You can run, you can run.

 
What I Have Been Doing Instead of Running:

• Staying warm
• Time with family
• Work
• Reading
• Writing

These last two are key. I made a “New Year’s Resolution” for 2014, which is not something I traditionally do. There’s so much humor to be found (ha ha ha) in not keeping your resolutions, I thought as a young person they were pointless. Resolve to do what you mean to do when you decide it is necessary, arbitrary dates be arbitrary.

However, the new year coincided with a new desire, a deeply felt desire, in conjunction with an already recently established commitment, to wit;

1. Read just before putting out the light.
2. Write upon waking.

I have been writing, in long-hand, most mornings since October. The habit of writing, the very necessary habit of writing -- one which I possessed in the past, but lost -- has been hindered by the internet. Before the internet, I just wrote. Before I had a laptop with wifi, I just wrote. Access to the internet, virtually everywhere, has provided endless distraction.

The new rule is that my laptop is not permitted in the bedroom. I write on an honest-to-goodness stenographer’s pad, with a pen, every morning. Even when there is nothing to write, I write. And lo, there is something to write, and I am writing it. I have no idea if it is good, and that is a good thing. I am always so confident when I am writing, and often without cause. It is good to be unsure.

Reading, however, is the other important component. The internet has been a distraction from reading, and I should be a voracious reader. I can be, I was as a child, and in fits and starts as an adult. Reading before bed, it’s simple, and much more effective at lulling me to sleep than drinking.

The other day I completed The Tender Bar, and then I began Bring Up The Bodies. Memoir. Historical fiction. My wife and I had an interesting discussion after seeing Inside Llewyn Davis. She is not a fan of non-fiction, as it instills an artificial sense of order, or fate even, upon an unfair world. We only read about success, rarely if ever failure, and where this failure, there is always a reason.

One of my father’s favorite books is The Last Place on Earth, an excellent document of man’s race to the South Pole. Fate! Hubris! Success and failure, neatly explained. One of my favorites is Into Thin Air. My father and I like books about cold places and death, apparently. I digress.

Inside Llewyn Davis, which we both enjoyed (curse you, Academy) chronicles a story not told. We have seen Walk The Line and Ray and all those movies which describe the inevitably of success. These men were geniuses, in spite of their faults. Of COURSE they would become icons.

But, whatever. I like non-fiction. Perhaps they merely reinforce the Great Man theory of history. I see the thin ice upon which all decisions rest, and how all the preparation in the world cannot protect you from complete disaster.

Temperature: 23°
Pavement: thin layer of slippery snow
Distance: 3.25 miles
Weight: 176.5 lbs.

Seriously. You can't run west on Monticello without face gear when the weather is freezing. Why can I not remember this? I thought my face was going to harden and crack.

1968 Playlist
Magic Bus - The Who
Folsom Prison Blues (Live at Folsom Prison) - Johnny Cash
Sympathy For The Devil - The Rolling Stones
Grazing In The Grass - Hugh Masekela
Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me and My Monkey - The Beatles
Street Fighting Man - The Rolling Stones
Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While) - The Isley Brother
Crossroads - Cream
Hurdy Gurdy Man - Donovan

The boy has been enrolled at School Of Rock. His instructor wants him to get acquainted with four, seminal rock bands with awesome drummers -- The Who, Jim Hendrix Experience, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. He's also supposed to bring in a song of his choice to practice, and he chose Tempted by Squeeze because this is my son.

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

Don't run away. It's only me.

"How come my foot hurts?" - Christopher McDougall, Born to Run

The past several days I chose not to run. Rest is good. However, so is seeing a doctor and getting the right shoes. But I digress. I chose not to run. In fact, if you had looked through the window of my front room* on Thursday evening, for example, just after dinner, you would have seen a nine year-old in a chair, an almost-seven year-old kneeling over the couch next to his mother, and I in another chair, reading. All of us, quietly reading. And that was better than running, by far.

However, Friday was also prohibitive, as was Saturday. Randy M. did an assessment of my foot. His girlfriend has been suffering from Plantar fasciitis, and though my pain has been on the top of my feet, there has developed associative pain beneath. This is not good. He recommended ice and elevation, which I have entirely failed to do, but who cares, Randy's not some fucking doctor, screw him.

A few weeks ago, the ex-wife asked if I had read Christopher McDougall's Born to Run. I had to admit that not only hadn't I read it, but that I have a copy that was given to me one or two Christmases ago, staring me from the bookshelf.

In the past several days I have 1. finished the first draft of a new play for Great Lakes and 2. completed editing Henry VIII for Cleve Shakes. Right now I am in the fourth of five weekends of performances at Beck Center, I am not in the process of memorizing anything at all. For the first time in a very long time, I have leisure time to read. And so I am reading Born To Run.

I am looking forward to where it goes, though it begins with a demoralizing premise -- runners don't become stronger, running a lot does not make you more resistant to damage. Running a lot is damaging. It's like assuming that since you are hitting yourself in the head with a bat, one day getting hit in the head with a bat will not harm you.

My left foot hurts. I believe I have damaged it. I have two choices, the only two choices a runner has in these situations: Stop running. Run anyway.

Week 14 Total: 19 miles
Training to Date: 372 miles

Distance: 6 miles
Route: Neighborhood loop

Temperature: 28º
Climate: light rain & chilly ... then sun
Weight: 167 lbs.
Snack: chewy granola bar
Hydration? yes
Stretches? yes

I am tired of cold. Still, felt good to get out. The Cain Park Neighborhood Association was out in force, picking up trash. Saw a few familiar faces (Hi, Kari!) The foot hurts. Not any more than usual. I have it elevated and iced (Thanks, Randy!)

155-159 BPM Playlist
Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
Hey Ya - Outkast
Synchronicity II - The Police
Pretty Boys - Joe Jckson
Jaded - Green Day
Whammy Kiss - The B-52's
Mike Mills - AIR
Whip It - Devo
Steppin' Out - Joe Jackson
Puzzlin' Evidence - Talking Heads
The Long Hair of Death - Stereolab

Cooldown:
Driven To Tears - The Police

* Don't ever do this.

When I'm good and ready, dreidel I'm gon' play.

Been working my iPod moves, Ali.

Distance: 4.25 miles
Temperature: 46 degrees.

Best of 2008 Playlist
Dreidel - Erran Baron Cohen ft. Jules Brookes
L.E.S. Artistes - Santogold
Detroit - Black Gold
American Boy (Soulseekerz Club Remix) - Estelle
We Are One (KULT) -Tribalishious
Disturbia - Rihanna
Who Knew - P!nk
Cooldown: Down to Earth - Peter Gabriel

Man, iTunes gave away a lot of great stuff this year.

Guess what book I got for Christmas this year?

That Darn Cat!

Memo to myself ... start and finish at the rec center, not the other way around. The wind is always blowing north and east with the river.

Distance: 4.25 miles
Temperature: 66 degrees. It's gorgeous!

Fabulous day on South Green ... breezy and bright and warm. It's usually January when we get one (just one) of these freaky 70-ish degree days before slamming back into the deep freeze. But here we are. Anything can happen in Athens.

Second Christmas, lots of Bailey's spilled into morning coffee and lucky, lucky children getting a second helping of too many great presents. We are fortunate, indeed.

Best of 2008 Playlist
Lights & Music - Cut Copy
Let's Dance to Joy Division - The Wombats
Mansard Roof - Vampire Weekend
Don't Stop The Music - Rihanna
Black & Gold - Sam Sparro
Mercy - Duffy
2007, The Year Punk Rock Broke My Heart - Los Campesinos!
Check Yes Juliet - We The Kings
1,000,000 - Nine Inch Nails
Uninvited - Freemasons
Driving This Road Until Death Sets You Free - Zombie-Zombie
Cooldown: Blind - Hercules and Love Affair

Cat worries that she is not good enough an artist, but I feel so intensely grateful to have her as part of this project. She is a better artist than I am, don't let her fool you, and has a greater range of styles and influences. That's why she's doing this.

And what is she doing, exactly? She is the Hand of Pengo® acting as the cartoonist and illustrator I never was, the main character of this play.

So ... if this is an autobiographic solo performance, why are you not an actor? Because this is a play, silly, and my work is self-referential and navel-gazing as it is without making a number of pithy theater references. I did enough of that in Vampyres, God knows.

I needed someone who could represent my work as a high school newspaper cartoonist, and one in college, writing for a weekly alternative paper, a graphic novelist, a designer of greeting cards. I can't do all of that. And even if I could, some of what I share in this piece is difficult enough without anyone judging my drawing abilities.

I received a copy of Art Spiegelman's Breakdowns for Christmas. I love his work, but I found this one to be less than the others. It is half memoir and half reprints of work from the early 70s. I can't tell if it's a memoir padded out with old stuff or he wanted to share his less-known work and needed to ad an extended introduction to justify peddling reprints. He is without a doubt a master draftsman, but emotionally he goes over a lot of the same ground covered in many previous books, especially MAUS.

However, reading it reminded me of where I came from, and how I justified creating &TYD. The canon of autobiographic-graphic novels is becoming quite extensive, and those which shine are making it a lot more difficult for those who do not. The work of Harvey Pekar has been a great influence on me since I first began reading American Splendor in the late 80s.

Last year Leah gave my wife a copy of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and me Peter Kuper's Stop Forgetting to Remember. The former is about the author's relationship with her closeted father and his possible suicide. The latter about the author's own anxieties about his penis, being a cartoonist, impending fatherhood and (I'm not kidding) September 11th.

I will let you guess which one I admired more. Let me give you a hint - the one is an outstanding piece of writing, illustration and pathos that I read in passive fascination until the final page, when I suddenly found myself weeping uncontrollably. The other I hope and pray to God is not how my own work comes off to friends or strangers.

And so; it is because I am presenting a play that I chose to make the main character a cartoonist. If I am really as good a graphic artist as Cat has suggested, then I will someday create a graphic novel about being an actor.

And here's your Saturday evening wake-up call: