I haven’t been able to get this song out of my head. The wife had it on a playlist that I listened to this weekend, which was cool. It reminded me that I saw Beck live on the Midnite Vultures tour.
Blog
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My Least Favorite Part
One of the goals that I set for myself this year was to submit my work to more magazines. I sent out a bunch in 2023, and sort of fell off the wagon in 2024, and that is why I am hitting the ground running in 2025. Well, at least relative to my situation. My goal was to send out to ten different magazines this month, and today, I accomplished it. Not an enormous step, but a step none the less.
And as I was reading issues and guidelines from new magazines and journals, I started to feel like I did when I was acting, and going out on auditions – which was nervous, a little anxious, and also a touch of faked confidence. I mean I got work, but like all actors, I struck out more often than not. I accepted that it was part of the business, but I never learned to enjoy it. I have friends who love to audition – get in the room, try stuff out, see what works. They like the challenge of it all.
For me, auditioning was the necessary evil that I had to go through to get what I wanted, and that was rehearsal. I loved every part of rehearsal. The table read, getting there early, making new friends in the cast and crew, learning how each other works, the discovery of the process, the bad days, and the good days, and that feeling of at any moment it could all go off the rails but somehow always magically came together. Not always, but most of the time. Performance was extra, the icing on the cake. Rehearsal was the fun of work. And I really do miss that.
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Soccer Travel Team and Sports in General
So, over the weekend, the kid got an invitation to tryout for a youth travel soccer team. This is something that she has wanted for some time, and was excited that the club had kept her in mind. I mean, who doesn’t like being asked to dance, right? There was a flurry in our home of making sure we had all the right equipment, and socks, and shin guards. Not that you need to have perfect equipment to be good at a sport, (Is it not the bad carpenter who complains about their tools?) but having the right stuff sure can boost your confidence.
In my parenting philosophy, I believe that kids should play a sport, up to the age of sixteen. It was the way my parents raised me, and I have to say that it did me good. I played baseball up until twelve, and then I switched over to tennis. No real surprise here, but baseball taught me the importance of teamwork, and working toward a common goal. I loved tennis because, I was all on my own to make it happen; just me versus the other guy – which left no room to blame anyone for a mistake, other than yourself. Both sports don’t use a clock, which I guess is why I enjoy taking my time at things?
I hope that the kid makes the team, but I also know that it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t work out. There are plenty of other sports and teams in the City, so she will get the experience of being on a team and all the joy, excitement and disappointment that comes along with it.
Because learning to lose and not giving up is the biggest lesson one can learn. And there is also something wonderful about being on a truly awful team. And still showing up week after week, hoping that this is the day that your fortunes change, and you win just one.
Maybe that was my experience…
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ODDS and ENDS: Cough it Out, An Empty Theatre, and NFL Predictions
(How much do you commit yourself…)
I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the kid has a cold, but she has something that has given her a stuffy nose, and a slight cough. And with this cough, it sounds all wet like she’s breaking something up in her throat. Except she refuses to cough and break that phlegm up. And, I know this might be hard to believe, but it makes me a little nuts. I just want her to cough, get it out, you know. But she thinks she’ll throw up, which creates a perpetual motion machine of frustration for all parties.
For the record, being in an empty theatre, with a ghost light sitting on the deck, is about as close to a feeling of going to church that I can have.
Commanders and the Bills in the Super Bowl. But I would also be fine with the Commanders and the Chiefs. In all honesty, as long as Philadelphia doesn’t win the Super Bowl I will be happy
