High School Sports: Treasure That Shit

Highland Park soccer took a beating today against Middlesex-- they're always brutal on their grass field-- and though Ian played great, he wasn't capable of the heroics of Wednesday's game . . . but I was impressed that his team played hard until the end, even though they were down 5-0-- and I was also impressed that Ian didn't get caught giving the finger to some very obnoxious high school aged Middlesex fans . . . and I will remind Ian that win or lose, there's nothing like playing high school sports: they're just serious enough to be super-competitive, there are ageless and endless rivalries (like HP and Middlesex) and you get to switch to a different sport when the season ends . . . I played soccer in high school and it was wild and physical and competitive, but I also played golf in the spring-- with my best friends-- and we loved it . . . as the photo above indicates (I'm the one three from the left, wearing a Members Only jacket, sporting a mullet).

 

Ian Plays Soccer Like a Hurricane

My son Ian, who is a senior in high school, has had a rough couple years of high school soccer-- he was an excellent player when he was young, but then he didn't grow . . . and then he grew too fast-- so he's endured a broken elbow, stretched and tender Achilles tendons, and an elbow to the orbital that gave him a concussion-- he didn't really play any soccer all summer , he just played tennis and basketball, but he's been getting his touch back during this season and yesterday he had his best varsity game ever-- and coach rewarded him with the "man of match" award-- a free sub-- he dominated both outside mid-positions; won a ball and beat a couple got the game winning assist; set up two other perfect assists that players outright missed, hit the post on two shots-- one of which was an incredible left-footed bending ball from outside the 18 on the right flank-- pursued all over the field and won balls, trapped every long ball perfectly, hit a number of quick one-touch give-and-goes and generally hustled, played smart, and won a lot fo balls . . . and he managed to make it uninjured until three minutes left in the game, when he went to shoot and got crushed by two players, one sliding in, the other next to, causing him to flip over (he's 5 foot 11 and only 130 pounds) and land on his back, knocking the wind out of him . . . but he was fine today and hopefully he'll perform just as well tomorrow.

Dave Grohl and Langston Hughes, Together at Last?

You're not going to read Dave Grohl's memoir for the writing quality: The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music is kind of cheesy . . . and you're not going to read it for the inside scoop on Kurt Cobain-- he doesn't get into the drugs and depression and Courtney Love stuff very much-- but you might like his attitude about music, which borders on religious fervor-- and the anecdotes-- which feature loads of musicians that I love (notably Iggy Pop, Tom Petty, Lemmy and Pantera) and if you're up for a real adventure, you could listen to the new episode of We Defy Augury, "Dave Grohl and Langston Hughes Rock the House," which features the Grohl book, Langston Hughes, and a bunch of other connected audio cameos. 

What Are the Odds?

I've spend an inordinate amount of my life on grassy fields-- playing soccer, coaching soccer, playing golf, hiking, walking the dog, etcetera-- but I've never spotted a four-leaf clover.

Out with My Wife (Three Outings!)

 

Today we had off for Rosh Hashanah so my wife and I headed out to Sandy Hook to explore the old army base (Fort Hancock) at the tip of the peninsula-- and while much of the place is in ruins, the old bunkers and the theater and the barracks and officer's housing-- there are a few houses that have been restored and can now be rented out for a scenic but quiet (and kind of spooky) beach vacation; we trekked out onto the North Beach and got a nice view of NYC and also nearly stepped on one of the iconic Jersey shore syringes that wash over from the Big Apple . . . on the way home, we stopped in Keyport for lunch at Old Glory, a church converted into a gastropub-- the food was good (although we sat down at a table in the nearly empty restaurant and then these two old ladies, REALLY old ladies, sat down right behind us, even though they had the whole place to themselves, and the one old lady started crowding my chair, so we moved tables . . . one lady ordered a soda and a shot and she slowly poured the shot into the soda and drank it) and I must say that Keyport was pretty weird, a corner of New Jersey I've never experienced until today-- it's an old almost-beach town that's almost gentrifying-- in the first stages, but it's mainly full of antique and junk stores, the way Asbury was in the 90s, before it became a full-on tourist hot-spot . . . next time we'll have to stop in Keansburg, which apparently has a similar vibe.

Out with the Deatz

I was at the Annual Grant Avenue Block Party yesterday when Deatz made me an offer I couldn't refuse: a free ticket to the Rutgers/Iowa game . . . we walked over straight from the block party, watched Rutgers hang in athletically (but not strategically-- and they made some horrific game-changing turnovers) and then got a ride home from his daughter, who goes to Rutgers and was at the game . . . quite a scene over there, and even though Rutgers got beat, it looked like a Big 10 football game.

Out with the Ladies

Successful happy hour at B2 Bistro, a newish place on Farrington Lake near my old stomping grounds-- used to be Sir John's, a place we would occasionally terrorize when we in high school-- we'd run in and steal the bowl of mints or a bag of steak fries and then book it back to my friend Rob's house . . . I was the only guy attending (Terry had to coach) but I was able to handle all the attention from the beautiful ladies of EBHS with my trademark charm and style.

Got the Podcast Done Just in Time

First of all, I managed to finish another episode of my podcast We Defy Augury . . . this one is about Steven Johnson's new book and it's called "Revising Our Notion About Pirates" and I got it done just in time-- because I'm going to sound like I have marbles in my mouth for a day or two-- this afternoon, I underwent two hours of clanking and poking and pulling and drilling, and casting and impressing-- and now my old bridge is gone, as is all the decay under my old bridge-- and my dentist, Dr. David, is "cautiously optimistic" that I won't have to endure a root canal before they can put in my permanent bridge (and there's going to be a bit of gold on my permanent bridge! not quite a grill, but it's something) and right now I'm sipping some Olmeca Altos tequila, waiting for the lidocaine to wear off, which it most certainly will-- and then, apparently, my mouth is going to hurt some (I should also point out that the hygienist was pretty weird and nerdy in a fun way, we were talking about how long a day it had been and she started postulating about the possibilities of time dilation . . . and I couldn't really chime in much because I was biting down on some weird goopy stuff in order to make a mold for my temporary bridge).

Special Guest

Alex came home from college and ate dinner with us tonight-- which was very exciting-- but the reason was not so exciting: he needed to buy a new laptop (but it was still fun-- we cooked a steak, got the lowdown on his classes and all the parties, and then Cat drove him back over to Livingston so he could attend some physics study group).

Tuesday = Johnny Lawrence

Ian scored his first varsity goal yesterday-- so he's one step closer to his goal of scoring in varsity soccer, varsity basketball-- which is a stretch because he hasn't played organized basketball since 8th grade-- and winning some matches as first singles in varsity tennis (which, barring injury, will be business as usual) meanwhile I worked my ass off today, teaching three of the four 82 minute periods (including singing a song, doing a music theory demo on my guitar in public speaking, and brainstorming a lot of demo topics with kids) and I covered a class during my only off period-- and then we had a department meeting-- so while I'd like to continue reading about the Civil War, I think the best my brain will be able to muster is watching the new season of Cobra Kai.

Very Very Early Action

I was upstairs reading some Civil War history and I heard some yelling downstairs so I went to check it out and apparently Ian was getting started on his Rutgers application-- which is totally separate from the Common App-- and he was clicking through shit like a lunatic, which is how both my children navigate web-pages-- fast and furious, with very little comprehension-- and he somehow submitted his application before filling out any of the stuff, and there are no take-backs with college applications-- so we're going to have to send a bunch of emails to rectify this (and the first reply was basically "sorry, no take-backs") and I don't think high school boys are qualified to apply to college.

Phrases phrases phrases

My wife has a habit of slightly altering idioms so that they retain the meaning but contain a synonym or two in place of the typical words in the saying; for example, "drip in the bucket" instead of "drop in the bucket" . . . today, she described her shopping trip as a "crazy goose hunt" instead of a "wild goose chase"-- I quite like that one-- and last week, she called me to vent after undergoing a time-consuming, fruitless customer-service call and ensuing message from the furniture store that was very hard to understand-- she described this poorly recorded voicemail as "marbled" and I said, "you mean 'garbled'?" and she said, "marbled, totally unclear . . . and if you're going to correct my vocabulary I'm going to hang up!" so I wisely stopped pursuing the matter, but today-- after we laughed about her invention of crazy duck hunt, she told me what she meant was that the guy on the message "sounded like he had marbles in his mouth."

Pirates? Not the Disney Version

Great non-fiction writers can make any topic interesting and Steven Johnson is one of the great ones, he's done it over and over with various topics-- innovations and ideas, cholera, the history of air, organized complexity, decision-making, video games and TV, etcetera-- and in his new book, he astounded me by taking a topic that I always thought was kind played out and juvenile: pirates-- but Johnson's take on pirates is different . . . he puts  them in global context, but I should warn you, Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First Global Manhunt is not a book that focuses on swashbuckling and sword-fighting-- although that stuff comes up-- instead it portrays pirates (specifically Henry Every) as a bundle of contradictions: democratic rapists; multi-cultural xenophobes; contract abiding torturers; free-spirited slave traders . . . it's a lot to take in, but Johnson does it in a fast breezy style and the history of the Mughal Dynasty and the East India Company goes down fairly easy.

Thus Endeth the Streak

 It was such a good week for Ian (until the mooning incident).

Could Be an Educational Experiment

I had an Indian curry and a shitload of lentils for lunch and I'm drinking coffee and now I'm wolfing down rice and beans for dinner, then heading over to Back to School Night . . . the parents could be in for a treat!

Epic Week But No Complaints

A long week . . . five days of teaching six classes and four preps, plus Back to School Night (and no more videos, we're doing it in person) but it's been a good week: Rutgers football won, Giants football "won" . . . but just barely, Ian went up 190 points on the SAT, Ian played really well in the tragic soccer loss against Middlesex . . . another ridiculous call-- this time a phantom PK and the Middlesex kid, who had been diving all game, kicked the ball while he was on the ground and HE got the call in his favor and then our goalie got knocked out of the way and another goal was scored and then another Middlesex kid took a dive and out player got his second yellow, so I'm glad I'm not coaching but Ian scraped the rust off from a summer of only tennis and actually looked fit and aggressive and his touch was excellent, and we had a delicious flank steak for dinner-- and you never know with flank steak, sometimes it can be tough, and I've got another episode of We Defy Augury out . . . we'll see if I can keep it up after this long week (and Garage Sale Day on Saturday . . . if I get the next episode out, I'm a podcasting hero).

Saul > Sentence

New content is canceled today-- Catherine, Ian, and I watching the penultimate episode of Better Call Saul . . . all the timelines are coming together and things are mainly black and white (and bleak).

The Key To Teaching High Schhol

I really have to remember to thank my children for providing so much material for my classroom-- it's so much easier to teach teenagers when you have a couple of them (and a big shout out to Theo for leaving his school ID in the van, so that Ian was caught in a lie about how many kids he drove to the tennis tournament-- he's got a provisional license and should only have one other person in the car and he would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for the ID left in the cupholder-- and will Ian learn his lesson and only drive the proper number of people . . . of course not . . . because, like most of the teenagers I polled today . . . very few kids follow that rule, even though there might be dire consequences . . . especially when you're speeding up the Parkway, totally lost, during rush hour).

Dave's Still Got It (Aside from a Thick Head of Hair and Speed)

This weekend, I took a break from racquet sports (I played pickle-ball, badminton, and tennis last week) and met up with my pick-up soccer group for our first session on the brand new turf-- I haven't played since doing indoor soccer last winter because I didn't want to sprain my ankle on the shitty rock hard grass at the park but now that the turf is done, I'll attend-- and for any of you wondering, I've still got it-- the touch and the vision and creativity, the ability to play passes with either foot, the one-touch and the give-and-go, the fake pass and the step-over . . . all that jazz-- all that's missing is speed and agility and quickness and my knees.

Apology Note to My Biceps (and the rest of my muscles)

I'm sorry I went to the gym this morning and lifted weights when I knew that we had to remove a couch from our living room-- never again (hopefully we won't ever have to buy a couch again, and I won't have to worry about this-- the stupid couch wouldn't fit through the front door so we had to carry it out through the sliding door, onto the deck, down the stairs, and from the backyard to the front-- when am I old enough to hire people to do this kind of work?)

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (by Dave)

Some of you may be familiar with how I live my life (Dave-style) and one of the cute and quirky things about my particular style of living is that instead of throwing stuff I don't want into the trash, sometimes I just toss it onto the common table in the English Office . . . so when Sara Murphy (affectionately known as Smurphy and one of my favorite people in the universe) came into my class, holding a stack of paper and said, "You forgot your photo-copies on the table, here they are," I felt really bad-- but I had to tell her (mainly because I knew the class would enjoy the information) that I didn't need those photo-copies and they were actually trash that I had inconsiderately tossed onto the common table and that though she had tried to do a good deed, she had instead exposed me as the total jackass that I am . . . but at least I have this blog in which to reflect upon these moments and maybe I won't do this again for a couple of weeks.

The First Thing I Do in the Morning

Before you can wake up and smell the coffee, someone has to make the coffee.

Note to Self: Wear a Belt!

Once every school year I either forget my belt or decide my pants fit perfectly and I don't need a belt-- but I always forget that once I start moving around and sweating-- and yesterday was particularly humid and sweaty-- that my pants loosen up and start falling down . . . so I had to improvise and use a type-A phone cord as a belt, which worked pretty well (but not as well as an actual belt, which I will ALWAYS wear now-- until I forget).

This One Goes to 11

 

Episode 11 of my podcast We Defy Augury is up . . . while it's inspired by the new Don Winslow novel "City on Fire," it's more of a clip show-- I run through all the mob tropes in the novel and provide audio examples from famous films.

Another Labor Day, Another Greased Watermelon Water-polo Rugby Match

Yesterday was the end of the season picnic at the Rutgers pool and the end of the season picnic culminates with the greased-watermelon-rugby-water-polo match in the deep end of the pool . . . and it was the usual melee-- no goggles allowed, so everyone's eyes were burning, a few of us (including me) got kicked in the head, lots of dunkings and near drownings, a lack of ability to sweat because your skin gets covered in vaseline, and so much treading water that by the end, it was difficult to pull yourself out of the pool-- but I also noticed something with the dynamic-- the game was seven on seven this year-- kind of small-- and the only people playing are the crew that is my age (around fifty) and our children (and some of our children's friends) and the rest of the eligible pool members-- all the twenty and thirty and forty year olds-- pull up chairs and watch the match . . . we got exactly one new player, a 44 year old named John who was a water polo player-- and he told me after the match "I didn't realize it would be so intense! and I thought I would swim circles around everyone but there are some really good swimmers," which is true because one family is all swimmers and their kids can grab the watermelon and submerge to the bottom of the pool and swim with it, which is pretty much an indefensible play . . . anyway, this gladiatorial event may die (sink and drown) with our generation (and I think this year's match caused me to pass a very small kidney stone, I won't go into further detail on that front).

Graduation Wine

Action-packed Saturday: I took  a long bike ride on the tow road (and with the cross country coach, who I ran into on his bike in Johnson Park) and then I drove to Clark with Ian and we bought a used bike because he keeps growing and then I installed some basement window well covers-- I should have done that a long time ago-- and Catherine bought a new coach and chair and then we went to Flounder Brewing for a beer and now we're getting dinner ready and drinking the bottle of wine that the kids and I got many years ago, which was specifically for once Alex graduated and went to college-- and it actually tastes quite good.

Back to School

Total brain fog-- today was some kind of epic Professional Development Day at school (and even though what all the teachers want to do is get set up, figure out lesson plans, talk to people that are teaching the same classes as them, and get ready for the kids . . . but we need to be inspired) so we had two hours of music and dancing and edu-tainer Dr. Adolf Brown, what happened to be at William and Mary at around the same time I was there (but he was obviously making something of himself, attending class and then many levels of graduate school, while I played darts and ping-pong) and though he was a great speaker, his message could have been conveyed in twenty minutes-- basically that the kids are bringing baggage to school and so are the teachers, and we've got to empty our own backpacks and see that the kids are carrying cumbersome weight in their backpacks-- and there was some prop comedy with a mirror and some toilet paper jokes (even though good teachers never have stomach issues-- you get on a schedule and never stary from it . . . one of the reasons I wake up early) and then we had ANOTHER 90 minute meeting after the two hour meeting and then we rounded it out with a department meeting . . . meanwhile, Catherine was moving Alex into his dorm room on Rutgers-Livingston Campus (which is only a mile or two away from our house, so I can certainly do some Rodney Dangerfield back-to-school action) and so I got to check out the finished product once I got out of school, and then we stopped by the high school to see Ian play in the soccer scrimmage (but he had to call for a sub, he's got a pulled stomach muscle-- I told him to rest it) and anyway, I'm definitely feeling old, overwhelmed at school, a kid going to college, another a high school senior . . . but once the students come, everything will sort itself out.

Mafia Redux

If you're looking for a well-written organized crime tale in a different setting than usual (Providence! Like Crimetown!) then check out Don Winslow's new one. City on Fire . . . it's got all the mob tropes-- I'm cataloging them now for my next episode of We Defy Augury . . . but if you're looking for something a little different, try the Italian mobster film Gomorra . . . it's cycles between the quotidian and extreme violence: the ins and outs of illegal toxic waste disposal and trying to make it as a mobbed up tailor and the assassinations and terror that occurred in Italy during the Scampia Feud . . . there's not the romance and drama and fun of Goodfellas and The Godfather, just daily life in the criminal underworld.