Trees

As promised, here is one of the short little pieces of writing I've written as a means to clear my writing block. It's about trees.

They found him leaning against the oak tree with a smile on his face. Was I surprised when I heard? No, not really. That's where I would've looked if I was in their shoes. It was fitting, really. Only place he didn't feel like a freak.
The kid had been dealt a real bad hand. The drunken asshole he had for a stepfather always gave him the kind of grief that left bruises. He deserved what came to him. His mom, well, let's just say she had time for everyone else but him. School was no different. The freaks and geeks, jocks and beauty queens. He was everyone's personal little punching bag. Not even the teachers liked him. He wasn't smart enough for them. And me? Well, he was family. What could I do about that?
I'd find him sitting there on my way home from practice. Always had that coke can box with him. "That's where I keep my orc army and my paints," he would tell me. Bunch of overpriced plastic if you asked me, but I never told him anything. It didn't seem right.
Something was up that day. I had missed the bus that morning, and things just kept going from worse to shit. I didn't see him there. No carton box, no slouched figure with a paint brush in his hand. Didn't think much of it. All I could think of was how coach had run us like dogs.
He was dead when the hounds found him with his late daddy's war pistol in hand. No cuts, no blood, at least none that belonged to him. Nothing. Heart just stopped beating. He used to say the shade protected him. Said he felt nothing could happen to him so long as he didn't step outside of what the leaves covered.

B-B-B-Baaack!

Okay, so I haven't posted here since before the Metalocalypse, and truthfully, I've been working on so many independent projects that I haven't had much time to update, so for that I apologize. If there's still any readers left, then, thank you for not leaving. Seriously.

Part of my overextended hiatus can be attributed to the fact that I never really established much of a cohesive theme. It was just a space where I wrote and ranted about whatever struck my fancy. I'm going to continue to do that. The theme is that there is no theme to this bloggity blog. Just a bunch of random shit, now with more rants!

Since my last post, I have also been working on several writing exercises with a good friend of college where we write short 300 word segments about a specific theme each week. Since only she and I are reading them, I figured I'd post the best one of the week here.

Anyway, to summarize. I've been gone for too long, but I should be writing here more often.

New Home

Every other week, I will be posting on www.aroundthecouch.com, a collaborative blog started by one of my good college friends. This does not mean that I will stop writing here, though because the rate of blogging is less frequent than twice a week here, it'll mean that I'll probably write even less. I'm going to make a concerted effort to write more, though. New content will most assuredly be posted here. After all, www.aroundthecouch.com has a rule about keeping the language clean, and I most certainly need an outlet to swear my pretty little head off. Cunt, cock, shit, balls. Penis Holster. See, there. I feel better already

My feud with Gene Wojciechowski, ESPN Sports Writer and Contributor

I am a Cubs fan, unfortunately. As a result, I have grown up in a one sided relationship in which the other is abusive, dissapointing, and inconsiderate of my feelings. I have grown accustomed to pain. This year, it was even worse. Needless to say, I am still recovering from the hangover needed to forget about the Cubs. Anyway, in my drunken haze I decided it would be a good idea to email Gene Wojciechowski, a senior national sports columnist for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. Below is the text of my original email:

Subject: fuck you

may you burn in hell. you root and represent for everything that i detest about sports. You bald headed motherfucker. I hope you burn in hell

I sent out this email on Saturday night after reading a very unfriendly article he had written about the Cubbies. He had a valid point, but being in the state that I was, there was no way I would listen to logic. Needless to say, I decided to hit the 'Send' button.

Well, turns out that wasn't the end of it. At some point during Sunday afternoon, as I was nursing my hangover and watching the Cowboys game, I get an email in my inbox. It's from Gene. It's not an automated response. It's his reply, posted below:

Fidel,

Kiss your mother with that mouth?
Anyway, it’s great to be recognized by your peers.
Have a great day.

I don't think I've felt like this much of an asshole in a while. The worst part is that I probably wouldn't have felt like a dick wad if he had not responded, or if it was an automated email response. No. He called me out on my bullshit, without stooping down to my level. Damn. I actually felt bad enough I needed to apologize. So I did. Unfortunately I'm too proud to fully admit I'm wrong. So I sent him a Someecard. I wonder if he will reply...

Dear Chicago...

In a couple of days I will be going on vacation to Chicago. To say that I am excited is an understatement. It’ll be my first real vacation as an ‘adult’. I haven’t been there since we moved away, with the one exception being Thanksgiving break of 2004, and that time was spent cooped up in my grandmother’s condo watching movies. This time around I plan on really milking my time there dry, and have made plans to soak it all in. With that said, here are a couple of things I love about Chicago:

The Blues, and the Blues Aesthetic
The City of Chicago is rich in cultural history and I plan to immerse myself in it. During my second semester of college I found myself taking an American Studies course on the Blues, and its cultural and historical significance. Needless to say, it was one of the most rewarding classes I’ve ever taken and to this day I find myself revisiting my books. Perhaps nothing else grabbed my attention as much as the Southern Black diaspora to the northern cities. The paintings of Jacob Lawrence are engrained in my mind and have shaped the manner in which I perceive the city. They are a brilliant visual representation of that mass migrations of Southern Negroes to the industrialized cities of the north. Lawrence’s paintings, to me, becomes the unifying force between the distinct Delta blues sound and the more familiar style of blues that was popularized by the likes of Muddy Waters, BB King, and John Lee Hooker. I should Chicago wasn’t the only destination, I think it’s safe to say that no city benefited more from it than Chicago. Many consider it the homes of the blues, after all. If you’re not familiar with Lawrence’s work, here’s a good resource .

http://www.whitney.org/jacoblawrence/

Mike Royko
In my opinion there has been no better American journalist/editorial writer than Mike Royko (ok, maybe H.L. Mencken is up there as well). Royko was a Chicago native that deeply loved his city and this was reflected in his writing (as can be seen by his columns written about the Cubbies and Mayor Daley, just to name a few). He wrote for all three Chicago major papers (including the now defunct Chicago Daily News) and won a Pulitzer for his commentary. His style was that of the common man, of the guy who has an ongoing tab at the tavern across the street, and his readers loved him for it. Below, there’s a link with a handful of some of his writing. Coincidentally, it has two of my all-time favorite Royko articles (titled “Picasso and the Cultural Rebirth of Chicago” and “Jackie’s Debut a Unique Day”). He wrote and thought the way people should write and think
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/730719.html

The Cubbies
I’m a diehard football fan, and I love the Dallas Cowboys, but I’m not as obsessed with them as I am with the Chicago Cubs. Cubbie baseball evokes pastoral images of America. It’s very surprising that the Cubs are able to do this, to make people think of open fields and good ol’ times, especially since Chicago is very much an urban and modern city. A trip to the friendly confines of Wrigley Field is definitely in the works and is quite possibly one of the highlight of my trips. I’m hoping that Big Z—Carlos Zambrano—is the starting pitcher when I’m there, but that won’t be the case.