2012 STATE OF THE UNION.

Tags

2012, life, new year's resolutions

I haven’t written anything here in about 6 months which is by far the longest period of inactivity in this blog’s illustrious 3+ year history. The best years of this blog were without doubt when I lived in Korea and I had stories galore from my students and travels. Since I’ve moved back to the States, stories have dried up a little. I don’t know why. It’s not for lack of activity. Perhaps it’s for a lack of things I would enjoy reading about. Anyway, I’m forcing myself to do things in 2012 and I’ll start tonight with this post.

I just realized that in 2011, I spent time in California (north and south), Vegas (6 hours), New Orleans (my favorite American place), Wisconsin (maybe my 3 favorite days of the year), India (the longest time I’ve spent there since I was 16) and Spain (Fantastico, no? Si, pheenoameenal.)

And even apart from travelling, it’s been a very different year. Probably one of the more transitional ones of my life. I quit a lot of bad habits. Quit eating whatever I want all the time. Quit the cheeba. Quit having beers every time I felt a pang of thirst. Started learning about nutrition. I started drinking water. I started drinking wine. I started exercising. I started yoga. All these new habits came just in time. I think I was well bored of eating, drinking and smoking but I hadn’t realized it. Those had been my primary outlets for fun for a decade (probably not drinking as much but certainly the other 2) and it was tough to visualize anything else replacing them. I had wanted to get in shape for years but it was one of those wants that I didn’t want immediately…I wanted to want it, you know? I’d get around to it. It was sort of like cleaning the garage or scrubbing the bathtub. Not today. But soon. Sure, I want it! Just not right now…

I got a rash, man.

I felt like I was running out of “I’ll get to it tomorrows” on Superbowl Sunday in February 2011. I had driven to Las Vegas by myself and I felt like crap the whole drive there. I felt like crap when I got there. I didn’t feel like drinking. I didn’t feel like eating. I felt like vomiting just walking by other people smoking. I got into my car my first evening there and drove through masses of Packers fans en route to somewhere I hoped I’d feel better. It didn’t happen. Turned out I had an infection and my throat swelled up. I couldn’t get food down. I couldn’t drink because of my medication and smoking was obviously out of the question. For a week, I couldn’t eat and that eventually led to a month of not sleeping. I don’t know how but I literally did not sleep properly for one month. In that period, I left California. I was travelling for work in one hotel after another and I just couldn’t bear it any longer without rest. My eyelids were heavy all the time. I headed East, had a quick stop in New Jersey and then headed to Boston for work. There, I felt better enough to have one solid drinking session with an old college chum and a good friend of his. Literally, I drank my problems away while we talked about MIT. Men in Transition. I woke up and went to work my spirits heightened how they are by a proper night of good drinks and better conversation. A Pick-me-up at last.

A week later, I felt better mentally but I knew I needed to make some changes. I still wasn’t sleeping. Doctor said my blood pressure was getting higher. Nothing in my existing habits was making me happy anymore. Literally, that had never happened to me in my life. Was very strange and still somewhat surprising. I went to India for 3 weeks. That 3 weeks turned into 4 months. There, I got a personal trainer. He worked me out three times a week. It was like that rubber pencil illusion. I was stiff and rigid and literally I would hear things snap in my body and he’d marvel “WHAT MAN HOW LONG HAVE YOU NOT EXERCISED FOR???” I would crack up. A long time, boss. Too long.

I'm a buff Pied Piper these days

   Four months later, I was a lot lighter, a little stronger and a lot happier.  I got back to the States and continued that healthy lifestyle. I’ve eaten about 500 apples this year.  Red Delicious ones. Gala ones. Fuji ones. Granny Smith ones. Countless cucumbers. All the green teas.  Earl Grey. Bigelow. Twinings. I try to avoid fast food. I drink very rarely, maybe once in two weeks, maybe once a month. I love cardio now. I look forward to that. I don’t enjoy weights as much but I’m trying to force myself and I don’t hate them as much as I did a few months ago. I’m certainly no Bruce Lee by any means. I still have a hyper sweet tooth and break my diet often but my goal is to reach my high school weight by August or so. I’m at that stage of health consciousness where if I’m in a restaurant I order the sensible thing almost all of the time – but I’m still incredibly pleased if the waitress brings me the unhealthy alternative by mistake. “OH I’m sorry, did you say Grilled Vegetables instead of French Fries?” I did. Wait, did I? Well, surely we can’t waste these wonderful fries now. They don’t seem so bad. Cute little buggers. They wouldn’t hurt me.

Yoga has been fantastic for me. One, it’s a serious workout for the flexibility-challenged such as myself. Two, I love the whole meditation aspect of it. One of my teachers is an Indian woman who has a very soothing voice and she’s always talking about nature. It’s quite incredible because she borderline hypnotizes you. I would have thought it’s ridiculous but it happens to me almost every time. After an hour of exercises, we melt into the floor. You’re lying on your back with your eyes closed and she talks about you on the ocean sand and the hot sun over your body. Literally, she mentions each body part as the “warm rays of the sun” go over them.    The center of your forehead. Along your nose. Your mouth, now. The warm rays on the center of your throat. Your right shoulder. Your right arm. Your thumb. Your ring finger. Literally, your entire damn body.

Shivasana, my favorite Yoga pose.

The only way I can describe it is I feel the sensation one gets with a great massage - every time I walk out of Yoga. It’s uncanny. AND SO UN-CAMRY. (*Kanye reference)

Another thing I’m getting into is jump rope. I took my jump rope to Spain and not having a gym or Yoga there, I finally had a chance to get serious with it. The first 2 or 3 days were frustrating because the rope keeps getting tangled up in your feet. You visualize little kids singing nursery rhymes and doing it and you wonder why you can’t manage to do it with all your focus on this one simple task. I can’t explain it but when you get it, it’s quite easy. You have to keep your eyes looking forward and just trust you’re jumping at the correct moment. When you get it a few times, you fall into a rhythm and the sound and motion of the rope are very relaxing. In that way, it’s sort of like yoga except it’s quite jarring when the rope hits your feet. I’m reminded of a friend who once told me that rowing was his favorite sport because when the oars hit the water, it was as soothing as any sport could get. When the rope is swishing by, it’s really satisfying and keep in mind I’m an absolute novice. My goal is to get to the fun stuff that boxers do such as one leg hops and all that in between stuff. Dancing and sticking! I imagine a routine like that pulled off without a hitch will be the living end.

Yes, I’m also trying to revive usage of the expression “the living end”.

I’m very slowly getting into cooking. I tend to go for fruits and eggs quite often and have made a few cracking omelets if I don’t say so for myself. Breakfast for dinner very often. Oatmeal. I was hoping I’d be making competent dinners by now but that’s not the case at all. I can heat “pre-seasoned” things up and jazz them up with some veggies on the side but in my mind, real cooking is done from scratch and that’s not only beyond me right now but also not something I really want to delve into. Not right now. I mean, I want to want it, you know? Until then, I’m getting by with Maggi, some grilled chicken, spaghetti, fruit salads and sandwiches of all kinds. Sandwiches and me are back together again like peas and carrots. The Earl of Sandwich bestowed his gift upon us. We best use it! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich

Lastly, one more after effect of my time spent in Europe. Clothes.

Typical Homeless European Male

Damn, can you believe I wasn’t the sharpest dressed man on the street for the first time in my life?! People there, men and women alike, are so well-dressed. And it’s not one of those pretentious things (or maybe it is) but when everyone does it, it ups the level of design and beauty all around you and soon enough you’re thinking about buying a new jacket and a new felt hat and a new pair of shoes. I’m going full peacock from now on, feathers gonna be on display y’all.

Preening. 

So there you have it. Some changes have come and hopefully many more to come this year.  A guy I know once told me he was trying to be the best version of himself he could be, and I can say truthfully I am trying to achieve the same. I intend to work on other areas this year that will also fulfill other interests and make me more well-rounded. I hope to write more and more importantly, better. I plan on beginning to learn an instrument.  After a man named Valentine destroyed me in Chess in Spain, I promised myself I would improve my Chess game to the form that took me to the First Place finish in the Class 4 tournament when I was nine years old. That version of me was fit, smart and dashing! The Pierce Brosnan of the Playgrounds!

Nine year old me saying 'Checkmate' to my opponent in the Final

We all see ourselves one way. Some of us see ourselves exactly as we are. Some see ourselves as much worse than we really are, some see ourselves as much better.

It’s time for myself to catch up with my perception of myself.

Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee… Rumble Young Man Rumble!

That Siddharth's So Hot Right Now.

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Magazine Life

Tags

life, magazine

This isn’t about the magazine Life. I haven’t read it. I feel like that’s one of those magazines that people used to buy for photos of the moon landing or royal weddings. The internet probably ruined them. I however did buy a magazine this week. It was Men’s Health. Remarkably, it’s a decent rag. I was stuck in a train station for an hour and after looking through every domestic and foreign magazine for forty-five minutes, I went with this because it seemed to have a lot of content and not too many ads or filler. The thing is that when I turned back the cover, I was immediately confronted by a black and white photograph of a very stylish young man and his two pale girl friends. They were pushing his motorcycle across a New York street and as my eyes moved downward they fell upon the letters DKNY. I instantly got a flashback to when I was 17 and I used to buy every issue of Rolling Stone and Premiere. I didn’t consciously realize it back then but I must have devoured those ads. For the force to be strong enough to flash me back more than a decade later? Yikes. God, I used to think those people in those ads were so damn cool. I clearly remember thinking some of those girls were so attractive and that I was not on the level of those guys. I actually remembered the ad campaign that stuck out at the time, it was that Tommy Hilfiger sh*t when they would show all these blonde girls on a beach in Nantucket with these white dudes with black curly hair (Simon Rex?) and there’d always be one token black dude (Tyrese?) SMILES FOR MILES, Holy hell, I wanted to be at that party.

I turned the page from DKNY to the next glossy ad and the one after and the one after. Perry Ellis, Aldo, Armani Exchange, each scene weirder than the last. If each of these two-page ads was a party, I’d walk right out on sight. They pay these models and photographers to make these layouts appealing and now I’ve gone from envying them to being completely disgusted by them without them changing the formula even a bit. I just don’t give a crap about their $285 scarves and weird make-up. When I was a kid, I thought that growing up meant becoming a part of that world. I thought if you didn’t, you were corny. Once again proof that you didn’t know Jack teenage Siddharth! I’ve grown up now motherf*ckers and I’ve got better jokes than any of you boring douchebags. I’m a better person. Well, yes, I am completely assuming they’re boring and shitty people but you can’t blame me when they all look so bored and nonplussed in their fancy duds. Come on, they’re hardly sympathetic figures.

So then I got to thinking about how much these magazine life images are projected on us when we’re kids. These car ads with their smooth jazz music and serene countryside backdrops. How everybody always has teeth like those marble slabs at Coldstone. So there’s magazine life and then there’s life. Life comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s teeth are sometimes yellow and frequently misshapen. It’s cars are usually in stasis in between thousands of other cars. In life, when a guy is pushing his bike across the street, it’s normally a piece of junk and he’s normally not dressed like the world’s richest beatnik. He’s probably dressed in beat up corduroys and a tattered old T-shirt and that guy’s much cooler than anybody you’ll ever see in a magazine ad. Magazine life is the pipe dream that keeps people on the hamster wheel. They’ve got to get that job to pay for that stuff, do what they don’t want to do just to get things they want but don’t need. Jonesing to keep up with the Joneses.

Personally, I can’t even imagine a scenario where I would even be able to have a conversation with these people, let alone be in this photo. I’m just going to skip the ads from now on, obviously my kind are not their target market.

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Inside/Outside Disconnect

Tags

life, marriage, men, society, women

I somehow made it this far assuming that I am decent to good company for most people and its come as a mild surprise to me in the past 6 months that this is not an opinion shared unanimously by the world. Somehow, along the way, every last person I’ve stayed with has not loved our communal experiences as much as I have. At first I couldn’t grasp this. But its sunken in. And I think I understand it now. I had grown accustomed to the notion that people all hate the same negative characteristics; ergo, people hate selfishness, temper tantrums, dishonesty and all that. And of course people love honesty, humour, generosity. I figured if you followed these guidelines, you were covered. And these may hold true but underneath it all, deep down, people are more complicated than that and by complicated I mean much more simple than that. People like people who do as they do. That is all. If somebody recycles, they want you to recycle. If they don’t, they don’t want to listen to your grand tales of recycling bottles. Sure, a person may recognize your positive qualities as good but if it’s something they don’t do, and it could even be something so small that it’s negligible to you – it could annoy them. And so I’ve deduced that the important factor in live-in relationships is not to do the right thing as a rule, but to do the right thing for that specific situation. I had not noticed this before because I tend to just worry about steering the mighty SS Siddharth through these choppy waters. Perhaps all the while, I should have checked the waters instead of the vessel. Down periscope!

Now, I’m not a Yes Man by any means and I would welcome any dialogue about what’s important in a domicile but the fact is that some minds (landowners among them usually) are done changing. They have their settings on lock and you don’t know the password. You may even somehow change them one day! Yay! But alas, they’ll revert back to their true form like a dog-eared page in a damp old novel. Creatures of habit. And our habits make up our daily lives while our principles remain invisible. All this is to say that leaving the toilet seat up two nights in a row may find the returning war hero sleepless on the old couch. Internal values and morals are just that, internal. Although they can be admired or argued, they’re not presented and displayed visually each day as external qualities are time and again. Cleanliness, helpfulness, eagerness. These are the pitfalls that befall me!

I stand there aglow, secure in the fact that I steadfastly try to do the right thing. I reach for the fridge door and begin to absent mindedly rummage for food – all the while ignoring and navigating the sour stench of chinese noodles from last Tuesday.

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empowering sh*t

Okay, Rango. Firstly, it made me remember what was first special about Johnny Depp in the first place. He’s got a very unique combination of coolness and vulnerability that make him both cool and vulnerable in a very unique way.

Secondly, Jonathan Richman. Remarkably, he manages to combine his awesome lyrics and amazing voice into well written well sung songs, remarkably.

I’m giving Rango and Jonathan Co-Person of the Week Honours for contributing empowering shit that’s quite honestly empowered me, through their contributions that is.

On Humanity

“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.” -Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity

Dance

Tags

dance

Like the guy in the back of the car in Dazed & Confused, I wanna dance. Dancing has shot up the list of things I wish I could do, as evidenced below.

TOP 5 THINGS I WISH I COULD DO.

1) Dance

2) Dunk

3) Dribble

4) Play a musical instrument

5) Mack

The first time I paid attention to dance was in South Korea at the Annual R16 B-Boy Festival where breakers come from 16 nations and compete for the title of “illest freshest crew” or in Korean parlance, first prize-uh. Some of them were really good but I couldn’t get any good photos because it was insanely crowded there.

This gentleman's not lacking in confidence.

When I was in California, my favorite place by far was Venice Beach. There were a few too many druggie scumbags but that’s to be expected when people flock there from all over the country expecting hippie Shangri-la. The best experience I had there was one random afternoon when I went there just for lunch but chanced upon a really good crew doing some ridiculous routines on the boardwalk.

These guys run full speed and somehow turn in mid-air- without ever touching someone- and clear up to 9 heads. WILD!

HOPS

 I’m becoming obsessed with appreciating dancing but I still can’t do it worth a lick. The second I start moving in any way that can be construed as dancing, I no longer hear the music and just keep hearing that sound when a DJ scratches the record to a halt. In Venice, the leader of the crew gave this speech that said to remember not to get caught up in drinking and smoking and that all you need to do something fun and amazing is in your body already. He really made me feel like crap. I kept thinking he was trying to butter up the parents in the crowd but maybe he was serious? Anyway, a few weeks later I came across some high school kids in San Francisco raising funds for their dance program on the street. They were about 16 or 17 and so passionate about it, it made me think I must have grown up a lot slower than other kids. All I did was play outside and prank call people. Damn.                                  They really made me feel like I need to lose some inhibitions. And I don’t mean that in terms of dancing but just in general. If you’re feeling something, anything, you need to drop your cool and just go for it. If I told you I had an idea about two twins dancing while pretending to be rug dealers in a carpet store, what would you say? It’s been done. And it’s awesome.

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Some Dance Clinics by Les Twins, Madhuri Dixit and Sam & Dave

Nature

Tags

life, poem, poetry

The boy was born

to a family of good reputation

He wanted for nothing

and a man he became one

His father before him

was renowned

for his character

His son after him

would write

his own chapter

His mother was an angel

A life of good deeds under a halo

Her son was not

A life selfish and hollow

He had attended

the finest schools

He had learned from

the brightest minds

He had proven to

be nobody’s fool

He had taken to

being unkind

He had been nurtured

From the day

of his birth

But he had been a bastard

All his days

on this earth

All round they would wonder

How it could be

that this apple could fall

so far from his tree

Questions rang out both near and far

“Why? How?” the voices would sing

Each of us, we are what we are.

In the end, Nature wins.

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http://allaboutfrogs.org/stories/scorpion.html _________________________________________________

 

The King and I

Tags

espn, lebron james, miami heat, nba, the decision

On an otherwise boring weekday back in July 2010, I sat and watched LeBron James and ESPN’s free agency spectacle ‘The Decision’ firstly because I wanted him to come to the Knicks and secondly because in the summer of 2009, it was I, Siddharth, who was the free agent prize of the summer.

This was of course in the Incheon Public School System in South Korea. Like LeBron a year after me, it was also my first time being a hot commodity and with all the parallels between our decisions, as I watched Jim Gray shoot pointless small talk at Bron, I thought I knew exactly what The New Chosen One was thinking. A year earlier, I had just finished a stellar English Teaching season at Dongam Middle School. The school and I had embarked on our journey with ‘championship or bust’ swagger. Sadly, however, our glorious maiden semester had led us down a long, twisty, tumultuous road, which in turn had led me off the face of a cliff into the darkness where I proceeded to fall into a never-ending abyss screaming and flailing, my lungs burning, begging for a break and my soul hoping I would hit the ground soon. Yup, that feeling when you begin to feel as if you have outgrown your teammates. Same same. Their commitment just wasn’t on the level of mine. I wanted out – but I really dreaded telling them that I’d be turning in my jersey for some other squad. They drafted me, you know? That had to count for something?

To help me make a decision, I thought of the good times and the bad times but I couldn’t ignore the fact that my bad times montage was significantly longer than the good times montage. Rebuilding there wasn’t an option for me. And so it went I was at an ‘open class’ a few days later when one of the Superintendents of Education walked up to me and asked me if I was signing there again. I answered “Oh Hell No.” She said she would give me a job at any school in Incheon just to keep me in their school system. This was akin to David Stern promising LBJ a spot on any NBA team of his choice just to keep him from going to Europe. I was shocked. I made her repeat her offer again and again as my chest swelled up each time. It was like pumping up your basketball. I got home, weighed the pros and cons of each available school and set my sights on a team that I thought would compete harder, a potential dynasty situation. We’d turn these kids into worldbeaters, goddamnit. I made the decision to walk out on my first school one month before my deadline. I would be classy and give them a month’s notice.

I walked into Dongam on the day of reckoning, gameface strapped on…and waffled hard. I finally wound up mustering the courage to tell them I was leaving three weeks later. Four days before my deadline. By this time, the brass had assumed since I hadn’t said I was leaving- I must be staying. (Korea’s famous for wacky assumptions.) And this despite me repeatedly saying “I’ll think about it this summer and do what I think’s best for me and my family.” Still, I could empathize, nobody ever wants to be left behind and told they’re not good enough. Dongam school was angry. And desperate. They promised me all kinds of things to make me stay, things like my co-teacher will attend class, a promise they remarkably managed to break within 24 hours of making it. A truly incredible record for promise breaking. My bags were packed but I still felt bad about heading for greener pastures. Leaving (some of) the students was tough and leaving them on (kind of) short notice felt like a (mildly) inconsiderate thing to do. It wasn’t my first time being inconsiderate but it was my first time feeling guilty about it. So I sugar-coated it like crazy.

 I made it sound like it was my fault for leaving and fell upon my sword. Bloodily as hell. Why? Because I didn’t have to rub salt in their wounds. I told them I just couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t cut out to be a middle school teacher. I was on my way and out of respect for the (few) good times, I took the high road. Rejection sucks in any circumstance and if I did things like LeBron, I would have called a round table meeting of every Korean school, televised it live, had all my old students watch and then said something completely idiotic like “I’m taking my talents to Seoul Elementary” or some bullsh*t like that. Absolutely unnessecary. “Listen, I just want to have good facilities like a new whiteboard and a snazzy English Zone that put me in the best position to have the most successful English Fun Camps.” My first school would be standing there shocked. Crushed. I’m pretty sure Mrs Kim would be doing her patented thing where she covered her cheeks with her hands and opened her eyes wide as saucers, looking up with her mouth hanging open.

The point is if I want the fancy English Zone, that’s fine. But do I have to disrespect my old English Zone to get it? Couldn’t I have taken Mrs Kim aside and said “Hey, thanks for trying but I have an opportunity to move on to something better.” That’s what people are supposed to do. When I notified my employer, I was still on the fence about leaving but I knew they’d be in a tough spot even a week later – so a moment came when I had to man up, make a call and stick to it. Today, one year later, LeBron wonders why people root against him. His fans wonder how people can dislike him.Their camp seethes at how they’ve managed to fall so low, so fast and in the eyes of so many. It’s gotten so bad that the much reviled Dallas Mavericks have suddenly become the lovable darlings of the sports world simply for beating the Heatles. LeBron reminds me of a line that Andy tells the Warden in The Shawshank Redemption: “How can you be so obtuse?” ( ob·tuse/əbˈt(y)o͞os/Adjective 1. Annoyingly insensitive or slow to understand. )   That got Andy locked up in solitary.

I’ve never had any issue with LeBron going to Miami. In his shoes, I would have gone either there or Chicago. It’s totally understandable to me that he wanted more help than he got in Cleveland. I have no problem with LeBron not responding to pressure like a Michael Jordan. Nobody does. That’s why Michael Jordan’s Michael Jordan. I try not to fault a person for how they perform their job, everybody makes mistakes and has a bad patch no matter how talented they are. It’s not fair to compare or to expect a miracle every time out. I can only hold a person to the same standard I hold myself. And I would never ever treat anyone the way he treated Cleveland. When I found out about ‘The Decision’ on ESPN, I assumed he had to be staying. I figured he would announce “I’m staying in Cleveland”, and they would have cameras already set up to film some fireworks show at some Cleveland landmark. The Witness sign? Jacobs Field? I don’t remember ever being as shocked by any TV moment as when he delivered his insanely dumb prepared statement about taking his talents down to south beach. Before I knew anybody else hated him for it, I felt like I was watching him wreck any goodwill he had. Live. And all for the sake of marketing? Where was the conscience to put his own people’s feelings before hype and salesmanship? I don’t hate LeBron James. I hate King James. How come nobody ever talks about what a poor choice of nickname ‘King James’ is? It’s not clever, it’s not funny, it’s not endearing. It’s corny, boring, self-aggrandizing and it’s set him up for ridicule. For example, all the “Queen James” haters. His nickname should have been “Beast” James. Nobody could ever question that.

You’re not supposed to come into the game with a title, you’re supposed to leave with one.

As for myself, I didn’t burn any bridges, I moved on and loved my second school a hundred times more than my first. Still, I do think back about the first one sometimes and I’m happy that I did right by them. You always remember your first.

wormhouse

Tags

art, Etch-a-Sketch, life, living, perspective, worm, worms

A man sees a worm moving inside his half eaten apple. He and the worm eye each other menacingly. The man’s toddler son says “You ate his house.”

Perspective.

mi casa su manzana

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Post Scriptum: It is this author’s belief that the Etch-a-Sketch is one of the best toys ever invented and it was in fact named one of the hundred best toys of the twentieth century along with such luminaries as yo-yo, slinky and Mr Potatohead. They’ve got 99 toys and a b*tch ain’t one.   http://www.allbusiness.com/manufacturing/miscellaneous-mfg-doll-toy-games-games/5673984-1.html

Peter Dinklage

Tags

dreams, dwarves, peter dinklage

'The Station Agent', a Dinklage tour de force.

” When I was younger, definitely, I let it get to me. As an adolescent, I was bitter and angry and I definitely put up these walls. But the older you get, you realize you just have to have a sense of humour. You just know that it’s not your problem. It’s theirs.”