Poetry fight!

Okay, time to break out those black turtlenecks, boys. Mark, as usual your thoughts are perceptive and, well, thoughtful. However, I must say that, for one vato, you're fulla shit (and where else are you going to hear anyone quote Tommy Chong as a lead-in for a poetry discussion?). That's interesting about the Magi being "the first Christians" however, I'm not sure I buy it. In any event, if they were, I doubt Eliot knew. For the narrarator of the poem to express this thought

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

to me shows that he is not a Christian, but saw something in Bethlehem that convinced him of the divinity of Baby Jesus anyway. Like Hemingway, he is too much a product of his time and too set in his ways to change. However, what he has seen has shaken him, but the tone of this poem is too mournful at the end, especially the death wish expressed on the final line, for me to believe that the narrarator has embraced the faith and been born again. He is a wise man, a man of science (I read once that the Magi were the astronomers of their time) and he had probably sensed the changes in the air leading up to Christ's birth. What he bore witness to in Bethlehem convinced him that Christ was to be the catalyst for those changes. He sees his world changing and, at the end of his life, recognizes that his time and that of his kind (alien people clutching their gods) is almost at an end.

Many people think Eliot wrote "Magi" as an allegory about his own spiritual journey and rebirth, and I wouldn't argue with that. The line "alien people clutching their gods" can just as easily symbolize London high society-types who shun faith in the almighty in favor of reason and secularism as it can the more literal translation. But hey, I'm a literal guy and that's how I choose to read this poem.

Mark, Eliot became a Christian later in life (even though he was American born, he lived in England and became an Anglican) and "Journey of the Magi" was written after then. Considering your own spiritual journey, I can see why you read the poem that way.

Changing the subject now . . .

Robbie, last night I was watching ESPN Classic and saw the 1982 football matchup between Notre Dame and Michigan. If you recall, this was when the Fighting Irish's program was at a low ebb and they were being coached by ex-high school coach Gerry Faust. Anyway, the Irish were kicking the hell out of Michigan and their main horse was none other than Larry Moriarity. Remember him?

Mikey, great to hear from you! You'll be interested to know that I got 2 DVD's for Christmas. One, Napoleon Dynamite (of course) and also (drum roll) Wild at Heart. Can you believe they just got around to releasing that on DVD? I mean, fer crying out loud, the fucking thing's only 14 years old, what's the hurry? Anyway, we watched it the other night after the girls went to bed and, I have to tell you, it was just about the cutest thing I've ever seen.

Hope everyone has a happy and safe New Year!

More on T.S. Elliott (..cue the classical music)

I read this poem every time I hit this site. I think this account is like most people's spiritual journey to become a Christian. It's painful. You cut against the grain of the world's value system. You have to die to the "self-life" to embrace the new spiritual (re)birth. Then, as Elliott illustrates, you no longer fit in. You are like a stranger in a strange land. All of this is biblical truth.

I think that the Magi were among the first Christians, or if you prefer: Messianic Jews. The Magi were an ancient people that pre-date the Babylonian Empire. They were known for their ability to interpret dreams. Daniel, a Jew, became Chief of the Magi when he out-interpreted them to whoever was the king at the time (This was before the Lion's den incedent). Anyway, it was Daniel who let them in on the messianic prophesy and got them into the ancient prophets etc..

I just learned all this not too long ago.. I love this stuff!

ANYWAY... Mike, good to see a flippin post from you.. Finally! GAWSH!!

James, That's cool that you are going skiing. Coincidentally, we are going too! Natalie and I are flying to Seattle for a friend's baby shower then we're driving up to Whistler, Canada. I just got in from my garage doing squats to prepare (I won't tell you how little weight I was using). I feel a bit like Kip Dynamite. I think I bruised my neck meat on the bar, and tore a mole off!

guess whos back.. back again.. shady's back, tell a friend!

Ya'll act like you've never seen a white person before! Fellas whats up! I'm on my roommates new lap top. I havent been able to log on at work but it looks like Im back for now. It was good seeing everyone over Christmas. As usual having such a big family its tough getting much one on one, but all of you smelled terrific. Any big new years plans. Im going to the Big D for a Holiday Party then the Cotton Bowl New Years Day. Im looking forward to seeing my Aggies put a beating on the other U.T.

James I read your earlier post about Dad. I really dont know how im feeling. I kind of feel pissed off too and dont really know why or at who. I find myself feeling resentful of Susan. For instance the shadow boxes we got we're made for everyone and their dog with a picture of Dad and Susan. 1st off when I think of Dad, I dont think of Dad & Susan. I also feel that theres no consideration for just us. I realize that every extended family member is affected my Dads death. But WE were his sons & I feel that that should be acknowledged. Anyway thats how im feeling. Anyways, my 2 cents.

Things with Molly and going great. We see eachother just about every weekend.

Vacation plans

I'm going to cash in some of these free trips I've earned from Southwest Airlines and take Erica and the girls skiing in a few weeks. We're going to a place called Squaw Creek at Lake Tahoe. We'll be gone from 1/13 thru 1/16. I haven't been skiing since we all went with Dad and Susan back in 98 or 99. All I remember from that trip was drunkenly singing Eve 6's "Inside Out" with Mikey in the hot tub and watching Robbie take a particularly nasty spill at the bottom of the slope, whereupon he muttered "I think I just shit myself" to me as he staggered to the mens' room.

I have laid off the heavy leg presses and jogging and instead have been hitting the stairmaster really hard lately. Not that silly elliptical machine that some people mistakenly call a stairmaster, either. Oh no, we're talking the real deal, baby. The kind of stairmaster that has a rolling stair treadmill and makes you feel like puking after 5 minutes.

I'm think Courtney will take to skiing like a duck to water, considering how active she is. I've told her to jump on the trampoline every day until her legs hurt to get into shape for the slopes.

We'll take pictures and I'll post them if I can. My digital camera is way too bulky to carry in a ski jacket so we might just take a regular camera and have the photos digitalized somewhere. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it. This will be our first family vacation in about 6 years.

All I got out of majoring in English was . . .

. . . a love of T.S. Eliot.

And I wish I had found this poem in college too, however I was completely ignorant of it until 2 years ago when I found it on the internet. I have looked at a few websites dedicated to "deconstructing" Eliot's poetry and some of his more obscure poems like "The Waste Land" (I mean obscure as in hard to understand, not as in being little-known) cry out for some sort of interpretation. But his more accessable ones like "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and this one do not. Of course, that doesn't stop the latte-sipping pinheads from trying to pry it apart, but to me the meaning of "Magi" is clear.

I love how visual this poem is. You can almost hear the camels protests and see the Magi's breath in the cold air as they made their laborious way to Bethlehem to bear witness to the miracle.

Poetry is about economy of words. A great poet will, though word choice, diction and rhythm find a way to express something in a few verses what it would take some normal scribbler like me pages and pages to do. Here I think Eliot describes a dying pagan world on the cusp of a great change, the advent of Christianity, through the eyes of a pagan wise man. The story is told in the first person and the narrarator is reminiscing on the Birth. But he is not a Christian so he describes it thusly, "this birth was/Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death."

I once read an account from an ICU nurse who once had Ernest Hemingway as her charge, convalescing in the hospital for - I believe - pneumonia. This was in the late 60's at the time of the moonshot and the Apollo landing was all over the news at the time. The nurse recalled that Hemingway saw all of this on his hospital TV and, very melancholy, remarked to her that he was no longer living in a world that he knew. A short time later, he killed himself. That is the sentiment I think the writer expresses in the final line of this poem, "I should be glad of another death."

Back to the Grindstone

Hello Coopbros!

I hope all of you had a great Christmas. We did! Lillian has not grasped the concept of unwrapping gifts yet; she seemed more into chewing on a shoe (of hers) than of tearing into a present. Oh well, soon enough.

I actually attempted to post on Christmas day, but I guess I walked away without hitting publish or something because it was lost. Dang.. It was a good long one too.

James, I enjoyed reading your post on Christmas Eve AND on the Journey of the Wise Men to Bethlehem. I hadn't read that before.

Anyways, I'll rewrite the post later. It was along the lines of what James wrote on Christmas Eve.

Journey of the Magi

"A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The way deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter."
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty, and charging high prices.
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we lead all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I have seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

-T.S. Eliot

Merry Christmas Eve!

I know I haven't been blogging as much as I should be but, for some reason, I just just haven't had that much to say. It was great seeing you all last weekend at the party, even though it was also bittersweet with dad not there. I seem to still be having trouble putting dad's dying into its proper "place" in my head, if you know what I mean. I mean, on some days I'll accept it and it won't bother me and on others I'll feel this really bad anger toward him. Not necessarily for dying, but I'll find myself revisiting old fights we had and such. Are y'all going through anything like that? Anyway, I know he loved me and I'm just grateful that he and I weren't mad at each other when he died.

You know, our house seems to have become home base for all the neighborhood kids. What's funny is that they'll all be playing in Courtney's room or outside on the trampoline but will gravitate to our kitchen when Erica is making dinner. All of them eye Erica's salad like hungry wolves and a lot of times they'll often throw these very unsubtle hints that they'd like to have dinner with us. They'll throw non-sequiturs like "I'm sure my mom wouldn't mind if I ate dinner over here" and things like that. Megan's friends hang out here all the time too and sometimes even her cousins on her dad's side will come over and hang out with me and Erica while waiting for Meg to get off work. They're great kids and the fact that Erica used to be married to their dad's little brother doesn't change that for me in the least.

Somehow, I think dad sees this and smiles.

Tonight we're having Clifton spend the night here so he can have Christmas morning with us. If y'all remember, we brought Clifton with us to the last party at Dad's house. He has what can only charitably be called a lukewarm relationship with his mother, and his dad (whom he lives with) has been in the hospital for the past week with a rather severe staph infection. It was Erica's idea to have him over and I wholeheartedly agreed. I'm saying this not to morally preen or show off to you guys, but only to show what I think I've taken from dad. Dad always said he wanted "a house full of children and dogs." Well, Rob, you can have the dogs but I love having a house full of happy kids. Nothing puts a smile in my heart like being silly with Courtney and her friends, or chasing Emily and Clarita around Dad's house, or whatever. Barbara told me that she thinks I got that from Dad and I think she's probably right.

Whether we end up with something of tangible value out of Dad's estate or with just a handful of smoke is ultimately immaterial. We all have dad in us.

Merry Christmas to you and your famililies, guys. I love you all.

Putting it Off..

I think I'll wait untill after the new year (Christmas at least) to start my routine. I don't have to fight the piss-and-vinegar new years resolution crowd in my own Garage, that is if you don't count... ME!

I'm doing something different. I heard a couple of different radio infomercials on different methods of organ cleansing and detoxification. These guys say that the average person carries around over 10 pounds of "impacted waste" in their system (kidneys, liver, colon, intestines, skin, etc). I have to applaud the salesmanship of these guys for using the word "impacted" because when I hear that I'm like "GET IT OUT OF ME MANNN!!!".

I bought this product called CleanseSMART. You take a pill in the morning, and a pill at night for 30 days and it's supposed to flush out your system. You're also supposed to drink lots of water and eat high-fiber foods while on it. I'll start it after the holidays and let you guys know how it goes.

Just so you know, what sold me on this was not the scare tactics I described before. Rather, one caller on the program was assured of an initial "elimination" in excess of 24 inches long. A two foot dump, for the layperson. I want that kind of victory!

At the same time, I'll start my exercise program and eat better.

Stll going.....

Had my first morning session today. I'm still working out lightly, trying not to get too sore. I did 10 min of cardio followed by lower body today. My weight is a respectable 240. I'd like to get to about 225. I'm resigned to the fact that the only way I'll ever see my abs is if I pony up the cash for a trip to the plastic surgeon. I'm serious dudes, I'd do it?

If you're having trouble motivating yourself to improve your diet, go watch "Super Size Me". If you haven't heard, it's a documentary about what happens to this dude who is in great health when he decides to go on a diet of eating McDonalds 3 times a day for a month. I never want to eat fast food again.

James, your discipline to working out is truly impressive. Just be careful with all of the heavy weights. You're going to need those knees later in life.

Mark, hang in there with the new guy thing. In my experience, it only last for like a year or so.

Mike, I have nothing to say to you since you have abandoned the blog.

Yeah, but both of you are ugly

ha ha ha... he he he...ho ho ho... HAAAAHH!!!

I think about getting back into the routine all the time. From about February through July I had a pretty consistent routine going, which is a pretty long run for me. The only time it would work for me with my present schedule is if I hit it right when I got home from work for about 30 min. For now, the only thing getting thinner on me is my hair.

Man, being the new guy again SUCKS!! I don't know the products yet, I don't know my customers yet, I barely know my own company, and I'm already out in the field. I feel like a contestant on the Apprentice! My ready-to-use line is: "I don't know but I can find out for you". No one has time to see the new guy for the new guy sales call, so I'm having to drop in on most of my customers just to feel productive. That annoys some of them, especially because this is a busy time of year.

Once I get more up to speed it'll be great. It's the quintessential outside sales job. One of the cool things about it now is that I have some strong accounts for which we are key suppliers. One of them will (supposedly) double the business this year which ought to bump the salary into the next integer range. They are an integrator (basically the people you hire when you want to automate a manufacturing process).

But I'm sure you already knew that... That's what turns me on about 'cha.. you're attention to detail!

This glutton checks in

Believe it or not, I have been working out consistently since Rob and I started the BFL program last January. I am working out 5 days a week and have been doing so for a long time now. I'm in a good routine. I wake up at about 4:30 and go to the gym every day in Alabama to work out and do cardio. I have been so regular that, even though I have been in my apartment for over 2 months now, I have only actually showered there once. I've also been going to a spin class once a week for the past month. Mikey knows what torture spinning is but I don't know about the rest of y'all. Put it this way, spining would make a Marine puke. I've done it 4 times now and I still can't do it without cheating. After yesterday's session (1 hour) I was so sweaty that even my socks were soaked. I sweat so hard that I got abdominal cramps afterward.

My bench press is up to about 360-lbs. (I'm still chasing 400) and the other day I did leg press with 20 plates. And even though I'm still thick around the middle, my spare chins are gone. I'm in better shape at 38 than I was at 28 and it's because you Rob challenged me about 1 year ago when we met at that bar in the Quarry to get back in shape. Remember?

I have put on a lot of muscle bulk over the past year so my weight crept up again. So, I've been playing around with my diet and am now having a personal trainer design a nutrition plan for me with the caveat that just about all of my eating is done in restaurants.

Robbie, as always I wish you luck in the your resolution. I hope your back holds out and I hope your self-discipline holds out too.

Rob's triumphant return.

I went to the gym for the first time in like eleven months yesterday. I did a lightweight upper body workout. This morning I got up and did 20 minutes on my recumbant bike. Yaay for me!

After pigging out in Arkansas, I decided not to wait until after the holidays to start dieting and excercising. I've been eating faily well since Thanksgiving and am excited about working out again.

One good thing about the solid year and a half of working out that I did from summer of 02 til Jan of 04, it took my baseline weight down by 15 lbs. I used to carry around 255 and yesterday I weighed in at 240. My goal is 225 by April.

What about you gluttons?