40 Things

1. Forty is not the “new” anything.  It’s forty – get over it, and have a sandwich, already.
2. My twenties were a decade of wanting things I couldn’t have, my thirties was a decade of having things I didn’t want and I suspect my forties, as a result, will pretty much be awesome.
3. I am the “old guy in the club” – but that doesn’t mean I should feel bad about your girlfriend watching me dance.  
4. It turns out that I would actually trade a leg before I'd give up dancing... thankfully, I have good enough doctors that I didn't have to.
5. Discretion is not just the better part of valor, it's also the key to negotiation, relationships and just about the best thing about getting older.
6. Aging out of the "target demographic" doesn't mean you aren't cool anymore, it means that you can finally stop changing your definition of "cool."
7. My greatest regret, to date, is not taking enough (any) vacations - which also turns out to be a pretty resolution resolution for my forties.
8. Girls old enough to drink were born after I graduated high school - that's some perspective for you.
9. I finally figured out the source of the "most annoying sound in the world" (a la "Dumb and Dumber") - it's the sound of a toddler throwing a tantrum.  And that nails it.
10. There are more tests required to complete the first grade than there are to get a drivers license - and it shows.
11. The only thing more terrifyingly stupid than the religious right are their children.
12. I have a better chance at becoming the next President of the United States than anyone in the Republican Party. 
13. The sexes do profoundly more damage to themselves than they do to one another.
14. Anyone who rebuts climate change by noting that "it's cold outside" should be euthanized. Immediately.
15. I'm more embarrassed by the "Creation Museum" than I am by all of reality television, collectively.
16. I finally figured out why traveling costs so much - it's worth it.
17. Ignorance is not a disability, and therefore I can see no reason why we should accommodate it - especially at the common expense.
18. A vocabulary tells the story of your mind - if yours is small, so are you.
19. Douchebaggery has become so ubiquitous that now women are doing it.  Yes, that means you, girl with the aviator shades, Yankees cap and over-collagened lips.  
20. No nation that systemically subjugates women can rightfully be considered "first world." Talking to you, Saudi Arabia.
21. The Bible (along with all religious texts) is an allegory.  Stop it, already.  
22. I'd rather wear high heels than Crocs, "man-dals" or any shoe made from a reptile.
23. Just because everyone doesn't think you're beautiful doesn't mean no one does.
24. There really are purely evil people in this world - and most of them are not in charge of anything.  If you can't find the good in someone - it just might not be there.
25. Xenophobia is the ultimate intellectual cowardice. We're sharing this planet, so make some friends who don't look like you already.
26. If you're not getting more tolerant as you get older, you're missing the point.
27. There is no good reason to rev your engine at a stoplight unless you're in an action movie, the 50's or transit with a pregnant woman to the hospital.  Trust me, you're none of these things.
28. I used to think the phrase "You're special" had two different meanings.  Now, I think if you need to hear one - you probably need to hear both.
29. Vanity is perfectly acceptable, as long as it comes with a healthy dose of perspective.
30. The United States is not fighting to be the best country in the world, it's fighting to stay in the top half.
31. There is no such thing as "an old soul" - just kids pretending to be grown ups, and grown ups who think parrots are "smart" animals.
32. Tax exemption is an outdated of an an idea as segregation - and we should be ashamed of it. Sports leagues, churches and charities don't need any help making (or keeping) money.
33. Leadership and being "in charge" are not the same things (though they do go well together). However, leadership and mentorship, are.
34. I meet "good kids" so rarely that I want to take down their names so I can contact them in ten years and offer them a job.
35. You must learn how to be an asshole - not as a personality trait, but as a rarely used skill. Without it, you will get taken advantage of.
36. If your friends don't ever criticize you, they are not your friends.
37. It's not always ok to cry, but it's definitely ok to cry.
38. We don't read, write or learn enough.  Tragically, none of them have ever been easier, less expensive or more universally available.
39. Our life stories are better told the way we used to tell them - passing them down as fading recollections, rose-colored memories and hyperbolic anecdotes.  So, put the camera phone down and just take it all in.  
40. Three things you should never have to explicitly notify anyone of: being smart, being rich, or being in charge.  If you're the real deal - everyone that matters will know without you saying a word about it.  

3 Leaving Lessons – Requiem for a Jack

A few weeks ago, I said goodbye to one of the best friends I’ve ever had.  A life spent in the military, traveling from place to place and working tirelessly towards a dream doesn’t often afford the opportunity gather much of a family; let alone a companion.  Nevertheless, at the suggestion of friends, just after I took the Nevada Bar Exam, I went to the local rescue and adopted an Australian Shepherd that I named Jack.  He helped to fill an otherwise empty house, provided a faithful companion when they seemed perilously hard to come by and a playmate when playtime was increasingly scarce.  When times got tough, he was an ever-ready ear, a fluffy pillow to hug and someone always happy to see me, when welcoming arms were in short supply.  I promised him that I would make it through for both of us, that things would get better and that there would soon be a time for as much play as he could handle.  Taking my dreams to the next level meant even greater sacrifices of free time and home time, and Jack ultimately spent most of his days with only a dog door, a big back yard and automatic feeders for company.  Those dreams have finally come to mean selling the house and moving closer to work – and ultimately, a life with no place for Jack in it.  But just as he taught me lessons in life, he taught me even more lessons in leaving.  And so, as the only fitting requiem I can must, here are the three most important of those lessons:

1.  Loving can mean leaving.  Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone or something you love is letting them go.  I can tell you, it’s dramatically easier advice to give than to take.  But along with mystery aches, waning memory and an systemic misunderstanding of anyone under the age of 25, getting older means knowing that sometimes the best things in your life are better off not in your life any longer.  The vast majority of people who have contributed to who I am today are people who I simply don’t know anymore.  Their contribution to my life is in no way diminished by the finite nature of their presence, because their impact is infinite and ongoing.  Coaches, teammates, friends, enemies, lovers and more – each of them special to me, all of them long gone.  For animals, whose life span and memory are far shorter, this is even more important and true.  Jack will be lucky to get fifteen good years on this rock, and the fact that he spent two of them lighting up my darkest days was a great gift to us both.  He left me knowing how to catch a fifty-yard Frisbee toss on the fly, I left him knowing that sometimes the best way to say “I love you” is throwing that Frisbee.  In leaving, he got a life with full-time friends and family, and I got a whole lot less house to worry about.  I think a lot more about the days he was here than the day he left – and I’m pretty sure he does, too – if only to remember exactly how that Frisbee is gonna fly. 

2.  Time after time.  There are few lessons more universally learned and poignant than the value of time – and how it changes. When things are bad, life is long, when they are good, life is short.  If you can find someone or something that can make your bad days shorter, you should hold on with everything you’ve got.  At the end of my sometimes interminable days, the hour between getting home and falling asleep never passed by more quickly than when we chased each other around the house.  Of all of the great and terrible gifts I have given and received, I have never found one which costs more, means more or stays with me as long as simple time: the time I take when I have precious little to give, the time spent when it seems like there simply isn’t any left and the time I get from those too busy to even imagine what type of sacrifice it took to give it to me.  All Jack ever wanted from me was some time.  He loved his treat, toys and big back yard – but there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t drop when he saw the leash appear in my hand, or the Frisbee come out of my pack.  He desperately loved tug-of-war, but letting him win was the worst way to end it – it wasn’t the toy he wanted, it was the tugging.  I never have time in great supply – I’m not certain I ever will, but the great blessing of being busy is to know just how much it means to simply show up, to listen up or to give up some other appointment.  I regret a great deal more the nights I couldn’t find time to play more than letting him find a family that had them in abundance.

3.  Understanding is overrated.  I’ve seen my share of dog whisperers, pet psychologists and animal activists.  I’ve read studies, stories and whole sites dedicated to trying to figure out what your pet is saying.  And I’ve come to one conclusion – we have no f*&king idea.  But more importantly, it doesn’t matter at all.   I don’t know why Jack used to squirm around on his back when I would get home – making funny noises and looking like a slow motion seizure.  I thought it meant that he wanted his belly rubbed, but approaching him would make him snap right back up and grab something for me to throw.  And so, when I got home, I would just let him go through it – and I loved watching him go.  I never figured out why sometimes he would bring things back to me, and sometimes he would just come back without them – but I always loved chasing after them with him at my side.  I never knew why he would only sleep in my bed when I wasn’t in it – and would jump off as soon as I laid down, even when I implored him to stay – but I loved seeing that dog-shaped wrinkle.  Sometimes the best part of loving something or someone are the things you don’t get – because there is a beauty in mystery, and we’ve got no better shot at understanding our dogs than we do at understanding our gods. 

* * *

I had the enormous good fortune to actually meet Jack’s new family as they adopted him.  They come with a ready-made brother for Jack – and a new name: “Huck.”  Not too long before they came to get him, they lost a long-time family member, and couldn’t suffer to see their remaining pup mope around alone.   They spent an hour or so making friends while the requisite paperwork was filled out and at least two other families lamented that he had been adopted so quickly.  Jack was always a popular boy.  We took pictures, talked and learned about his new, big back yard, a family that always had someone at home and the great toys waiting for him a short drive away.  In a year filled with tough times, I have often wondered if I had beaten all the feeling out of myself – and Jack taught me one last thing.  He took to his new buddy so quickly that he hardly noticed the tears in my eyes and the catch in my breath.  I didn’t call him as he left, because I wasn’t crying for him – at that point I wasn’t crying at all.  I simply smiled when he didn’t turn around to look for me as they drove away.   

39 Things

The best-laid plans of mice and men… or so wrote a better author than I might ever hope to be. And so the year of writing that was to be has turned into an extension of the work-based sabbatical that I had hoped to conclude just six months ago. Thankfully, as it has for the past four years, the anniversary of my birth has provided a mid-year reminder that the time for reflection is nigh, and if I can produce no other good thing to read, that I can at least sit down and reflect on one lesson learned for each year that I’ve managed to stay alive. And while they, like my life itself, run from the sublime to the ridiculous, they have proven to be just about the only consistent thing over this long, strange trip – and so, in the interests of marking the better part of four decades of bachelorhood with the manliest thing I can muster (a list of rules for life), here are THIRTY NINE THINGS I’ve learned:

1. The only things that you can finish which warrant a celebration called a “graduation” are high school and college. Anything else is the equivalent of a participation ribbon, and I will celebrate it accordingly.
2. The following arts are increasingly lost, and are likely doomed to extinction: conversation, social dancing and writing in complete sentences.
3. The only thing I’m willing to buy from a person with a faux-hawk is table reservations at a nightclub – and even then, I’m still not jazzed about it.
4. You can tell almost everything you need to know about a woman from her hands – this includes her age, her maintenance level and her capacity for evil. Just like in the storybooks – stay away from anything with pointy nails.
5. Wal-Mart is not the cause of the decline of civilization, but it has become the best place to watch it happening.
6. We have the drinking age and the driving age backwards. I’d much rather deal with a drunk 16 year old on foot than a sober one in a car.
7. The phrase “I couldn’t tell how old she was” is always a lie.
8. You know what’s wrong with great big boobs? Nothing.
9. There is far too much faith placed in mothers, and far too little in fathers. There is nothing inherently good about someone who is fertile, nor inherently evil about someone who is virile. Bad mothers occur just as frequently as bad fathers.
10. I've finally stopped getting dirty looks from pretty girls in the gym – and finally figured out that it's because I'm officially a harmless old man.
11. Most of my tastes have matured over time, but I'm pretty sure I'll always be unreasonably entertained by videos of people hurting themselves.
12. The only difference between nightclubs and gentlemen’s clubs has become the prices.
13. The revving of an engine is the most reliable and enduring indicator of douchebaggery ever.
14. No one is as good at lying as they think. Conversely, no one is as good as spotting a liar as they think.
15. Traffic is our great social failure. I have a device in my pocket that gives me on demand access to all the information in the WORLD, and yet, thousands of people are forced to lose hours out of their day because of one risk-averse agoraphobic in an ’89 Tercel is completed confounded by modern traffic signals.
16. Just because you can write something that all your friends can read doesn’t mean that you should.
17. You are never, under any circumstances, allowed to select your own nickname.
18. No matter much time and money I spend on it, my hair will never be as cool as I want it to be. I am, however, grateful to still have all of it.
19. Once you’ve held a person over your head, standing, on one hand – every other measure of strength just seems kindof silly.
20. I have never felt quite ready for anything I’ve taken on for the past 20 years. I have been wrong every time.
21. The two least attractive words you can say to a woman at 39 are “my cat.”
22. Three biggest reasons I don’t want to turn 40: Dinner parties, wine tastings and prostate exams – yes, in that order.
23. I see the same guy in the mirror I saw 10 years ago – and I’m terrified of when that’s going to change.
24. I don't care how hot it is – if you're a grown man, I don't need to see your feet.
25. I don't need everyone around me to be beautiful, but I do need them to be clean. There is no good reason to stink.
26. If your explanation for any viewpoint is “because it says so in the Bible” - there is a 100% chance that I don't want to hear anything you say.
27. My support of any sports team is inversely proportional to how insufferable their fans are – which is why I hate the Yankees, the Lakers, the Heat and all things Notre Dame.
28. My continued patronage of WalMart is a testament to just how good their prices are – because I'm willing to tolerate full volume social decay every time I shop there.
29. There is no acceptable way to wear a hankerchief on your head at the gym. Come to think of it, this goes for pretty much anyplace.
30. Eating healthy as either a bachelor or a business owner is almost impossible. Eating healthy when you're both is impossible – so stop asking me about it.
31. One of the great unmentioned joys of adulthood is buying whatever damned cereal I want.
32. Life is not short. Life is long – youth is short, and as is often said, utterly wasted on the young.
33. I've got more pains than a window store, but I wouldn't trade them in for all the crazy, awesome and unexpected ways I beat the crap out of myself over the years.
34. I don't sweat any more now than I used to when I go dancing, I just care less about it.
35. There is a such thing as a dumb question – and the dumbest one I've heard to date is: “Why do you work so hard?” So that I never have to ask anyone else that question.
36. If the prettiest part of you washes off, you're doing it wrong.
37. Success in leadership is a direct function of the amount of sacrifice you're willing to make for those you lead.
38. Nothing sells as well as being genuine; passion can't be faked (at least not for long) and telling the truth is the easiest way to not have to remember much.
39. I learn every day. Anyone that thinks they don't need to learn anymore is a fool, and anyone that doesn't want to is already dead.

I can't wait to learn what my 40^th year has in store.

3 Wearing Warnings

While the turning of the New Year brings resolute behavior to many of us, it doesn’t seem to move the needle much when it comes to ill-advised fashion choices.  Despite the availability of well-made, stylish and flattering clothing at exceptionally reasonable prices, it seems like an impossible majority of people still look like they dress themselves without the assistance of friends, mirrors or indoor lighting.  Fashion advice abounds, in almost every conceivable medium, and yet, its like there’s been a conscious effort to avoid any employment of the same.  The only explanation that I can come up with is that the abundance of “what to wear” advice has become so overwhelming that no one’s bothered to offer a similar volume of advice of the “what not to wear” variety.  As it turns out, however, fashion is much easier to screw up than to get right, and so, in the hopes that I might be the catalyst of a cascade of criticism, here are three things you almost certainly should not be wearing:

1.  Faux-ssociation.  There have always been, and there will always been certain pastimes, hobbies and other activities with a sort of cool caché; an implicit sense of fashion forwardness that is validated solely by the activity itself.  For the west coast crowd, this mantle has traditionally been borne by skaters and surfers and, in recent years, by the mixed martial arts crowd.  Now, while I am perfectly happy to see these free souls find a way to make a living doing what they love - by selling their duds to the public - the sprawl of these styles (by way of shopping mall brands like Pac-Sun, Tillys, Zumiez, etc.) has rendered them a staple of modern dress no more remarkable than Levi’s, Old Navy or the Gap.  But what is even more troubling than the mainstreaming of this counterculture, is the almost unbelievable swagger that it seems to engender – as though simply by wearing the same clothes, these double-digit IQ mouth-breathers have adopted the carefree and well earned bravado of these modern-day cowboys.  Sure, in my day, we wore the apparel of our favorite heroes, both large and small, but I was also sure that wearing my Hulkamania t-shirt didn’t make me a wrestler, nor did my Air Jordans give me the ability to dunk a basketball.  So to be clear, your Billabong shirt doesn’t change the fact that the only things you’ve surfed are your parents’ couch and the Internet; your skate shoes don’t make you a skater, they just make you too lazy to buy grown-up shoes, and your TapOut shirt does not make you a fighter, they just make a jerk off with anger issues and a grudge against your ex-girlfriend.  The clothes don’t make the man, especially when they come with screen-printed logos.

2.  Big Timers.  As the cell phone has become more and more ubiquitous, it has come to replace any number of previously cherished personal items: our calendars, our address books, and perhaps someday soon, even our wallets.   But perhaps nothing it has replaced has been so obvious or unexpected as the wristwatch.  I truly can’t remember the last time I was compelled to wear one of these anachronistic pieces.  There is just no need, as the accurate time is always at my fingertips, just the push of a button away.  And so, the watch has ceased to function as a necessity, and is reduced to solely a fashion accessory.  You might think that, relegated to this status, the watch would become a subtle accent piece – the pocket square of jewelry, if you will.  But of course, you would be wrong.  The modern day wristwatch has grown to ludicrous proportions, both in size and "bling."  And as women have taken to wearing watch sizes previously reserved for men, men, not to be outdone, now wear watch faces that could serve double duty as drink coasters, with numbers large enough to be read from across the room.  Look, the bottom line here is simple, if the diameter of your watch face, in inches, starts with the number two or higher, there’s simply no chance that you have anything of value to offer the world, and you may as well just wear that watch into traffic – at least that way it can finally serve a useful purpose, noting the time of death of one more douche.

3.  Size Shmedium.  It’s not like I don’t get it.  I was a late bloomer.  I get that an appropriately small t-shirt can lend a measure of credibility to a torso that just doesn’t have any hope in something that actually fits.  And there is a time in a man's life when this is the sort of thing I could overlook – and that time is high school.  So unless you’re making Friday night plans to see the football game, or trying to figure out who to take to the Prom, you really need to find a shirt that actually fits you.  There is nothing more desperate and pathetic than a grown man wearing a shirt tight enough that you can count his ribs.  Seriously, who do you think you’re fooling?  Here’s a quick test, gents: raise your arms above your head – if your shirt has now produced a bare midriff it’s not the right size.  Want to know a secret?  Women can tell how big you are no matter what you wear.  That’s right, just like black stretch pants that have a better chance of hiding a chalk stain than a big butt – they’ve got us figured out – and now you just look like a five foot ten inch tall stack of self-esteem issues.  Honestly, a shirt that tight couldn’t be any less masculine if it was hot pink, bedazzled and covered in rainbow glitter.  What’s worse, they actually cut and size modern t-shirts to produce the look you're going for – so you’re only foiling the efforts of much more talented designers (and looking even dumber in the process) by refusing to size up.  Do us all a favor, ask for some size help at the store, and for the sake of all of us, get the “Large.”

* * *     

Despite all of the options out there, it’s really not that hard to figure out what not to wear.  All you need to do is put yourself in that same cruel and relentless mindset you used to take to middle school every day.  You know, that awkward time in your life where you going through so many changes that the only thing that satiated your own terror was pointing what was wrong with everyone else?  Yup, that’s the one.  Channel that inner demon child and sidle up to the closest full-length mirror and take a good long look.  If your mind begins to spin out of control with the requisite flood of mockery, it’s time to head back into the closet and try again – maybe this time with the lights on.  This process can be repeated until the only decent insult you can come up with is: “you look like a big stupid grown up” – then you’re finally ready to head out the door.  Because keeping in touch with your inner child is only a good idea if you don’t let him pick out your clothes.      

3 I Told You So's

There are few things so easily and justifiably hate-able as Notre Dame football.   In a world where fads and brands come and go like the seasons, those that refuse to exit so gracefully become a disappointing reminder of the petulance that often accompanies ignorance.  Every football game Notre Dame plays is a morality play, where the “Irish” play the part of the villainy of modern day entitlement and ill-deserved self-righteousness.  Watching Notre Dame win is like watching the rich and poorly-mannered kid get the girl; like watching Goliath beat David; like watching Justin Beiber upstage the Rolling Stones.  But this season, and the least impressive 12-0 record in the history of college football, has always had a sense of inevitability to it.   You knew, you just knew, that at some point, it had to give; at some point, the luck of a team who’s no more Irish than the good folks in Tuscaloosa had to run out; at some point, there would be a reckoning.  And so there was.  But while I’m not in the habit of dancing on graves, planting a foot on a great and vanquished evil and pumping a fist is exactly the kind of thing I’m about – so here are three reasons why Notre Dame sucks, and why I was right all along: 

1.         Hijacked Pride.  Nothing about the Notre Dame football you see today is genuine.  Nothing.  The colors (blue and gold)?  Well, you should know by now who had those first (and who still wears them best).  Fighting Irish?  Well depending on where you read it, they got that nickname from either opposing fans, opposing players or the New York Daily News – how’s that for originality?    The legend of Rudy?  Well just ask Joe Montana (who, as it turns out was the last ND quarterback to win a Super Bowl) who has maintained that it just never happened.  QB University?  How are Brady Quinn and Jimmy Clausen working out in the NFL?  As for their fans, well, I don’t even know where to begin.  The overwhelming majority of Irish fans have never even been on the campus, let alone attended or graduated from the University.  Many of them are Catholic, but that doesn’t explain why they’re not rooting for Boston College, Villanova, or Loyola.  A few are Irish, but they seem like they’d better served rooting for their national soccer team than a bunch of kids who couldn’t tell you the difference between Protestants and Catholics if you gave them cue cards, hints, and three tries at it.  Truth is, there’s more reality in reality television than in any “Irish Pride.”          

2.         Tired Dynasty.  The only thing I can think of which has lived longer off it’s long past glory to get fans to suffer its current utter noxiousness is Star Wars, and while the last great Star Wars movie predated the last great Notre Dame team by five years, George Lucas at least at three shots at it – whereas the “vaunted Fighting Irish” got their first chance to stink up a National Championship game a heady twenty five years after their last.  Seriously, if getting to the final game every two or three decades qualifies as a “dynasty” then we’ve got more college football royalty than we know what to do with.  The worst part of this is, their fans don’t know this.  They’re reliving 1988 like it happened last year, you know like that one guy at your twenty year reunion who was telling old football stories in the hopes of bedding a cheerleader one last time?  Honestly, barely skipping by Pitt and Purdue doesn’t make you a champion, it makes you a middling top 25 team that got some lucky bounces and a few good recruits.  The only thing scary about Notre Dame coming to play your team is the horde of mouth-breathing idiot fans who wouldn’t know sportsmanship if it walked up and slapped them (which isn’t such a bad idea).

3.         Behind the Shine.  The real reason, the best reason, to hate Notre Dame is what lurks behind those glittery helmets and face-painted shamrocks.  Despite the fact that it’s planted smack dab in the middle of small-town Indiana – the kind of place that is just about as “Midwest” as a place can get – Notre Dame is a private school for rich kids who think winning is a birthright, and not something you earn.   Notre Dame in South Bend is like putting a Barney’s in the middle of a WalMart.  But how else can you explain a fan base that legitimately believes that it’s chasing a national title the year after winning 3, 7 and 6 games?  It takes a special kind of entitlement to believe that you’re chasing greatness when you’re chasing Purdue around the field.  The audacity of the ND fan base is exactly what you might expect from a culture where 50% of the nation’s young adults believe they’re in the top 10%.  Notre Dame is the epitome of an all-shine and no-substance culture that generates fame for its own sake – and if you can find a better reason that to hate them, I’d like to hear it.

* * *

Comeuppance, recompense, just desserts – whatever you want to call it, what transpired in the national championship of college football in 2013, was the kind of justice that we all expected, that we all needed after a season of doubt turned into a month of creeping belief, and we all simply couldn’t take any more.  For just a moment, we all stopped believing our own eyes – looked at the statistics and wondered if there just wasn’t enough good left in this broken system to keep an evil empire from assuming the throne.  But as every good story goes, there is always a great fall in store for those whose achievements are built on long-faded reputation, an unwillingness to take on challenges and transparent bravado.  As the great Pat Haney once taught me, so many years ago, it’s about heart, and this team, simply has none.  Because Notre Dame’s is a legacy whose heartbeat has long since been replaced by the echoes of past glory, and for those with the will to fight each day like it’s their last, for those who play with heart, in the end, there will always be victory.  Roll Tide.