Did you get off on a bad foot, baby?

Content advisory: Discussion of D's.

D's what? Deez nuts.

Thirty years ago, I would run occasionally. I weighed somewhere between 180 and 190 pounds, still smoked, and would huff my way around the neighborhood dressed in a cotton T-shirt, cut-off sweats, and traditional cotton briefs. No special gear, even the shoes were several years old at this point, and much too small.

Distance: 3.1 miles

Duration: 27:27
Pace: 8:51

I started feeling pain in my lower abdomen and was worried I had developed another hernia. The doctor told me I had a varicose vein in one of my testicles. She found it, manipulated it, held onto it for a bit, all while telling me her diagnosis. It was excruciating. I had to ask her to please let go. She wasn't my doctor for much longer.

So, I started wearing compression pants. It was depressing, and I feared I would have to wear them for the rest of my life, but this was not the case. Maybe a couple years? Can't remember. What I know is this; the condition is exacerbated by a lack of support, so I never wear boxers, and try to find briefs which are just a little too tight. 

Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 54°
Climate: beautiful
Mood: getting there

And when I started training for the marathon (ten whole years later) I purchased my first athletic supporter. Ever. I was thirty-seven. Everyone with junk, even a casual runner, should invest in one, early.

I have also found that additional weight can also contribute to this discomfort. This is an additional reason why I obsess about keeping it all under 165. 

1996 Playlist

Ugly Stadium - Tipsy

Star People - George Michael

Shadowboxer - Fiona Apple

Single (Photek Remix) - Everything But the Girl

Backpedal - Queue Up

Soundtrack To Mary - Soul Coughing

Return of the Mack - Mark Morrison

Man. The 1990s. That was wild.

Stretches: yes
Water: yes
Weight: 165 lbs. (+4.0)

Planks: yes
Push-ups: yes

Sit-Ups: yes

Get it.

You gotta move it.

The album after the big comeback can be a challenge. Duran Duran (1993) also known as "The Wedding Album" was a return to prominence for the Fab Five, but what came next? A covers album. Not exactly aspiring for relevance, or popularity. Their version of "White Lines" was cringe-worthy at the time, though I would argue it is now a classic.

After some necessary time off following devastating life changes, The B-52's Cosmic Thing (1989) was the most successful album they'd ever had, and was an important component of the closing of my college experience. The follow-up, Good Stuff, was like a sequel. Not groundbreaking like their previous, Nile Rodgers produced epic, just kind of similar.

And yet, timing is everything, and this album landed at a very important time in my life and has stayed there. It was part of the soundtrack of a twenty-four year-old artist, embarking of his first major artistic endeavor, and we listened to this album while building sets, painting walls, fucking around and, oh yeah, writing. All that writing.

The instrumental track "The World's Green Laughter" was the curtain call music for the first several weeks of our late night extravaganza You Have the Right to Remain Silent. When the composer of our theme music finally attended a performance (Adam lived in L.A. at the time) he was so disappointed the show didn't end with his work he wrote us an original theme immediately.

I love his work. To me, "The World's Green Laughter" still means it's midnight and time to get to Edison's.

Distance: 5 miles
Duration: 46:45
Pace: 9:20

My tuchus was sore this morning. Weird.

Good Stuff - The B-52's (1992)

Tell It Like It T-I-Is

Hot Pants Explosion

Good Stuff

Revolution Earth

Dreamland

The World's Green Laughter

Vision of a Kiss

Breezin'

Bad Influence

Five miles on a Tuesday night might not be the best idea anymore. Weird, my supporter broke just as I was heading out so I came back and changed it. Glad that didn't happen out on the run.

Route: Forest Hill/Boulevard Loop
Temperature: 75°
Climate: nice but humid
Mood: all right
Stretches: yes
Water: yes

Pain Reliever: TBD

Breakfast: coffee w/cream, Pop Tarts (blueberry)

Snack: Pirate's Booty (1)

Lunch: PB&J, chicken orzo soup, GS cookies (3)

Snack: Pirate's Booty (1)

Dinner: pasta w/tapenade, garlicky kale, cassata cake (not in that order)

No, really. Don't eat while you're cooking.

I am tired. I am weary.

This is me.

But look at it this way. I have had more runs in January -- already -- than in the last three months of 2017 combined. And I have not been feeling badly, I have not been limping, I have not had pain. A little awareness, perhaps. Aware of nerve in my leg, but not pain or discomfort.

1967 Playlist
Knock On Wiid - Eddie Floyd
Somebody To Love - Jefferson Airplane
Venus In Furs - Velvet Underground
Chain of Fools - Aretha Franklin
I Was Made to Love Her - Stevie Wonder
People Are Strange - The Doors
Tighten Up - Archie Bell & the Drells

Ugh. Feel like my teeth have been ruined. Chewing like a shut-in. It's all mac and cheese from here on out. Mac and cheese and gruel.

Distance: 2.28 miles
Route: Neighborhood Run
Temperature: 24°
Climate: cold & clear
Pavement slippery with snow
Mood: all right

Got new athletic supports. Can't remember how old this set is, but they were old. Just fell apart. Seriously, though. Shock Doctor should not be the brand name for jock straps, that should be the brand name for something else entirely.

Stretches: yes

Cold air. Deep breaths. Moving through space. Feels good. This is why.

Baseline: 178 lbs.
Today: 177 lbs. (-2.0)
Goal: 170 lbs.

Shake your bag of bones.

Uffington White Horse

A few years back Diffuser posted XTC Albums Ranked in Order of Awesomeness and, just as many casual Beatles fans are shocked when such lists don't put Sgt. Pepper at the top of their list, I was surprised when Skylarking wasn't at the top of theirs.

Say what you want about their quirky early work or those weirdos who actually own and listen to the Apple Venus records (they say they're good,) the Todd Rundgren-produced and much gossiped-about Skylarking -- the final version, with "Dear God" included -- is fat-free and complete, every track a classic and with none of those songs which inevitably pop up on every XTC record featuring lyrics of social commentary so humiliatingly jejune and cringe-worthy.

Diffuser ranked Skylarking number three. Number one was reserved for English Settlement.

My son has decided he is unimpressed by modern pop music, and so we tend to listen to the classic rock stations. He likes the production values of the seventies and eighties. But that still means I have to play him albums from that era which even now receive no airtime, and that includes, of course, XTC.

I was looking forward to listening to all of English Settlement on the drive from Athens yesterday, but I was caught flatfooted by the terribleness of some of the songs which deal clumsily with the torpor of modern living, and of gender and race. The male-shaming (and yet not actually pro-female) lyrics of "Down In The Cockpit" are embarrassingly naive, even if the beat is infectious and strong. The sentimentally joyful plea for tolerance in "Knuckle Down" is entirely overwhelmed by its joyfully privileged condescension. And "Leisure" is simply a horrible song to listen to, with or without the words.

This is coming from a guy who really loves XTC.

Distance: 3.25 miles
Route: Forest Hill Loop
Temperature: 34°
Climate: cool. nice.
Mood: okay.

What rocks English Settlement are those songs, naked in their cultural appropriation, employing "African rhythms" which were all the rage among white, male performers in the 1980s from Peter Gabriel and Paul Simon on down. The forced patois and imagery of "It's Nearly Africa" would be as dismissible as those of Toto's "Africa" if it weren't for the irresistibly funky beat and the driving arrangement. It does, indeed, make me want to finger-paint the sun on you.

Also, too, the words in "Melt the Guns" are no less relevant now than they were thirty-five years ago. They are unfortunately much much more so.

Finally, "Snowman" is one my very favorite holiday songs, even though it has nothing to do with Christmas except sleigh bells and the references to snow and cold. It includes one of my most favorite phrases about feel lost and embittered in love; "People will always be tempted to wipe their feet on anything with 'welcome' written on it."

This is where Partridge truly shines, when he is speaking from the heart about emotions that are closest to him. Broken hearts, loss of faith, the British class society. Making grand pronouncements about sex and race, he sounds awfully male and white.

No, seriously. I really love the music of XTC. But though the lyrics were, in my college years, a gateway for me into more progressive thinking, they are, many of them, facile thoughts better left to open the minds of a new generation of young, white men ... like my son.

This is a playlist of the best tracks, and best running tracks, from English Settlement.

English Settlement - XTC (1982)
Runaways (167 bpm)
Melt The Guns (182 bpm)
It's Nearly Africa
Fly On The Wall
Down In The Cockpit (158 bpm)
English Roundabout
Snowman (174 bpm)

See? That is some boss beats per minute.

Sprinting down the street, I bust my supporter. Hmn. Need a new supporter.

Didn't even take my kit to Athens. When was the last time I didn't run at Thanksgiving? Pain shot straight down through my leg at one point, but it eased off. Glad I ran. No regrets.

Send David To Alaska

Here's the big news:

One night only, Saturday, May 7, 2016, I will present my award-winning solo performance I Hate This (A play without the baby) at Talespinner Children’s Theatre, 5209 Detroit Avenue.

This autobiographical, one-hour play describes the experiences my wife, Toni, and I had before and after the stillbirth of our first child. He was born 15 years ago this March, and I’ve hoped to have an opportunity to share the piece again in 2016.

Recent productions of I Hate This in Manchester, England, and at Hartwick College in New York, featuring other actors playing me, have encouraged me to try some new things in telling this story that is so important to us.

Any contribution toward my journey to LFTC will be greatly appreciated, but I would be so happy to see you at the performance May 7, by which time I hope – with your help – I will have made my goal.

Click here to visit my GoFundMe page and make a donation and reserve your seat for May 7!

Distance: 4 miles
Avg Pace: 7:39
Duration:30:36
Route: Cain Park Loop

More cold. Bear with it. Speaking of bears, I wonder what how safely I can run in Valdez. Run in packs with jangly keys, I imagine. Headphones would be a very bad idea.

Temperature: 34°
Climate: cool and windy
Weight: 161.5 lbs. (-0.5)
Mood: not bad

Odd playlist, Genius generated, nothing I would have put together for myself, and it was awesome.

Mother Sky Playlist
Mother Sky - CAN
Penetration - The Stooges
I Don't Wanna Be Learned/I Don't Wanna Be Tamed (demo) - The Ramones
Nothing In This World Can Stop Me Worryin' Bout That Girl - The Kinks
Banned In D.C. - Bad Brains
Give Him A Great Big Kiss * - The Shangri-Las
Urban Guerilla - Hawkwind
Dopesmoker - Sleep
Shake Appeal * - The Stooges
Mod Lang - Big Star
The Court of the Crimson King - King Crimson

Jockstrap broke during my run. That's new.

I Have Changed (book)

Life is no sprint. It's a marathon - a long, long, long-distance race over hills and through valleys, sometimes even stops along the way, and it's how you run that marathon, not how soon you get to the finish line, that matters. Because there really is no finish line. As long as you live, there's another hill, another valley.

- Jesse Owens (with Paul Neimark), I Have Changed (1972)

cliché (n.) an overused word that's usage is more cliché than whatever it is that's being called cliché. - Urban Dictionary

Jesse Owens achieved signal triumph at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and has gained immortality not merely because of his athletic ability, but as a symbol of independent spirit triumphing over totalitarianism. The fact that he made his mark as one of African descent, championing over Hitler's "Aryan race" while inspiring is tarnished by the fact that he returned to an America whose entrenched racism was, to put it best, milder than Hitler's.

But not much. Not if you were black. You could still be murdered because of your ethnic heritage, and if not merely live your life as a second or third class citizen. In America.

However, Jesse was a conservative man in the better sense, who truly believed in success based on achievement, and that there were far too many who spent time carping about disenfranchisement without actually doing anything about, or worse, working to tear down the system without striving to create anything better in its place.

In 1970 the first book Blackthink: My Life as Black Man and White Man was published, credited to Jesse Owens with Paul Neimark. In this book (which I have not read) Owens holds forth on the civil rights era, and his disdain for activist and extremists such as the Black Panthers. American blacks had received a great deal of equality through LBJ's civil rights legislation, and these agitators were merely violent separatists taking advantage of the new social climate.

He was surprised by the reaction the book received, apparently. He riled those African-Americans close to him he mistakenly believed as he did, and garnered derision from whites who he knew believed as he did, but mistaken believed also respected him. Two years later he released I Have Changed (which I just finished) which seeks to repudiate this previous work.

It's all a little confusing and disheartening. I had picked this one up because I wanted to know him, and how he thinks, and was taken by the title -- I never found Blackthink in the library catalog, or I surely would have picked that up, too.

The book is challenging to read, like running a marathon. There isn't a life event Jesse Owens (with Paul Neimark) can't turn into an athletic metaphor.

Also, in this book he refers numerous times to his "confrontation with Hitler". He sounds as though he has so altered history in his own mind that he once came face to face with this man and bested him. At a different time in his life, Owens reported that Hitler smiled and waved at him.

But what was truly challenging was listening to this man, this great man, who worked every day to make a living based on his youthful exploits, dither and twist in his beliefs. I feel I will read Blackthink and disagree with him about everything, but at least I would know where he stands. This book would have been better titled I Am Changing, as he moves into the final stage of life in the process of opening his mind to different ideas.

Temperature: 34°
Climate: cool, bright, clear & dry
Distance: 4.25 miles

Ooh, ah ... chafing. This new jockstrap seriously sucks. One functioning supporter with serious anger management issues, and two that sag like I may as well be wearing a diaper. I will need to take a trip to the sporting goods store as soon as possible. Happy holidays.

Help I'm Alive Playlist
I Feel It All * - Feist
Infinity Guitars * - Sleigh Bells
Start a War - The National
Underneath the Sycamore - Death Cab for Cutie
Letters from the Sky - Civil Twilight
White Sky - Vampire Weekend
Dark Paradise - Lana Del Rey
Song For No One - Miike Snow
On Melancholy Hill - Gorillaz
Flathead - The Fratellis
Spotlight (Twilight Mix) - Mute Math