’t play a sport but her cousins’ on the soccer team and lives here in Gibbs.  John something”

“Oh yeah,” Craig remembered.  “John Wavermyer, he lives up on the third floor. Wait, I think I’ve met this girl before, one night when she was going up to his room, and I was working the desk.  Tan chick, in the cafeteria sometimes?”

“That’s right.  She, um, always eats green apples.”

“Yeah man, she’s cute.  It’s a damn shame what happened in there.”  Wendy walked over and hit her boyfriend on the back of the head with a rolled-up Maxim magazine, before throwing it in a resident’s mailbox.  “Hey,” he said.  “What was that for?”  She rolled her eyes at him before turning back to me.

“Well Warren, maybe if you just wait a while, this Josh guy will move out of the picture, and you can step in, with some new questions for her.  All you need’s a chance.”

“Yeah, who’s to say I can’t come up with better questions, something intriguing, something meaningful?”

“Don’t scare her,” Craig said.  “Just don’t scare her.”

“I’ll be fine.”

MATT’S JOURNEY TO THE SEA PART 3 OF 3

So you wanna know more about cruise ship work, eh? Well, this will be the final post on the topic for a while, so make sure and pay attention. My last post got you through my first day, which was crazy-busy. The rest of the first week is a little lighter but not by much. The second day brings with it two cocktail parties and two performances of an hour-long production show that’s brand new to me. (A show is deemed a “production show” when it includes singers and dancers. They may also include indoor fireworks called pyrotechnics) The cocktail music was simple enough, since I’d played some of the songs before on other ships. The first performances on a new boat are always a bit tense, but I got through the parties fine. I wish I could say the same for the shows.

My company has a weird policy about show music. Despite the fact that PDF has been around for a decade now, musicians cannot get their sheet music before arriving to the boat. So that means you perform the shows before they’re anywhere near ready, and your first few performances of any new show are basically glorified practice. It’s a bizarre situation, learning something in front of hundreds of people and wondering or worrying if they will notice. Fortunately, I found the sound tech that afternoon, and let him know that my microphone should be turned down considerably for the evening’s performances. I know what you’re thinking, what’s the point of being out there if no one can hear your part? The simple answer is, it’s the best way to learn without hurting the product. Well, it’s the best way if you live in some alternate universe where music can’t be scanned into a PDF and emailed to the musician several weeks in advance of his or her arrival. And apparently, my company has its home office in that alternate universe (Sorry for the gripe. I’ll soon get back to being positive.)

The next day was relatively light. These days, most ships are not giving musicians weekly nights off, so you have to do your best to relax and have some fun on a day like this one, where we only have one performance. This performance was a variety show, with a juggler and a comedian. The juggler was one of the Zuniga’s, the best juggling family from Mexico, although some of the family now lives in the Tampa area. I’ve actually worked with all three “active” Zuniga’s in my time on ships. Their accompaniment music is made up of fast latin numbers that are tough for anyone in the show band but especially for trombone players, since we have to move our whole arm instead of just fingers. Still, I consider it a fair trade since the Zuniga’s are such funny guys on-stage and off. Here’s an example from one of their performances. Manny Zuniga steps to center stage with seven rings. He announces to his audience, “Ladies and gentleman, I am about to attempt a very difficult trick. Has anyone here every seen someone juggle seven rings live?” He waits for a second, nobody raises their hands, then he tosses one of the rings on the ground. “So tonight, six rings, an incredible feat.” It gets a laugh. Trust me.

On the fourth night, I played the second of the production shows. This first one is themed around pop music of the 80’s, and it includes a break dance section with a lot of well-placed pyro. That leads into a Blues Brothers section, where everybody in the band puts on the trademark hat and sunglasses. And that all leads to a “Time of My Life”/ Dirty Dancing finale, where confetti comes down from the ceiling. The second production show is not so much themed around a period or genre of music, so much as a general concept: women. I’m not joking. Songs like “Dream Girls” and “Fever” give way to that Barbie world song from the 90’s, later a French tango, the Venus song (which you may know from the razor commercials) then “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story. You might think a guy would be a little embarrassed to be on stage playing for such a show. But to me, it’s pretty hip. I’m sure we’ll get more into it down the road, but I am a lover of women. That may sound cheesy, but please hear me out. All I’m saying is, I appreciate what makes women different and distinct from men, and I’m glad that they have the capacity to be the fairer sex, in their better moments. I could descend into a deeper discussion about how women are treated across the world and how that engenders my sympathy, but obviously now is not the time. Bottom line, these production shows are fun to perform, which is great, since I’ll be playing them for the next sixteen weeks straight.

By the fifth day, we’re back in home port, Cape Canaveral.  And since I was technically returning to the US from the Bahamas, I had to go through immigration.  Now, crew members only have to do this a few times per contract, but it’s always a must after your first cruise.  My cruise line likes to get this crew immigration process out of the way as soon as the ship pulls in, so I had to be in the room with the US Customs officers by 6:30 AM with passport in hand.  Thankfully, this ship allowed United States citizens to go first.  The Customs guys take about ten seconds with each of us Americans, just checking to make sure the passport photo roughly matches the person standing before them.  Many of the other countries have much longer verification processes, including photos, and fingerprinting (By way of reminder, most of our crew is international.) Even if you’re behind only a half-dozen people, if they’re Philippinos or Indonesians, it may take a half-hour.  And when the line is twenty-five people long, and resembles the buffet line at the UN cafeteria, there’s a definite chance you’ll be there for over an hour.  So when they called, “USC’s to the front!” at 6:35, it was hard not to smile.   America the Beautiful  rang in my head, and I might have even hummed the tune a little as I strolled back to my room and hopped back in bed at 6:45.
Because the ship I’m on does three and four day cruises, there is a relatively low amount of music to learn.  You see, the general rule is that ships do a new show every night.  That means that if you work on a boat that does seven-day cruises, you’ll have probably six different shows to prepare, with the hope that you’ll get one night off for a magic show that doesn’t use the band.  A ship doing four day cruises only needs four shows, so there’s more repetitiveness but also less to learn.  That means that for the last few days of my first week, I was able to start reviewing music, and get another crack at performing the shows I had already seen.  The Bahamas and Port Canaveral looked beautiful from the ship, but I didn’t have the time or energy to get off.  So really, there’s not a great amount more to report, but there is one more story I have to tell.
“Bravo, Bravo!”  What do those words mean to you?  To most performing artists, they mean the crowd has loved your performance, and it may be time for an encore.  But for a cruise ship musician, those words carry a far darker connotation.  Those words are code words given over the loudspeakers when a person has gone overboard.  I hadn’t heard them in my first two-and-a-half years at sea, but I heard them in my first week of this new contract.  It was around midnight when the announcement was made.  Five minutes later my bandleader called me, checking to see if my roommate and I were alright.   I told him we were and hung up the phone, wondering just how many other supervisors were making similar calls, hoping to get a hold of everybody.
I didn’t go out on the open deck to look for the person in the water.  The details later came out that he had been in an argument with his girlfriend or wife and jumped off to prove a point.  I guess he showed her.  My friend said there were dozens of people out there trying to keep an eye on the man in the water as rescue crews prepared a smaller boat to fetch him.  My friend also told me you could hear the man’s constant screams for help in the darkened distance.  He was eventually rescued, though it was another cruise ship close by that actually retrieved the man.  You could say all that matters is that he survived, but I worry what would have happened if we hadn’t had another ship helping us.  (You’ll note I haven’t mentioned the company I work for any of these three posts, in part because of the concerns I just confessed.)
I know the story of the man’s rescue made it all the way to Denver, because for some reason, our ship TV’s get the broadcast networks through the Denver affiliates.  That’s right, I watch the Denver news every night in the middle of the ocean.  Anyway, my parents also saw the story on their local news in Tennessee. When I got a hold of them a few days later,  I gave my dad some of the extra details but didn’t discuss them with mom.  It’d only worry her.  They asked how it was all going, and I said it looked like it was going to be a good contract.  I didn’t want to say anything too definite though.  There was still a lot of practicing to do, still a lot of people to get to know better, and still a lot of adventure to be had.  One week down, fifteen to go.

Thanks for checking out this concluding post.  I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about cruise ship work, and I hope I’ve managed to answer most of your questions.  If not, leave a question in the comment section, and I’ll try to get to it.  Come back next week for my first short story post.

Peace Out Peeps,

=Matt=

MATT’S JOURNEY TO THE SEA PART 2 OF 3

Hello Again My Peeps,

Well, work is getting busier for me, but I am fighting to have the time for new posts.  I want to post every Friday, because I figure most folks have casual reading time on the weekends.  Plus, it keeps me honest.  If I just say, hey, I’ll post when I can, then I wouldn’t post near as much as I genuinely want to.  (By the way, I end sentences with prepositions in my writing.  The language exists to serve the writer, not vice-versa.  And besides, it’s the way we speak.)  So the Friday deadline is as much for me as it is for you.  These last two posts have come early on Saturday, so I’m not doing too bad.  Still, I think a Friday morning post is ideal to fit all weekend schedules.  I will try a little harder.  For now, back to my long, strange trip.

After watching the remarkable shuttle launch, I returned with Jacob to his apartment and got a somewhat surprisingly nice night sleep out of the floored mattress.  The next day I basically chilled, swimming in the pool, reading a book on Christian marriage, singing in a video game rock band, and of course, practicing my trombone in preparation for the start of my new contract.  There was a unique situation in the evening when I went with Jacob’s roommate to a sports bar for dinner.  As you may recall, this roommate worked the launch the previous day (Friday), as a part of a team that checks all the surfaces of the rocket for debris.  Once at the bar, we met with another NASA friend, who actually is in training to work support for future missions.  Jacob was dining elsewhere with his girlfriend’s parents but was going to try and meet us out there when he could.  He never made it out, so it was just me and two guys from NASA, both of whom I hadn’t know 24 hours prior.

Guess what?  It was actually a lot of fun.  These guys were laid back and in a great mood.  You see, if the launch on Friday had been cancelled because of those storm clouds, it would have been rescheduled for Saturday night or Sunday.  They were thankful to have their big project done.  Sending humans into space is an incredible achievement that great men dreamed of in vain for ages.   Now, they are a part of the rarified group of lucky and bright individuals that get to help make that dream a reality.  They could take pride in the fact that on Friday night, they took part in one of the great engineering feats in human history with the safe and successful launch of the shuttle Discovery.  And doing it on a Friday night made it extra sweet for them.  All that making dreams into reality is great and all, but you know, nobody wants to come in on weekends.  (It was neat to see how the NASA guys were just like anybody else, at least in this one respect.)

Now, finally, to the ship.  I got up Sunday morning and drove the final forty miles from Jacob’s apartment in East Orlando to Port Canaveral, and my new floating home for the next four fun-filled months.  Once I was near the pier, I met with a nice parking director in his trailer.  He copied my driver’s license, car registration, and insurance, then gave me a sticker that entitled me to park in a lot right near my ship for a year.  This is awesome, and not the norm.  I’ve heard some other ports have parking a half-mile away from where the ship pulls in, and they charge $100 a month for it.

After getting parked, I took my few big bags and put them in what’s called the crew cage, but it’s actually just a 6×4 foot steel container that can be moved by forklifts.  Once the cage is close to full with other crew members’ luggage, it’s  taken through security, then left for me to pickup outside the separate crew gangway.  Of course, my cage was sitting out in the open, with the chaos of all the new people coming to take their vacation.  And it’s not like once crew bags are screened, and then left beside the gangway, anyone contacts you to let you know they’re sitting there. I just had to keep checking back to be safe.  Ironic isn’t it, taking your stuff through security seems awfully risky? Thankfully, I did eventually get that luggage back, about four hours later, and only about fifteen minutes before the ship left.  But I guess I can’t complain on the slow turn-around.  Well, I could always complain, but I have come to accept that a part of what a cruise ship employee is being paid for is second-class citizenship.

After dropping off that luggage, I took my carry-ons through security and proceeded to the crew office.  It was there that I turned in all my required medical forms, which included full drug and blood tests as well as proof of vaccinations from measles, mumps, and rubella.  This physical only has to be updated every two years, so it’s not ridiculous.  I also turned in my passport and signed a contract.  Our contracts, no matter what we’ve discussed with the entertainment people in the main office, never have an end date on them.  If they want to send me home next week, from my limited understanding, it is within their legal rights.

After filling out the forms and dropping my little bit of carry-on luggage in in my new room, I had to go to orientation.    In this 45 minute meeting, we got a brief speech about washing our hands, received a few handouts with different important phone numbers and schedules, viewed a couple basic safety videos, and watched a fire extinguisher demonstration from one of the safety officers (officers are the higher-ups on cruise ships, which I guess was co-opted from naval terminology.  I sort of consider that an insult to Naval officers and Marines who’ve died in wars, but you have to pick your battles out here.)
Shortly after this orientation is completed, I had to attend my first guest boat drill.  It’s a Coast Guard regulation that we have to do these drills, or so I’ve been told.  You may think it a little odd that a guy who just got on the ship is helping guide people in an emergency drill, but most every cruise boat drill, no matter the ship, is the same.  Plus, there’s no pressure on me to do anything major my first time.  I could job shadow as much as I wanted to.  (Another preposition ending, alright!  Take that grammar-worshippers!)

After that, there’s a cruise staff meeting, backstage in the main lounge.  I was introduced and tried to fix my hair as I stood up and smiled at all the new faces.  This scenario has become very common for me over the last few years, since I’m only on each ship for one to four months before moving on.  While the cycle of settling in only to pack up and leave, then settling in again can be frustrating, I hope I have at least learned to face a crowd of strangers with no apprehension.  At the end of the meeting, I looked down at my watch, 5:00 PM.  My first set (performance) was scheduled for 7:00, just enough time for a good nap and a decent meal in the crew cafeteria (nearly always referred to as the crew mess.)  As I walked out the back of the lounge, my phone rang.  Of course!  It was my dad.  I’d told him I would call and let the family know that everything went okay.  It was great timing when he called.  My cell phone only gets reception in a few places on a cruise ship and once I went down to my room, which sits below water level, I would have had no chance of receiving a call.  With the chaos of the day, it had totally slipped my mind to call, but I’m so glad dad called when he did.  I’d hate for my mom to be worrying just because of my forgetfulness.  But that’s what a chaotic day does to you.  It makes you careless.  I reassured my dad everything was alright and went back to my room for the nap.  However, shortly after laying down, someone came to fix the room’s broken TV.  It was important, because I got to have TV to pass the time on these boats, but of course, it cut into the nap.

Post-nap, I grabbed a quick bite on my empty but nervous stomach, then headed up to the ship’s promenade deck (the main street of a cruise ship, where most of the bars and live music, as well as the casino and disco are located.  And no, I don’t know why we still call the dance club a disco.)  I cracked out my horn and played with my new band.  This was a jazz set.  That meant that each horn-player played melodies and took solos when he wanted to.  This is a great first performance to have,  since you can pick your spots, and everyone understands if you don’t want to play that much.  Later that night, I played on the “Intro Show” with the dancers and singers and the band all on stage.  But luckily, this show is very similar on all ships, so I’ve played much of the music before.

There are two things that consistently amaze people about my cruise ship work.  The first is that I auditioned over the phone.  This is quite common, and it makes since considering the cost to the company of holding open auditions in random big cities.  The other amazing thing is playing on my first night on a ship.  In my previous post, I talked about how, if I flew, I would have been up at 5:00 AM to catch my red-eye flight.  Now perhaps you can see why I turned down a free plane ticket.  I was tired for those first day performances, but I wasn’t the zombie I’ve been on previous contracts when I flew down.  The day was hectic, but it wasn’t torture.  As for the quality of performance I can give on my first day, it’s never been stellar.  I must admit that I find this baptismal by fire approach of having musicians play right after getting aboard pretty unprofessional, and many friends who work in other areas of music have confirmed that assessment.  But there is one cool thing that happens during these crazy first weeks.

There comes a point somewhere early on when I realize that, despite the fact that I’m seeing much of the music for the first time, I’m still playing most of it decently, not cracking under the pressure.  And that, my friends, is an invigorating moment.  That’s when I know I’m a professional musician and not the phony I sometimes worry I am.  And that satisfying feeling must be very similar to what Brad has experienced on those mountain trails and rock faces.   By being pushed to my limits, I know with much more certainty who I am.  I don’t just play an instrument.  Matt Morris earns his keep with his craft on this floating city.   Now when your craft is also your passion, it makes a bad day at work even harder.  It’s nearly impossible for me to leave a bad performance “at the office.”  And I think this post has helped to debunk the myth that cruise ship music is some kind of dream job.  But still, when your favorite moment of the day can come while you‘re clocked in, there is no way around it: you’re blessed.

Okay, I’m certain I can wrap this up by next week.  So check back on Friday, then again on Saturday, just to be safe.

See you next week.

=Matt=

MATT’S JOURNEY TO THE SEA PART 1 OF 3

Hello Again Everyone,

It’s nice to be back writing. I will apologize that neither I nor Brad have posted much lately, but we’ve had good reasons. He’s been moving to a new place, and so have I, technically. I’m back to work on a cruise ship. That’s right, I play the trombone in showbands on cruise ships for a living, which you should know if you read my “Introducing” post. (If you haven’t, please do so now. This is your last reminder.) Of course, we would be more likely to post every week if this site became wildly successful and thus, profitable. I don’t know Brad’s exact vision for Life of Adventure, but it would certainly be nice to have these columns be the focus of my life instead of what my current schedule requires them to be, something more ancillary. So keep spreading the word about the site, and maybe some day you can take pride in what you popularized. But for now, I should be content. I work on a cruise ship for goodness sakes.

I know I‘ve said I‘m not adventuresome like Brad, but as I settle back into a new boat, I have to say, the whole process is downright adventurous. Now I’m always getting questions about my job, and I certainly can’t remember enough of them to publish a good FAQ here today. But I think it might be interesting for you guys to read what the first week on a new ship entails.

Let’s start with the obvious: there are no cruise ships in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Now we do have a riverboat, and it’s nice, but musicians aren’t making a living on it. So, I have to get to a coastal city. This time, it’s Cape Canaveral, Florida. Which mode of travel did I use? Well, the cruise ship company will pay for my flights, but of course there’s a catch. They want to get me down there the day I’m to start, so they don’t have to pay for a night in a hotel. That means they usually book a flight leaving around 7:30 AM, and that would require me to be at the airport by 6:30, which means leaving my house at 6:00, which means getting up at 5:15, which means an alarm going off at 5:00. Plus I have to pay for the extra baggage I must carry to have enough clothes for the change of seasons as well as all my musical equipment. No thanks. I drove.

I’d never driven more than 500 miles in a day before, so this was a new experience. Adding to the challenge, when I left my house at 10:40 AM, it was rainy and the roads were already pretty wet. Thankfully, it never poured down and the sun was out by early afternoon once I got south of Atlanta. That was a pretty hip leg of the journey actually. A Friday afternoon drive on 75 South, once you get below Atlanta, is smooth and easy. You may only pass another car every five minutes, and the speed limit drops down to 65 and even 60 in some spots. The occasional presence of a state trooper forces you to adhere to those speed limits, so it might keep you from making good time. But I didn’t really care. After rainy Atlanta, Macon felt like a peaceful drive in the country side, which is pretty impressive considering I was still on an inter-state highway. I banged out three hours straight and stopped shortly after getting into Florida.

It’s weird. Two miles north of Florida, Georgia pines. Two miles into Florida, palm trees. Whether that’s plan or coincidence I have no idea, but as sure as gas going up 15 cents a gallon, a palm tree is a clear indicator you’ve crossed that state border. And if you’re driving through Orlando, that means toll roads. Now here’s a quick tip to the future Florida traveler. It may be a little dull, but dang it, it’s practical. An Orlando toll station will have two signs over their lanes. Some will say “exact coins,” while others will say, “change and receipts.” If you’re coming to a one dollar toll, and you have a dollar bill, you still have to pull into one of the change and receipts lanes. The exact coins lane is just a receptacle for chucking coins. I hated to be the tourist that held up the line, but hey, it’s a part of life. Maybe one would even go so far as to say, it’s part of adventure? (That was a nice tie-in, right? I’m trying too hard to sound like Brad, aren’t I? I’ll tone it down, I promise.)

I continued to follow my directions, and they got me all the way to my friend Jacob’s apartment complex in east Orlando. I brought a few things in and he helped me set up the mattress I’d be sleeping on that night. Then, he said he had a little surprise for me. He told me the Discovery was launching tonight, and that he knew the perfect spot to watch it from, just 45 minutes away in Titusville. And I‘m pretty sure Jacob would know the right spot. You see, I failed to mention that my friend Jacob works as a rocket scientist for NASA. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to work support for the launches, so he can just go and enjoy the fruits of his labors with all of us regulars.

I took an hour nap on the couch and ate a ham and cheese sandwich, while Jacob went to dinner with his girlfriend. They came back around 10:30, and we hit the road, stopping on the way to pick up Jacob’s older brother. The launch was scheduled for 11:59, so we were making good time despite some congestion on the highways. But our personal timing wasn’t the only concern. NASA had scheduled this launch for a few days before but cancelled it due to weather. Well, as we drove to the water, all four people in the car spotted lightning bolts in the distance. The intellectual side of me knew they wouldn’t attempt a launch in any dangerous weather, but I tried to ignore those thoughts and just keep hoping. Fortunately for us, Jacob’s roommate was working the launch at the Kennedy Space Center, so we would know almost as soon as the mission was cancelled. That meant that even if we missed the launch, there was at least no risk of being caught in traffic for two hours, which the three Orlando natives in the car with me confirmed was a real possibility if you waited to get word from local radio like everybody else.

A few moments later, we were in Titusville, in the median of a highway about fifty feet from the water. The sky was of course very dark by this time but also ominously cloudy. We heard no thunder but saw lightning every minute. In addition, I saw blinking lights around what must have been the rocket in the distance, and Jacob informed me that it was about five miles away. Between us and the rocket there was nothing but a stretch of calm ocean channel. But even if there was something in between, chances are we couldn’t have seen it in the dark of night. At least not yet.

Then, at approximately 11:45, Jacob got a one word text from his roommate on the inside. “Go.” At first I was confused, not knowing whether that meant to leave or stay. But I quickly discerned from the beaming smile on Jacob’s face that the mission was a go, and we were about to see it. In retrospect, it made sense. Jacob’s friend was doing his job in there at the space center, looking at every surface on that giant rocket for debris that could affect the flight. He didn’t have time for any long messages. Just a word. “Go” or “Scrum,” the slang term inside NASA for aborting a mission.

I’m sorry I don’t have any great pictures. My five-year-old camera couldn’t do it justice, at least not when combined with my limited know-how. Although, I’m pretty confident the know-how wouldn’t have made much difference. If you want good night pictures, go out and spend $300 on a great camera and read the manual. It may be worth it some day, especially if you have friends that work for NASA. Also, you might find a good video of a night launch on YouTube. Till then, my words will have to suffice.

For about the first thirty seconds, the lower part of the sky and the entire water’s surface between us and the rocket were lit up by what seemed like a giant orange sparkler, which is amazing considering that’s five miles of water. Then the light faded away slowly, which made it quite unlike any firework, and the sky’s color made the rare transition from orange to gray to once again black, as the source of artificial light pushed further and further away from us. It moves at a speed that boggles the mind, and we freeze in amazement, pondering for just a moment all that mankind can do. Then of course, we run to our cars to beat the traffic.

It’s an incredible site, but enough about Life of Adventure, let’s talk about the shuttle launch some more. (That’s an old joke, I know.) It was beautiful, and a testament to the genius and hard work of my friends at NASA, as well as the intellectual giants that developed rocket science over the generations. But I must say as an aside that I think I may always be more amazed by one person choosing to cast off all selfishness and live a life of love than by any scientific feat. And I honestly don’t know whether that’s naïve or wise. Maybe that’s a post for another time.

But hey, that was just my first day! I haven’t even told you about the boat yet. Hopefully, I can finish this saga up next Friday. Thanks again for reading.

Check you later peeps,

=Matt=

BETTER KNOW A COUNTRY:  URUGUAY PART 2 OF 2

Here’s the second part of my conversation with my friend Nacho Labrada.  We dig a little deeper into Nacho’s heritage and Uruguay’s past in this segment, but it doesn’t get too intricate.  One term I might need define for some of my readers is caudillo.  It’s a Spanish term, one which may well have dozens of different definitions depending on who you speak with.  In general, it’s someone who rules by force.  A caudillo could be a horse-riding bandit in the 1800’s with only his buddies behind him, or the general in front of thousands of troops that you saw on CNN today.  The word caudillo has been whispered by the oppressed  in Central and South America for centuries.  With that little tidbit, you should enjoy, as I did, the remainder of this interview…

MM: It’s no secret that South America has had its share of international conflict in the last 500 years. Are there any countries in the continent for which feelings are still strained? Or what about your “cousins” as it were, like Mexico, Spain, and the Central American countries that some know as the Banana Republics? How are relations currently with them?

NL: Uruguay has a very good relation with the majority, if not all the cousin countries, as well as the South American ones. I guess that has to do with the fact that it is a small country and with no big riquezas (riches, rich resources.) As a country we live mostly from the exportation of meat, cotton, leather. That’s the big income, with the tourism of course.

MM: Your country has a vast majority white population (86% according to my 90’s era Merriam Webster atlas.) Do you ever meet Americans who don’t believe you’re South American because you’re not brown?

NL: Yes, a lot of people tend to think I’m European, which in theory is right, as I descend from Spain and Ireland.

MM: So did the Irish ever come in any great numbers to Uruguay?

NL: No, not really. It’s mainly Portuguese, Spanish, Italian. Still there are some French last names, German last names. Also, there’s a lot of Armenian and Arabic. But the majority is Italy, Spain, Portugal. Ireland is not so common. My second last name (Cary) is not a common one at all.

MM: Now over the last quarter century, your country has had a great period of reform, increasing democratization, and economic growth as those in government shifted away from the militant caudillo mentality of the 60’s and 70’s. (Per Capita GDP has more than doubled in the last 15 years, from under $5,000 per year in 1994 to over $10,000 today.) Does Uruguay regard the politicians of the 1980’s who initiated these reforms as national heroes?

NL: No, they are not regarded as national heroes, but yes they are considered of great influence and valor in our country. Great figures yes, but I wouldn’t say heroes.

MM: Do the people of your parents’ and grandparents’ generation feel that things have improved greatly in recent years?

NL: This is a difficult question, because there might be a lot of opinions. If I talk to my grandparents’ generation, they would say things are worse. They say that years ago, you could leave your door unlocked at night or walk down a certain street. And now that has changed.

MM: But would your grandparents admit that what the government became in the 60’s and 70’s was a turn for the worse?

NL: That is difficult to say, because if you talk to that group of people, my grandparents, they have that caudillo mentality. They may be wrong, very wrong, but that is their opinion of the situation. And you won’t change them (laughing.)

MM: See that’s interesting, because when you look at history and have these radical left or right wing people doing crazy inhumane things to a lot of others, you automatically think that everyone looks back on it with disdain. But it’s hard when, you know, people grew up that way and that’s the world they were in. They might still long for that time if things were peaceful in their little sphere, despite what was going on in the distance. They were protected by the person with the iron fist, if you know that slang?

NL: Yeah, yeah, the military, militants. Now if you ask my parents, they are in their mid-fifties, they would say things are much better, that they’ve achieved what they fought for. My father, he was a protester. And what he protested for is now coming true. The government is now left.

MM: And that’s in the grand scheme of left and right. Right in a Uruguayan’s thinking is dictatorship and left is democracy?

NL: Yeah, yeah exactly. To us, and maybe this is the same everywhere, left is associated to people, we would say el Pueblo (the town, but in this case, it means more the people, the community). Right is associated more with corruption.

MM: Now in the early 70’s, Uruguay had the highest percentage of political prisoners in the world. (Today, they’re rated as the least corrupt nation in South America.) In those days, the United States government got involved through their Public Safety Office. The accusation has been made that American officials from that office trained Uruguayans in torture. Do you know if that claim has ever been proven? How widely is it believed amidst Uruguayans? And what is the general opinion of my country and countrymen in Uruguay?

NL: Yeah, it has been proven. It was reality. Still, that incident doesn’t seem to be very big. However, people of my country tend to believe in the gringo mentality, which is hard to explain. This is because I know a lot of American people, and I have my own view of them.

MM: So it’s tougher for you to lock in to the stereotypes because you’ve interacted with so many Americans?

NL: Exactly. Now, I know there are stereotypes of Americans. Just as there are Uruguayan stereotypes, and I hate them. And there are Argentinean stereotypes. But I don’t believe too much in the stereotypes. One of my teachers said that Bush put his nose everywhere, and that’s a common critique of the US government. But I think one of the main aspects of the gringo mentality is (Americans) living in a bubble, not knowing what’s going on outside your country.

MM: Well, in our defense Nacho, we do have a big country. I mean, that’s a pretty gigantic bubble. (Laughing)

NL: See what I mean! (Also laughing.)

MM: So you would say that the torture incident is not a huge sore spot. It’s more just the general malaise with the way America conducts its foreign policy with South America?

NL: Yeah, I think that’s generally correct.

MM: As your country moved into its age of reform in the 80’s and 90’s, your national leaders made a decision to not prosecute those who had committed torture during the previous decades. Now the United States is currently wrestling with the issue of investigating and prosecuting a previous administration for their interrogation techniques. So it becomes especially pertinent to ask, is there any long term resentment or disappointment in your country for the failure to go after the regimes of the 60’s and 70’s?

NL:  I wouldn’t call it resentment, but people are very aware of what happened. Maybe some decades ago the situation was more tense and people would protest a lot more, but the situation now is that our government is a left government and they are very aware of all that. In fact in October, there’s going to be a voting day for the Ley de Caducidad (Law of Expiration.) This is for putting the torturers in jail. Now, there is not only protest but investigation.

(Quick Note To The Reader: When asking this previous question, I wasn’t fully informed on the political situation. I’ve since learned that, basically, the left in Uruguay never really dismissed the possibility of prosecuting the right. They just had to first wait many years for the democratic process to take hold and then for a few more years to gain enough power to move forward with the legislation to bring the torturers to justice. That is my basic understanding, and an expert in the country’s history can certainly feel free to correct me.)

MM: To a little lighter fare now. Your country is one of the most secular in Latin America, with less than half attending church regularly. You were the first in South America to legalize civil unions. Was that fought by the churches? And do you have conflicts similar to those in the United States with church and state boundaries?

NL: I don’t think that was fought by the church as the church is not powerful in Uruguay. It is a very small country, and I think that keeps the issues sometimes from getting so big.

MM: To conclude, what do you think Americans could learn from Uruguayans? And what could Uruguayans possibly learn from Americans?

NL: I think there’s always a lot to learn from people to people, and I don’t like to classify people in nationalities when it comes to that, but still I can talk about general things. In my opinion the family values in my country are much stronger than in the states. As a matter of fact, in almost all South America it’s like that. I think that’s a good thing to learn about. Something I like from American people is that they are consistent, and I think that’s something people in Uruguay should learn from.

MM: Now in what way would they be more consistent?

NL: Well, we can go to my area. I have met a lot of great American musicians. In fact, all over the world there are great American musicians. That doesn’t happen in Uruguay too much. I mean, there are great musicians in Uruguay, but people tend to be lazier with that. I’m not saying there are no lazy people in your country, but Americans, they are hard working in some aspects.

Thanks again to Nacho for a very informative interview.

=Matt=

BETTER KNOW A COUNTRY:  URUGUAY PART 1 OF 2

What is shaking, my peeps?  I first want to offer a very sincere thanks to Monica for her detailed response to the final segment of the love essay.  Trust me when I say that any  feedback is appreciated.  What you see below is the first half of an interview with my good friend Ignacio (Since he’s a friend, I call him Nacho.  But you can be certain that this is not considered a disrespectful nickname.  It is very common for guys named Ignacio to be called Nacho in Latin America.)  He’s a twenty-something professional piano player (and a great one at that) from Uruguay who periodically works on cruise ships.

This interview will hopefully be the first of several interviews with my international friends, in this website’s new feature, Better Know a Country.  I wrote about this new segment in my first post on the site  (which I request you read if you haven’t.)  It’s based on comedian Stephen T. Colbert’s Better Know A District segment on his show, the Colbert Report.  You can read the Wikipedia article on it by clicking on this link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Know_a_District

And you can watch actual videos of his segment by following this link:

http://www.colbertnation.com/video/tag/Better+Know+a+District

Colbert keeps his interviews light and comedic, but in general, mine will be a little more serious.  Of course in interviewing friends, I hope that we never get too serious.  So without any further adieu, I introduce to a guy I enjoy talking to over a meal nearly as much as I enjoy listening to behind a grand piano.   My friend, Nacho…

MM:  Before we get into your country, I want to let you introduce yourself in your own words.  So, the first series of questions are very simple.  What is your full name?  What’s something you enjoy?  And what’s something you’d say you’re serious about?

NL:  My full name is Ignacio Labrada Cary.  I enjoy a lot of things, but I can say something I really enjoy is watching good films, especially non-commercial cinema, although sometimes I do enjoy good commercial films.  I guess I’m serious about my profession, which is musician.

MM:  Now you live in Uruguay, a country of only 3.4 million people.  And half the population lives in the capital city of Montevideo?  You live there as well, correct?

NL: Yes, I live in Montevideo.

MM:  That city is right on the Atlantic Ocean.  Does is feel more like a big city or a beach town?  Or does it strike a balance between the two?

NL: Actually, it strikes a good balance between both.  During summer it feels more like a beach town as most of the people are on vacation and the general city movement slows down a little bit.  On the other hand, during the other seasons, the general hectic city movement starts up again and the weather is too cold to go to the beach or stuff like that.

MM:  With so many people living near the water, is there a big surfing culture in Uruguay similar to that in a country like Australia?

NL: Yes there is.  Actually, a lot of my cousins like surfing.  Of course we don’t have such big waves as in Hawaii, but still, it can get pretty fun for them.

MM:  What about for the hikers and mountain climbers?  Do any of the Andes Mountains spill eastward into Uruguay?

NL:  No, the Andes spill eastward into Argentina, but not Uruguay, Hiking and mountain climbing are not very common in Uruguay.

MM:  We’ve touched on a few outdoor activities, but I’m sure there’s a lot more to recreation in your country.  What’s a typical fun day for young adults and college-aged people?

NL:  Well, Uruguay is a country that has many different regions, so it depends on what kind of people you are talking about.  Country people have different activities than people from the city.  Still, I can talk about the middle social class which is the one I know better. There are some activities and traditions that are pretty common to all. One of these is soccer; people are crazy about soccer.   Whenever there’s a Clasico (a match between a country’s two national powerhouse professional soccer teams.  In Uruguay, it’s always the same two teams at the top.  The same is true in Argentina,) everybody is at the stadium as well as when the national selection (another name for the national team) plays. Another fun activity for most of the people and also an excuse to gather with friends and family is an Asado.  That is almost like a barbecue but with some differences, and it is like, very traditional in Uruguay. When we say asado we might refer to more than just the food.  It’s meeting people, chatting, having some wine, as well as the eating. Obviously you can find a lot more activities to do in Uruguay, but I’m talking about the most typical of my country here.

MM:  Now the Uruguayan government owns your international airport.  Does that have any benefits for the citizenship, cheaper fares perhaps?

NL: Sometimes it allows you to find benefits or cheaper fares, but in my opinion, not as many as it should.

MM:  If someone got a chance to visit Uruguay or meets a Uruguayan who likes to cook, what’s one traditional dish they definitely should try?

NL:  Well, I guess our culture is very influenced by Spain and Italy, so many of the dishes you can find come from those countries. As I said asado or parilla (which is the brick grill used for making asado) is a very typical thing in Uruguay, not only the food but the way it’s cooked.

MM:  So your country has an affinity for Italian food?  Where does that come from or why is that?

NL: Well, a lot of people from Europe immigrated to Uruguay at the end of the 18^th century.  The majority were Spanish and Italian, so I guess that explains it.

MM:  That’s interesting, because I, probably along with most Americans, would tend to think of South America as having almost homogenous Spanish roots, with the exception of the Portuguese in Brazil.  But on the subject of international exchange, let’s talk music.  The tango is big in your country (In fact, La Cumparsita, which many would consider the tango was written by a Uruguayan.)  Now this style originally comes from France, correct?

NL:  I’m not really into the evolution of tango music, but I’m pretty sure it comes from Spain.  Actually, there’s a rhythm called tango in Spain which has some similarities with our tango although if you get really into both styles you would realize they are quite different.

MM:  Really?

NL: Yes, the tango of Uruguay has a very different orchestration (instruments) and accents (notes within a rhythm, which are played more forcefully or accentuated in some way.)  When we talk about tango in Uruguay, we say it comes from the borders of the Rio de La Plata, which runs between Buenos Aires and Montevideo.  So it is not strictly a product of Uruguay.

MM:  And when you say “talk about tango,” you mean the South America style?

NL:  Yeah, yeah.  Well, that is tango, really.   It’s what Piazolla (a famous composer who brought the tango into the concert hall) based his compositions on.  He made it more sophisticated, but his tango (the overall style) comes from the South American version, not the Spanish one.

MM:  And you did, at one point travel to France to perform the tango.  What was that like?

NL: My experience in France was very nice. I was amazed with the number of people attending our concerts and also with their interest they have in learning how to dance it.  I believe their tango has it roots in my country, because when I went there and heard the tango that they listen to, it was all South American.

We get into some political stuff in next week’s segment.  I hope that doesn’t scare anyone away.  As always, I will post again next Friday.  Take care.

=Matt=

MATT’S LOVE ESSAY PART 3 OF 3

Hello again, peeps, new and old. This is of course the conclusion of my love essay.  The story behind its creation is told at the beginning of Part 1 of 3.  So scroll down real quick (or go back a page) if you need to.  It’s okay, we’ll wait…

I discussed a little earlier the cynics who push themselves as far away from love as possible.  From a merely intellectual perspective, it might make sense to avoid romantic love.  Yes, it has been known to cause strange behavior, but it goes beyond that.  In a world which, at times, elevates tolerance above all other noble behaviors, clinging to anything leads to conflict.  Whenever we espouse a view openly, we run the risk of an argument, even a shouting match.  We also run the risk of derision and pigeon holes.  These types of critical environments can condition us to the point that academic neutrality seems the wise path in all areas, and those who have fallen into that trap may not even realize it.

So there are many out there living out safe but passionless lives, not realizing, as the old Christian saying goes, “If you want to walk on water, you must get out of the boat.”  Yes, love is a risk, and a measure of caution is needed.  In America, heart surgeons spend five years in residency compared to only three with non-surgeon doctors.  Our heart is vital, and we refuse to trust it to someone who might mishandle it.  But what if that necessary caution led to irrational fear?  We never let anyone x-ray our chests.  We never let the doctor use his stethoscope on us.  We never even let someone take our pulse.  We lock our hearts away with the idea of protecting them.  But it’s actually more dangerous, because we as individuals don’t have the ability to keep our hearts healthy by ourselves.  We need doctors, medicine, surgery.  For the metaphorical heart, the seat of the emotions, it is the same.  To guard it from all other human interference is to give it a death sentence.

When we love our hearts might break, in part because we are acceptance magnets.  Think about it.  Our friends were not diligently handpicked like candidates for positions at some company.  We just drifted to the people that accepted us as we were.  Conversely, rejection by someone we already accepted at the deepest levels is almost assuredly devastating.  But even if our hearts are broken, they are never shattered.  And I truly believe that things like hope and faith and love are like bones in a body.  If they’re harmed and not properly treated, they can make you limp for the rest of your life.  But if the doctor sets them in the right place and gives them protection for a little while, they can heal and be stronger than ever.

Earlier I said that to ignore love is downright dangerous, and it connects here.  Imagine a world where everyone was guarding their hearts, where everyone was afraid to be too nice, to favor any individual over another.  There are still good deeds, but they all have motives.  Politeness abounds but never to the extent that you feel a part of the family.  A world with a myriad of academics but no poets, a world where everyone sleeps but no one dreams.  The word that sums such a place best to me is cold, but another quickly comes to mind, inhuman.  Just as mystery is an inherent part of love, love is an inherent ingredient to our humanity.  If love is killed, with it dies our brotherhood and sisterhood with all that came before us.  We’d become something different, safer but uglier, capable of reasoning but still fundamentally animals.

Thank goodness we’re not in that state.  Romantic love is a gamble, but most of us by our very nature must be gamblers.  We still put those hearts on the line, perhaps because at some level, we’re aware of the same basic truth that members of every generation before us knew: we need love to keep us human.   So, if someone breaks your heart, it may at least do the good of reminding you that you have one.  And while these hearts of ours often make things messier, I wouldn’t trade mine for the world.  Probably because the type of world that thought it could live without them wouldn’t be worth owning.

********

The animal side of us says, “Take care of yourself,” or maybe “Take care of your own.”  Let’s be honest, taking care of ourselves oft times feels like a full time job.   And just being there for your family when they need you can mean a lot of time, money, and energy given away to others.  And so we’re hesitant to ever expand our “own.”  No doubt we’re still clinging to that animalistic tendency towards self-preservation.  But when romantic love gets its foot in the door, it manages to convince us that adding a new person into our tightest circle is worth far more than it costs.  But here’s my question.  If the passing years prove your romantic love to be a good trade, why stop with just one person? (And no, I’m not talking about polygamy.)

Something inside of us makes us think we can’t expand our own, until we meet that special person.  But once we’ve experienced the blessings that widening the circle can bring, we often still insist on keeping the circle relatively small.  Why?  Just as no scientist can tell us why we love a particular person, no one seems to be able to tell us why doing something good for others makes us feel good.  But I think the most peculiar part of it all is that, after we’ve felt that great vibe of giving charity to those around us, we can’t seem to make a habit out of it.  We always forget how nice it felt to do that loving thing for a friend or an acquaintance, and we recede back to our reserved, guarded, pack-like existence.  It’s as if we’ve discovered fire but refuse to sit in front of it through the night, because we’re too used to being cold.

The more you try to expand your circle, the easier it apparently comes.  I say apparently, because this is much more observation than details of my personal achievement.  Like most, I’m still getting there, but I have noticed a dual irony surrounding the practice of love.  There are those who treat it as a commodity, parceling it out in modest amounts, as if saving it up for a special occasion.  But when a time actually comes where love is needed, like when someone is seeking forgiveness or a shoulder to cry on, those who’ve been saving up can’t seem to help.  Then there are those people that treat love as a privilege.  And while they give their love constantly, they never seem to run out.

Do you know people like that?  Because love is an art, and like any other art, natural talent only gets you so far.  The last paragraph emphasized practice, but guidance is also important.  Some of the love’s masters become world-famous, like Mother Teresa.  But outside of Teresa, how many famous people can you think of who became famous chiefly for practicing love?  Certainly, more often than in any other art, the masters of love toil in obscurity.  But their beauty is all around us.  It’s the well-off elderly couple who lives on a budget far below their means, so that they can continue the charitable giving they began before retirement.  It’s the eldest son who pays his own way through college, so that his younger siblings don’t have to.  It’s the nurse in the cancer ward who’s nicer than any supervisor would ever require.

Some are less obvious.  Years ago, I heard a sermon from my first pastor, David Cobb, in which he described a visit to the town where he’d spent part of his childhood.  (He had moved away in junior high.)  Once back, he met up with a handful of old neighborhood friends, and one of them seemed quite different.  David was amazed that this guy who had once been the most boisterous, funny, and confident of his three brothers had since turned into this dark, awkward adult.  It was only later in a smaller group that David was given the full story.

All of these men came into adulthood under the shadow of the Vietnam War.  And David’s friend had truly gone beyond the call of duty.  Not only did he serve when he was drafted, but after returning from war, he somehow arranged to take extra tours of duty in place of his two brothers.  I’m impressed by those who put college on hold to help their families, but a story like this is truly astounding.  The sad thing is that outside of that small town, where so many know his story, this man will consistently be written as a weirdo by people who will never approach his honor.

That’s the way it is though.  The real experts in the love game often fly under the radar.  And for the most part, that’s the way they like it.  As they have embraced love over the years, it has humbled them (and likely enhanced many other facets of their personality.)  They’re focused not on what’s been done, but what they still can do.  Individual needs may have been met, but an overall sense of need still exists in the world.  So while they always appreciate a thank you, they really don’t want a fuss.  They don’t think they deserve it.  They would say they’re just doing what they think is right, like everybody else.  They don’t focus on the fact that they do right at a much higher percentage than the rest of us.  Now, despite their protests to the contrary, I believe they are different, but I’m not certain they were born that way.

There’s a story I’ve heard about Mother Teresa’s girlhood, which some may perceive as crude in light of her later actions, but which I find inspiring.  It’s said that at a point in her teenage years, she came to God for direction on how to best serve the world.  And she wouldn’t just pray in her home but would frequently go to the church.  For many weeks she wasn’t getting any clear guidance, and she was getting frustrated.  Why, every time she walked to her church, she had to step over and around so many decrepit, homeless people.  One day she was so annoyed by them that upon reaching the altar, she began her prayer by griping.  “Lord, why do you not answer me? I need to know where to serve you.  But each time I try to come here, there are so many poor…”  And somewhere in the gripe, she had her eureka moment.  That day, she started refining her loving skills, and a few decades later, she was teaching millions.  Perhaps what Teresa achieved is within all our grasps.  Maybe she wasn’t gifted in her capacity to love but instead simply made the most of the potential we all have.  Whether we could ever become saints or not, we all must concede there is much to learn from them.  I would encourage you to find the real “lovers” in your collective lives and fight to stay close to them as the years roll by.

*******

As you can see from the meager number of pages behind this one, my writing is almost done.  It’s hard to know how to conclude such an essay, because as I said at the beginning, there are so many neat things about love to discuss.  I guess I should say thank you to { the drummer fiance} for requesting this compilation and for being general enough in his request to let me be creative.  It took a fair amount of effort, but it really was fun.

Now I think it would be fitting, since this began with quotes on my door, to conclude with one of those quotes, specifically the one from the apostle Paul:

“Love is patient and kind.  Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.  It does not demand its own way.  It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”

I once read a coach’s autobiography that mentioned this verse.  The author was Dean Smith, one of the greatest college basketball coaches ever.  After spending much of his book detailing his career, Smith spent the last few chapters talking about his personal life.  He said that he and his wife were very fond of this verse and used it in parenting their children.  Instead of just reading it, they would have each of their kids replace the word love with their own name and then read it more as a series of questions.  For example, I would ask, “Is Matt patient and kind?  Is Matt jealous or boastful or proud or rude?”  And so on.  I think that’s a very practical exercise and not just for young people.  It really impresses upon us how challenging it is to be a loving person day to day with our families.  Most families are naturally compelled to love their members, and this unconditional love is like a safety net.   Unfortunately, we all too often use that safety net as an excuse to be careless, instead of a reason to be thankful.  But when we do mess up, this exercise can also help reveal our mistakes, and diagnosis is an essential step towards correcting any problem.

I wish you guys the best of luck in your marriage.  And I think all married people need some luck, because love heightens all feelings.  It seems you really don’t know what it is to worry until you think the person you love is in danger.  And you don’t really know what it is to hope until you desire something for the one you love.  And you don’t really know disappointment until you watch the one you love fall just short of a goal.  As I’m sometimes fond of saying, there’s more than one way for a girl to break your heart.

But it’s still worth it.  Even when those painful moments happen, there is comfort in the fact that no battles have to be fought alone.  And at our core, we all know that is better to live deeper, in a place where we can soar, even we do crash on occasion, than in a place where we can only look up and wonder.  I think you understand.

You know, I pray a lot for my friends that get married.  I want a lot of good things for them, but if I had to limit my requests to one thing, it would be this.  Say somewhere down the line, either of you meets a person blunt enough to ask the question, “Do you love your spouse?” I hope you consider both sides of love, the romance and the commitment, the feelings and the actions and still can respond, “Yes, of course, every day.”

With that, I say goodbye.  May your past become your prologue, and may you always remember that no one can ever take advantage of the person who gives their advantage first.

=Matt=

Did you like it?  Did it end the way you thought it would?  I’ll post something new next Friday.  Until then, well, you know, love.

 =Matt=

MATT’S LOVE ESSAY PART 2 OF 3

Hello dutiful readers!  This post is the second part of a three part essay on love.  If you want to refresh yourself on the background of this essay or if you haven’t read the first part, just scroll down to my previous post.

Now there’s another type of love, a non-romantic love.  We give this love when we make the choice to put someone else’s happiness or well-being ahead of our own.  Unlike romantic love, this one doesn’t sweep us off our feet, and it doesn’t compel us to follow with a rush of emotions.  It’s not irresistible like the love we feel for that one special someone.  To experience it, we must consent to it and then commit to it and practice it.  But anyone can start this type of love at anytime.  And this commitment love is more durable than romantic love, far less likely to wane or fade.

One of the things that makes marriage so neat is that it’s a melding of these two sides of love.  It’s as if romantic love knows that despite its current power over you, it simply cannot sustain happiness for a lifetime.  So it uses some of its incredible powers of persuasion to push you towards commitment love, which never looks as flashy but really has the endurance.  Maybe an analogy would help.  Trying to put together a life of happiness is like assembling a track team.   Romantic love can sprint like no other, but commitment love has won marathons.  Now romantic love always knows how awesome he is at short races,  but sometimes he’s also humble enough to realize his inconsistency in his second or third mile.  So he brings commitment love on his team for those long relays.  And together, they can go from winning individual events early on (akin to being happy only during the early dating phase)  to actually being overall winners when the meet is finished (decades into a happy marriage.)

Now, there are couples that say they love each other a little more every day.  According to them, the spark never went out, the flames are still burning.  Feelings, especially good ones, are so fleeting, and yet these people say they still get butterflies when they see each other.  So how do they do it?  Well, I can’t say for sure, but I think those couples were actively loving towards each other for so long that their commitment love actually merged with their romantic love.  They worked at being loving and thus earned the best of both worlds, the energy of the young love along with the consistency of a sincere commitment for as long as they both shall live.  In short, romantic love perfected.

“If you want the things you love, you must have showers.”

– Pennies from Heaven

I had a pastor in college who often said that love is not two people staring deeply into each other’s eyes, but two people looking out in the same direction.  I think there’s a lot of truth to that statement, and that’s a side of marital life people can definitely miss.  But in the end, I would say lasting love has both the deep stares and the shared direction.  Now, for you guys this presents a real confirmation as well as a real challenge.  You both work in the arts.  In fact, you perform together and even share the stage on this contract, even if it is only for a few minutes (The drummer played on stage at the end of one of the shows, while his dancer fiancee danced in front of him.) Like fish that don’t know they’re wet, we forget that we are all in the show business world.  The folks that we live beside, drink with at the bar, eat with when hungry, and hang out with when bored, most all of them make a living entertaining people.  That means you guys speak the same language.  Both of your gazes have settled on the same section of the horizon.  (Good for you!)

But here’s the challenge:  Canada and Australia are way the hell apart!  (I hope that’s not new information.  I hate to curse by the way, but I just can’t think of a clearer way to express it.)  That brings so much more into the picture, which I’m certain you guys have pondered, both together in conversation and as individuals in solitude.  I have a friend on another ship from the Philippines who’s married to a woman from Romania.  They love each other, and they’re not going to break up over it, but it’s tough to settle into either country, because neither is truly home for both people.

“Dream about the days to come, when I won’t have to leave alone, about the time I won’t have to say…I’m leaving on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again.”

-Peter, Paul, and Mary

Going to college out of town and then working on ships has, at points really made me yearn to settle down.  During college, I was splitting time between two cities, so two churches, two sets of friends, two living environments.   Now on ships, we have a professional life in which we must orient ourselves to a nearly totally new set of people two or three times a year, not to mention new ports.  For me the idea of splitting time between two countries for the rest of my life, even if the split was 80-20% or 90-10%, would be very intimidating.  In full disclosure, that idea is so seemingly challenging to me that I won’t make a move on a woman from a different country.

But you guys might be different from me.  In fact, you probably are. I don’t know you that well, but you’ve both already spent more time on ships than I plan to (They had both been working on cruise ships for over 4 years when I met them.)  And I’ve heard (male fiance) mention the possibility of working more on ships down the road.  Maybe your concept of home is more relational.  If today’s technology allows you to stay connected and involved in the lives of the family thousands of miles away, maybe that’s all you need.  Living the rest of your life in your home country might seem boring to you.  You don’t hate it there, but you know you can be happy elsewhere.  There are little things you love about home, which certainly will bring you back on occasion but you can easily give them up for the person you love.  I mean, if you couldn’t stand to be without those things only your country can give you, you’d have never lasted this long on ships.   And that’s where it comes back together.  You’ve already both developed some distance from the world you were raised in, and you’re apparently comfortable with that.  It’s yet another way that you’re staring in that same direction.  That doesn’t mean geography won’t still be a challenge, but it does indicate your ability to rise above it.

“Love, the kind you clean up with a mop and bucket,

like the lost catacombs of Egypt,

only God knows where we stuck it”

-The Bloodhound Gang

Can I talk about sex for a second?  In my opinion, it’s easily one of God’s top ten creations, right along side rainbows or sunsets.  (Little known fact:  doing it right along side a rainbow at sunset is technically considered worship by some Christian denominations.)  I know I mentioned earlier that sex is something you must experience to really understand, so I certainly won’t pretend to be an expert.  I actually had no intentions of going into this area at all until I started looking through the Bible for good passages about love.  There are tons of great examples of dutiful wives and husbands, but there’s a limited supply of short and sweet quotes.  But I did find something.  In Genesis we’re told the story of the first two people on the planet, Adam and Eve, and whether you believe their story is a metaphor or literal, it really doesn’t effect this particular message.

As you may recall, Adam and Eve didn’t wear any clothes for the first few years of their existence.  Now, they eventually did put on clothes, and there’s been a lot of theological exploration over the years of their “fall” from grace and thus, innocence.  But those aren’t the verses I want to look at.  I want to go back to before they fell away and threw on clothes like the rest of us.  In the second chapter of Genesis, there lies one of the most beautifully simplistic pictures of marriage out there:  “The man and his wife were naked, and they were not ashamed.”

When we first approach someone we think we like, we’re oft-times worried that our flaws (those parts that we’re ashamed of) will be revealed.  If we really think that person’s great, it’s easy to wonder if we measure up.  In our insecurity, we feel we must look and act our absolute best for every meeting in order to leave an impression.  But when you’ve got love, you’ve got someone who’s seen you with no make-up on, watched over you when you were sick, smelled you when you just came from the gym.  None of that stuff sounds romantic, but this is one of those situations where the whole is far greater than the sum of the parts.  That’s because when two people have seen all of each other’s ugly moments and ugly places physically (not to mention emotionally) and yet still accept and care for one another, this behavior reveals an evolution in the relationship.  It doesn’t matter if names haven’t changed and ceremonies haven’t occurred.  At the point where people are giving unconditional acceptance to each other, those individuals have become family.

The verse uses the word naked.  Now naked doesn’t just mean unclothed; it also implies unprotected.  So when couples in love have sex, they are re-enacting in the physical realm what they have already enacted in the emotional realm:  trusting someone enough to put the most fragile and guarded parts of themselves into the other’s hands.  Over time, the wonderful acceptance and care that the other person is giving you starts gradually peeling away those insecurities.  And soon enough those potential gaffs that terrified you on your first few dates wouldn’t phase you at all.  My old roommate Wil would occasionally say of a lovely lady we’d see on the television, “I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for farting.”  Believe it or not, that’s actually in the same ballpark as the Bible verse.  I mean sure, passing gas might ruin a hot and heavy moment, but in the grand scheme, isn’t it the bee’s knees to know at least one person on this Earth with which you can’t possibly embarrass yourself?  So I have to ask, do you guys laugh at accidental flagellation in erotic moments?  You do!  Well, guess what?  You’re in love, that’s what.

The conclusion will be posted next Friday.  If you enjoy this work, please leave a comment and/or recommend us to a friend.

Peace Out, My Peeps,

=Matt=

MATT’S LOVE ESSAY PART 1 OF 3

This essay was written for two friends that I met while working on a cruise ship in the summer of 2008.  The guy is a drummer from Canada, and the girl is a dancer from Australia.  They had met on another cruise ship a few years prior and by the time I first encountered them,  they were already in love and engaged.

Now, when I’m on a ship, I like to print out some of my favorite quotes from various artists and movies, as well as the Bible, and post them on my cabin door so that passers by can check them out.  This couple was preparing to write their vows, when they noticed that a handful of my good “door quotes” centered on the subject of love, so they asked if I could prepare some written compilation about love.  I agreed and commenced work on the essay you see before you.  While it was a very personal gift,  I wrote about the subject of love in general and not really about my friends’ relationship.  Therefore, I really believe it has the potential to connect with many people.  We’ll see if I’m right.  Thanks for reading and please enjoy…

“Two in love can make it.  Take my heart and please don’t break it.  Love was made for me and you.” - Nat King Cole

Well, this is probably a little more than what you asked for (We have been programmed to exceed expectations.)  I think you wanted a list of quotes, but there are so many cool ideas about love that need a few paragraphs to really explain.  Also, it’s just a blast to write about.  I know this looks kind of lengthy and that I’ve been long-winded conversationally in the past, but people have described my writing as concise.  And I think that’s reflected in this work.  All of the quotes that separate the paragraphs are from other people, though I couldn’t remember the authors for some.  The information within the paragraphs is a mixture of concepts I’ve heard and others I’ve come to on my own.

I know it’s ambitious of me to attempt an essay on the subject of love.  Sure, I had some good quotes on my door, but what do I know?  Well, I’d like to think that Christianity, when practiced accurately, leads people to a tremendous knowledge of love.  But Christ himself said that, “Wisdom is proven right by her children” or in more modern translations, “Wisdom is shown right by its results.” So while I hope this can help you, only that potent mixture of real life and time will tell.  Perhaps in the least it can grease the mental wheels as you ponder love together on the path to your very special day.

“Funny people say they fall in love.  Love is an elevator going up.”

-Brad Williams

Love comes out of nowhere but not out of nothing.  You can never plan it, and if you tried, you’d only be disappointed.  It’s been around forever, but ironically, it still sneaks up on us.  Always a surprise, I guess, in some ways like a fall.  That’s a peculiar phrase, and I wonder what expressions other cultures may use and if they’re more accurate.  The idea of falling brings about feelings of helplessness and lack of control but at the same time, exhilaration.  In short, a rush.  Now, I think we all could concede that to this extent, falling is an accurate metaphor for beginning to love.  Still, don’t all falls end in a collision, which is, to some extent, painful?  Certainly there are some out there who would try to convince you that these aspects of falling are why it is linked verbally to love.  One of our ship comedians said in his bit that, instead of actually marrying, he’s going to save himself the heartache by finding a woman he can’t stand and buying her a house.

“Love is the temporary delusion that any two women are different.”

No doubt, there are many cynics out there, and perhaps just as many folks dripping with flippancy or sarcasm (forms of cynicism which go undercover because they are more often accepted in a humor-appreciating society.)  Some of their claims are not without merit, especially the notion that love has been ignored, mishandled, and even abused by men and women to a saddening degree.  However, I strongly disagree with the notion that love isn’t real or is flawed from the start.  It only appears that way because of the company it keeps.  For better or worse, love counts humanity as its friend, despite how we embarrass it and taint its sterling reputation.  People by nature are imperfect, and we’ll leave evidence of that imperfection on all we touch.  Speaking of touch, I’ll touch on the cynics more later.  For now, let’s return to the falling.

“Cruelty shadows the door that the heart opens.”

-Brad Williams

Love, in any form, takes openness and bravery.  To use another interesting metaphor, it takes a leap of faith.  There’s a danger to loving anything, because we can always get hurt.  And the fear of being hurt in love binds us all together, from the eighty year old man with a wife on her deathbed down to the junior high school girl who wants to ask her friend to the dance.  But despite the risks involved, we seem to have faith in love, most of us.  What is it that makes us keep going in romance?  Why do we believe in love?  Is it merely our egotism as individuals that we each think there’s something great inside of us, and we just have to find the person with the perspective to see it?  Is it because of all the songs and movies and poems and books that push in some form the “happily ever after” ending as a logical conclusion to a human struggle?  And is all that artistic propaganda simply an outgrowth of the egotism just mentioned?

No, I don’t think it’s those things, though I am certain they do sway some in the population to more ardently or even desperately seek love.  No, I think the reason that people have faith in love is really the same reason people have faith in anything.  They see enough evidence and what might have once seemed an impossible leap of faith now appears a far shorter distance to cross.  In the case of love, our evidence comes in successful marriages of close friends or family.

When I think about what marriage should be, I think of my cousin and his wife.  This couple probably sticks out in my mind, because unlike older couples in my family, I actually attended their wedding at a young age and have watched that marriage develop over the years.  There is a warmth between them, and a consistent consideration for the other person.  If they ever start to get snippy with each other, they seem to immediately catch themselves doing it and stop.  They have two younger children now, and they work so hard to be fair and clear with them.  That cliché that “Life’s not fair,” is strangely missing from their vocabularies, seemingly along with any other child-frustrating cliché you could think of.

And it’s these types of couples that keep all those sappy romance artists from being mere propaganda agents.  You spend time with two people in love, not just in love but really running a healthy relationship, and it strengthens that faith.  You start to think, maybe those songs didn’t overstate it and maybe the stuff in those movies really does happen some times.  And hey, if it’s happening somewhere, maybe it can happen to me.

“Love is the great trick that nature plays on mankind in order to maintain her existence.”

And then, one day, it does happen to you.  For a little while, you’re not sure.  It’s weird, you know, it’s like a woman being pregnant.  Like her, you don’t feel when it first started.  (It snuck up on you like everyone else.)  You both ask friends who’ve gone through it before; maybe you even consult people you consider experts to try and get a verdict.  But no matter what anyone says, that period of limbo can’t last.  It’s a black and white situation.  It is just as likely for someone to be a little in love as it is to be a little pregnant.  Soon enough it becomes obvious, and at that point, to pretend it hasn’t happened can be downright dangerous.

“With the first love comes the ignorance that it will ever end.”

Once that disorientating state of limbo has passed, you step into the real territory of love.  And, as we say in the music world, that’s a groove.  It’s emotional, spiritual, and fundamentally experiential.  You and the smartest guy you know and even the smartest guy he knows could never lead someone to a real understanding of love merely through conversation.  It’s one of those bedrock ingredients to our world that has to be felt to be truly known, like sex or religion, and it’s this facet of love that leads many to regard it as somewhat mysterious.  Now, with advances in science, we are learning more and more about love.  When you gaze upon your beloved, the chemist can tell you which endorphins are firing to give you that exciting sensation.  The neurologist can tell you what areas of your brain are kicking on.  The biologist can explain your physical attraction to that person.  The psychologist can explain how your personalities compliment each other, thus making you a good fit.  But all this science is dealing with how’s and what’s.  We’re falling in love out here in the real world, and the really cool, tough question is “why?”  Why this person?  Why now?  Scientists can’t answer those questions, and I don’t believe they ever will.

And if there was a clear explanation, would we really want to find it?  Beauty is a cousin of mystery, so love is beautiful partially because it confounds the human intellect.  That humbling mystery is tied up in its essence, so that the moment love was completely explainable, it would die, or in the least, cease to be the love we, the human race, have grown up with.  What it would become is beyond my imagination, but I imagine it would be an unfair trade for us all.

Please check out the site next Friday (31st) for part 2 of  this essay.

See you then!

=Matt=

INTRODUCING A NEW CONTRIBUTOR

Hello all, my name is Matt Morris.  I’m a long time friend of Brad’s, and I will be contributing to this already quality website starting next week.  But before I post any real writings, I want to give all those who don’t know me a somewhat brief introduction to my past and present, as well as a look into my friendship with Brad and some of the things I will be sharing on the site.

I was born in 1984 in a hospital in East Ridge, which is a small town right beside the small city of Chattanooga in southeast Tennessee.  I grew up exclusively in Chattanooga, moving only once, when I was 12 from one suburban neighborhood to another 5 miles away.  I was a good student in junior high and high school and always a goofball but with a touch of wit.  I wasn’t really a good student in my elementary years, and I think it’s rather unusual to jump up in your grades after your pattern has been established.  I’m sure it happens sometimes though, especially if you have the right teachers around you, which was kind of my case.  But hey, that’s a story for another day.

In my sophomore year of high school, I came into the Christian faith, which I still practice sincerely to this day.  And in my junior year, in an introductory Spanish class, I met Brad, who was then a sophomore.  It was a cool “coincidence” that we ended up meeting, since in our large school (1,700+) two good students in different years wouldn’t wind up in the same class too often.  But I had put off the foreign language requirement, while Brad was hoping right in, so we bumped into each other.  Mr. Peck, our very memorable instructor, liked to break down the class into small groups to practice our new language skills, so this gave Brad and me several chances to deepen our friendship.  Spurred by my recent conversion, I was just starting to write on a consistent basis and with a serious tone.  Brad had typed up his second novel over the previous summer, so he was way ahead, but he certainly didn’t turn up his nose at the rare kindred spirit on the high school frontier.  By the end of the year, he was helping to type up and even writing the forward to my first major work, an autobiographical anthology.  It was totally melodramatic and over-the-edge personal.  In other words, it was exactly what a sixteen-year-old should have been writing.  Still, when some of the girls who were the subject of some of the writings caught wind of what was going to be in there, they were a little freaked out.  I quickly realized (to some extent) the error of my ways and cut the personal stuff for the final draft.  From there, I shared it with many friends and received a lot of positive feedback.  The animosity and social rejection over the rougher, early versions of the work proved a real personal challenge to me.  But thankfully, I always had the perspective to understand that it was the scope of the honesty in the writings that drew their ire, and not the quality of the product.  So while I may seem above romance in future writings, let this paragraph reassure all the well-meaning hopeless romantics that have been their own worst enemy in the pursuit of love, I’ve been there and “I feel your pain.”

In 2002, I graduated from high school and took the 97 mile trip up the road to the University of Tennessee.  It was there that I majored in music and thus made the transition from a committed high school musician to a full-time student of the art.  (My main instrument is the trombone by the way.)  I was behind most of the other students ability-wise in that first year, mainly due to the fact that I had so few private lessons in my high school days.  But I worked hard, maintained my scholarships, and earned the respect and friendship of many professors and students in our dirty worn-down music building.

The fact that Brad spent most of his college years at UT helped us in maintaining our friendship, although being driven, focused students in different majors limited our face-time somewhat.  When he went to Hong Kong for the 04/05 school year, Brad did call me on occasion, and he was even courteous enough to make sure it wasn’t in the middle of the night.  It was also in that school year that I made just enough time in my schedule to take a few writing courses, and they proved to be simultaneously a refreshing change of pace from the music that was dominating my schedule, as well as a nice introduction to the cool piece of art known as the fiction short story.  It’s possible that some of my stories may be shared on this site, though I honestly haven’t made up my mind on that yet, nor have I run it by Brad.

In May of 2006 I graduated from UT with my Bachelor of Arts degree and commenced looking for work in the arts.  I wasn’t picky, but still, it took a while.  The search dragged through the summer and then through the fall, and I got frustrated.  It wasn’t just the job search.  The used 95’ Ford Probe that had served me so faithfully during my college years was now breaking down, and I had to find new wheels.  Also, my home church in Chattanooga, which had been such a beacon of love and support for me through my school years, was in the midst of a very serious conflict.  In all three areas, my frustration was heightened by people’s inability to be honest and straightforward with me.  Whether a company had already hired someone, a person wasn’t going to sell their car to me, or a long-time member of our church wasn’t going to attend anymore, these things would not have hurt as bad if they were told to me plainly shortly after the other party’s decision had been made.  It was during this period that my already strong appreciation for honesty was put in the crucible.  I emerged with any even clearer understanding of its importance in reflecting love in this world.  Lies and withholdings of truth are disrespectful, and love cannot begin with disrespect.

But eventually, things got better.  A lot better.  First off, my second cousin had moved into town with his family that summer to serve as pastor of a Methodist church not too far away from me.  I left my old and formerly dear church, not because they fought, but because they wanted to move on by running others off, not lovingly dealing with the issues.  In September I began attending my cousin’s church, and the people were quite a blessing to me, as I healed from the spiritual wounds of my season of conflict.  Having a family member as a pastor is very neat too.  Our conversations can get pretty no-holds-barred in their honesty and while respectful, he knows he can be a little blunter with me than the average member of his congregation.  And that’s all good, believe me.

In November, I finally found a good car being sold by a good guy at a good price.  He was from the same small town as some of my older relatives, and we even realized after a few conversations that he had cut my great-grandmother’s lawn at some point back in the 60’s.  So I bought the car, and it’s still running great (knock on wood.)

And lastly to the job.  A few years prior to my graduation, a slightly older friend of mine had gotten a job playing trombone on cruise ships.  We’d shared a few conversations over the phone during my senior year, and he’d given me enough details to pique my interest about the gig and even offered me some advice on preparation.  I’d done a few auditions for ship gigs that summer but with no luck.  Then finally in November, just days after finding the car, I auditioned for the 3^rd time, and this time I got it.  I signed up for a 4 month contract to start in the New Year (07’) and scrambled to get all my medicals ready for international travel.  The last Sunday at my new church, my cousin called me up at the end of the service.  He asked if anyone in the congregation would like to join the two of us at the altar to pray for me.  There are about 75 in regular attendance at this church, and I had only been going for five months, so I’d really only met about 30 people.  At least 50 came to the altar.  It was a really nice moment, because it underscored how quick God can replace your frustrations with blessings.  In literally just a season, I had found good wheels, a good church, and what many would call a dream job.

As I began writing this introduction, I was on 5,000 passenger ship in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.  Now as I put the finishing touches on it, I’m back at home in that Chattanooga suburb.  I’ve spent 23 of the last 30 months living on cruise ships, almost 2 whole years of my life sleeping on the sea.  And I’m not done yet.  I’ll be spending the fall on a ship ported out of Florida, a common cruise ship state, near Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral.  In the last 2 and a half years, I’ve gone to Houston, Mobile, Tampa, New York, Boston, Portland, Maine, and Key West, Florida.  In Mexico, I’ve visited Costa Maya, Playa Del Carmen, Cozumel, Progresso, and Merida.  I’ve also ported in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as the Caribbean ports of Montego Bay, Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Freeport and Nassau in the Bahamas.  So have I had adventures?  Well, you know…

There’s another cool thing about cruise ship work, that I think the average outsider may not be aware of.  The vast majority of the crew members are not Americans.  Now we can debate the ethics of outsourcing whenever you wish, but the fact remains that for me this has been a neat benefit.  And I wish to pass that benefit on to you, the dutiful readers of this website.  That’s why I’ve already begun interviewing my foreign friends on the ships.  I will edit and post those interviews here on the site regularly, in the hopes that both international travelers and home bodies alike can learn along with me about the world outside our borders.  Brad and I are both excited about this part of my future contributions.

Speaking of Brad, I want to get back to him to wrap up.  Most of our readers know him pretty well now through his posts, so I feel it wise to conclude my introduction by listing some of the similarities and differences I have with my good friend.  First off, for an intellectual, an academic, I think I’m very positive.  Brad is more positive than most of the average college-educated, top-of-their-class kids I know, but I think I do hold a little less cynicism than even him.  And I like that about myself.

I believe in being active, and I enjoy a nice view.  But I am nowhere near as into physical fitness and outdoormanship as Brad is.  Those things connect to him on a different spiritual plane, one I may discover someday but currently remain ignorant of.  Brad is also more focused than me and will work harder towards achieving a goal that he sets.  However, my goals, plans, and interests stay steadier than Brad’s, and my achievements come not from challenging myself to the extremes (as you’ve seen Brad do on this site) but from consistent good effort.  It’s a little more boring, but it does allow me to sneak up on people success-wise from time to time.

I am still a proponent of organized religion; Brad has cooled to the idea of church in recent years.  I love sports, and I don’t know how I’d fill the hours without them.  Brad appreciates a world-class athlete but doesn’t understand the cultural obsession with athletics.  I read the first Harry Potter book and enjoyed it.  Brad could probably quote all six (or is it seven?)

I know Brad wears a little ego on his sleeve.  Now the cocky streak is something we have in common, but I rarely show mine, because I strangely but truly have a parallel streak of humility that runs down to the bone.  When the doors are closed, and I’m by myself, I may stare at the mirror and tell the guy looking back that I’m his biggest fan.  But when it comes to telling you how to run your life, I walk on eggshells, constantly aware that I might be over-stepping my knowledge of the situation.

In defense of Brad’s occasional arrogance, I will remind the reader that this was not only a young man that grew up absorbing adventure novels, he’s actually been pretty successful in turning his life into one:  hopping over to Japan within months of becoming a legal adult, hitchhiking through third world countries at 19, spending his entire sophomore year at a university in Hong Kong, and these crazy, midnight marathon hikes, my goodness.  So if he’s a little proud, that’s okay.  As long as it’s just a little.

And I’ll also add that as Brad’s friend, I’ve seen him challenged.  I’ve seen him defeated.  And I have a feeling that like me, he has a humble streak.  How deep it runs, I still don’t know.  But I hope that as friends we can encourage and counsel each other enough to be humble in all of life’s adventures without having to be humbled by them.  I pray that same blessing for all of you, my new peeps.

Well, that’s a fairly thorough introduction.  Please check my first post next week.  It originally comes from an essay I wrote on love for a few of my friends who were tying the knot last summer.  I believe it will be posted in three parts over the course of three weeks, and I think it’s a decent piece for continuing to introduce me to the readers.

=Matt=