Megablogger

With more than three thousand six hundred fifty posts, I can now safely look back on what has been ten years of spouting off at this location. For you completionists out there, I can tell you that there is still a missing post, written several years ago about how my glasses and my piano playing merged into a fascination with Elton John and how it eventually led to some wistful reflection on my lost youth, as so many of my wistful reflections tend to be. It's not like you've missed seeing "The Day The Clown Cried" or recordings made during the Beatles' visit to Graceland. What you see is what you get. I don't know if this comes as a comfort or not.
For ten years I have been plugging away, sometimes storing up days in advance to make certain that there would be something new to read here each and every day. For the ten to twelve people who, like myself, are habitual. It's also for the casual browser who clicks on that "next blog" button up near the top of the screen, just to see what sort of entertainment is hanging just to the right of this place on the web. Some of it is quite entertaining, and there are plenty of things that I have read that I wish that I would have written, but this isn't a time for regrets. It's a time to pause for reflection.
I have said aloud to a few people that I thought maybe after ten years I could just stop and move on to something different. It was my wife who pointed out that she could respect that choice as long as I had someplace else to go with all of these words. "Have somewhere to go," she suggested. Pretty good advice from someone who knows me pretty well. Good news for fans of Entropical Paradise: I don't have that place to go. Not yet, anyway.
This is the place that I go to type out what I think and look at it. Sometimes other people look at it and tell me what they think, but mostly it allows me to take those ideas that were going to turn into conversational gambits and puts them in a less forced wrapper. You can choose to stop reading after you read that first line or two. You can do what my younger brother does and check the tag to see if it will cause him to have to consider sports of any kind, and then decide if it's worth the time and effort to find out what's hanging on the edge of my consciousness on any given day. If it's about the Bill Ding stacking clowns we had as kids, he'll be all over that. If I happen to include a few key words that will make my blog easily searchable, like Kate Middleton, then traffic will increase exponentially. At least until they figure out that this isn't a Royals-watching site. Most of the time, anyway.
It's my blog. It's my brain on the web. Come on in and look around. If there's anything that you've seen or read that pleases you, you're welcome. If you're on your way to find the Latino Pokemon blog, good luck and safe travels. See you again soon.

Cartoon Network

If history has taught us anything it has taught us that drawing cartoons of prophets can be a very dangerous avocation. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility last Tuesday for a weekend attack at a center near Dallas, Texas, that was exhibiting cartoon depictions of the Prophet Muhammad even  though it offered no evidence of a direct link to the attackers. An audio statement on the extremist group's Al Bayan radio station said that "two soldiers of the caliphate" carried out Sunday's attack and promised the group would deliver more attacks in the future. Because there is already some precedent.
Speaking of that precedent, the massacre at the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, was probably enough to give any thinking satirist pause before poking fun at Islam. At that time we were all about "Je suis Charlie," and that kind of solidarity was all about freedom of ideas as much as it was about freedom of religion and the press. The pen may indeed be mightier than the sword, but you've got to have a little bit of time to make that work. This is where terrorism tends to have an advantage. If you're a terrorist, you don't tend to announce your intent ahead of time. Instead, you shoot first and issue a statement of responsibility afterward. This is what tends to generate the terror.
That being said, it should be pointed out that blowing in the face of a pit bull, an especially vicious pit bull, is probably going to get your nose removed from your face. This is something akin to sponsoring a contest for cartoonists to come to a central location, present their funny pictures of the Prophet Muhammad, promoting it, and then being shocked when gunfire erupts. At this point, it should be pointed out that gunfire erupting in Texas shouldn't come as any kind of surprise, but that's a matter for another time. It should also be pointed out that this confrontation is some time in the making, since the woman who organized this fete, Pamela Geller has been at her anti-Muslim ax-grinding for years now. Note to Pamela: If you build it, they will come, if it has a cartoon of Muhammad in it, they will try to blow it up. 
Does it make the shootings in Texas any less tragic than those in Paris? No. There is no moral high ground here. The wounded and the dead just keep getting stacked up like cord wood in this jihad. It's been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. Now we are apparently going to try to see how mad we can make the Islamic State before they really do start setting up camp here in the United States. How about next time we have a contest to see who can be the most tolerant? Maybe not in Texas. 

Non-Starters

It was many years ago that I adopted this phrase as part of a bit that I called "Non-Sequitur Theater": Dogs run forward in times of trouble. I mixed this in with "At distances of more than one hundred fifty feet, an alligator can outrun a man," and "Until 1980 there were no pianos in China." This was the obverse of a conversational gambit. These words were designed to confound and perplex anyone who would be caught in the crossfire. The trouble is, I cannot verify any of these phrases as true. I have thought, from time to time, that this would be a nice time to call in my own personal Mythbuster episode, but since Adam and Jamie gave the Build Team the heave-ho, I confess I'm not as interested. Instead, I am left to contemplate the vagaries of how these ideas came to rest in my head and be spouted as fact.
The alligator one is simple enough. People have been trying to figure out how to outrun these reptiles for quite some time. Most will counsel running in a zig-zag pattern, since it seems to confuse or frustrate the beast and allows even those less fleet-of-foot to escape the razor sharp teeth and powerful jaws of this oddly designed creature. I guess what I'm saying here is that of the three aphorisms, this one seems to have the barest connection to reality. The number of alligator-taunters in our swampy climes seems to be significant enough to generate some truth in this matter. I would, however, advise against testing this assertion just in case alligators happen to have converted to the metric system at some point and confused matters even more.
As for the state of pianos in the communist state of China, I have no idea from whence this notion came. It might have been that "the piano a despised instrument of the bourgeoisie." Or maybe it was that when the piano was first introduced, "people were spooked:  they thought there were human bones rattling around inside." Perhaps it was a math thing: Eighty-eight keys for all those millions of people, there just wasn't enough ivory to go around. And the 1980? I'm guessing that just popped up because that is right about the time I started doing "Non-Sequitur Theater." So that makes sense, right?
About dogs running forward in times of trouble, I can only say that it appealed to me at the time and still does as a lovely bit of homespun wisdom. I like to believe that it speaks to the fierce and dedicated nature of our canine friends, always willing to rush in where angels fear to tread. Or maybe they are simply too dim at times to notice that the door is right behind them and backing up would have saved them a world of worry and hurt. The most obvious part of this one is that dogs just aren't built for backing up. They can do it, if they have to, but they aren't predisposed to it. Come to think of it, neither are humans, but we manage to do it all the time. Kind of like what I'm doing right now, after years of lurching forward with these apparently nonsensical statements, I am now walking them back to try and give them meaning. Welcome to Sequitur Theater. 

Progress Report

Ten years I started this blog by lamenting about the fact that I had never become a stand-up comedian. I was able to stave off any truly morose feelings by remembering the career trajectory of Gabe Kaplan. Little did I know that after a few years of hosting High Stakes Poker on The Game Show Network, after a couple decades of quiet and relative obscurity playing poker professionally, Gabe would once again choose to duck out of the spotlight. Or perhaps he had that path chosen for him. This is something that didn't occur to me as much a decade ago. I was still in the first ten years of my own job versus career struggle. At that point, I had spent longer at that job, teaching, than I had with any other. I could still imagine how things might turn out.
I was the father of an eight year old boy. I was teaching fourth grade as I looked forward to a new installment of the second Star Wars trilogy, the one that was going to close the circle and bring things to a close in a galaxy far, far, away. I didn't own a big screen TV or a cell phone. There were still so many frontiers left to conquer. So many things left to try.
And yet I continued to hit that rut and make it mine. Same school. Same house. Same wife. Same kid. This past weekend my wife and I finally painted over the scratches our dog had made in all the years she had been running in her sleep next to our bed. Same wife had been to Europe. Same son has rounded that corner and headed toward adulthood, with a brief stop in College Land. I believe he will still find a way to turn his father's dream of working at Disneyland into a reality, but that's all part of the rut that I know so well.
Not unlike the well-known rut I find here at Entropical Paradise. Five years ago, I used to wonder if I would have anything left to say after I had recounted every one of my childhood memories. I find that every time I go back to that drawer, there is something new to look at, even if I'm looking at the same fifteen minutes I was reviewing just a month before. This is the gift of consistency. I know my base. Consequently, however, I sometimes find myself curious about what is just over that horizon. Is it a chance to make millions playing poker? Is it inventing the next must-have app for teachers and students alike? Could it be that I was never really cut out to be Spider Man in the first place, and I am really more suited to be Captain America after all?
Or Captain Blog. It doesn't have the same ring, and it will probably never turn into a movie, but it might be a two-minute YouTube clip. Ten years ago, YouTube was a dorky little corner of the Internet for cat videos and porn. Now it's a great big corner of Al Gore's Internet for cat videos and porn, owned by Google. So, I should take heart. Things really do change.

What Do I Know?

There are those who call boxing "The Sweet Science." It's a martial art, and it was a big deal all over again this past weekend. Mayweather versus Pacquiao? You may have heard something about it. Kids at school were talking about it. Fellow teachers and parents were talking about it. It was a great big deal. The anticipation was not unlike that before a Super Bowl or World Series. It was for the championship, after all. I was asked by any number of people what I thought the outcome would be. I said I wouldn't know. I don't follow boxing. Or rather I don't actively follow any of the martial arts. I am aware of Ultimate Fighters like Mac Danzig and Diego Sanchez. Not because I have watched any of their bouts, but because they are available on Al Gore's Internet. There are people beating each other up for the paying public to watch and cheer on most every night of the week. I find myself drawn to sporting events of most every stripe, but I don't watch mixed martial arts or boxing. Not anymore.
There was a time, way back when. The kids in my neighborhood would gather in the basement of the family that lived across the street from us to watch the heavyweights: Frazier, Foreman, and The Greatest. The Greatest was Muhammad Ali. The former Cassius Clay, whom my mother and father met years before on the streets of Denver when he was an up and comer. In the fight game, that is. It was on one particular Saturday afternoon when ABC Sports brought yet another title defense by Heavyweight Champion of the World Ali against someone not nearly as indomitable or verbose as he was. It was this portion of his career that he developed the "rope-a-dope" strategy, in which he would wait out his opponent by covering up and hanging on the edge of the ring. It made for very boring fights, especially from a guy who used to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. Now it wasn't so much floating and stinging as standing around and waiting for the other guy to get real tired. Tired enough to let his guard down and get popped a couple times in the head. It was sometime during the late rounds that Mrs. Across the street neighbor leaned forward in her seat, adjacent to the TV and spoke for one of the few times I could remember: "That Muhammad Ali is one good looking man." Stunned silence from the rest of the room, no one more silent than Mr. Across the street neighbor, save for the steam coming out of his ears.
I wasn't invited back for any more heavyweight fights. Or bantam or fly. Or middle. Somewhere in there, Ali retired. So did Sugar Ray Leonard. And a great many more. I didn't watch them, either. I know some of their names. I just don't know enough to talk about it. Or write this blog.

A Matter Of Degrees

I still have this knee-jerk reaction to click on stories that mention Colorado. Maybe it's more of a mouse-finger-jerk reaction, but it continues essentially unabated since I moved to California more than twenty years ago. This is especially true when I see that it involves a student or school in the Centennial State, the land of my birth. I was a student there. I went to school there. When I left, I had no real inkling that I would eventually become a teacher, but I maintained a strong connection to the institutions and instructors who made me what I am today. That is probably why the story of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and their assault on Columbine High School rang so loud an long in my life. I went to Columbine. Not the high school, but an elementary school in Boulder, not Littleton. In all the ways Columbine High School was not Columbine Elementary School, there was still this connective tissue that ran through it all. Or maybe it was just me. And anyone who watched the events unfold in those days before the turn of the century. Way back when school shootings were national news. Before they became almost interchangeable. Pick a state, pick a grade level. There is a school where you can find victims.
There are people who went to school in Connecticut who probably feel the same way. They probably had the same wish I had, once upon a time, that this would be the last time. These would be the last kids killed in that place where they were supposed to be safe. The name Sandy Hook hangs in the air with the same dreadful weight as Columbine. It used to be that I could satisfy myself with the righteous position of gun control solving the problem. Then there's this: A fourteen year old girl was stabbed in the back at Aspen Creek school in Broomfiled, Colorado last week. I know this because it met my criteria for clickable news: Colorado. School. It was violence at a school, not twenty minutes from where I grew up. And went to school. Not once during those years did I think or worry about being shot, stabbed, maimed or hurt in any way other than the threat of getting beat up (never happened) or teased mercilessly (happened frequently). I lived in fear of being bullied, not of being killed.
I know. That was a different time. It was a different world. I suppose back in those days I could have looked to reports of school violence in California or New York and soothed myself with the idea that something bad could happens to students and teachers someplace else. Not where I grew up and went to school. This was the kind of thing I saw in "Up The Down Staircase." Inner city. Movie inner city. Apparently, I was wrong.

Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants

I broke high school. Not for everyone. Not for always. It was a long time ago, and it really only affected a few hundred people, but I would like to apologize. I am sorry that I broke high school for that group of kids who came along in my wake and hoped to get away with some of the ridiculous things I did and wanted to follow in those somewhat mighty footsteps that I generated way back when. Sorry. Sincerely.
Not that I was such a star. Nor was I particularly popular. I filled a niche that had been waiting to be filled for some time, and with the opportunity arose, I grabbed it, wrestled it to the ground and choked the life out of it. That meant that anyone showing up in the classes right behind me were stuck trying to do a pale imitation of the mess I had created, or had to be satisfied by the restricted path that I had forced the administration to shove us all into as a result of my actions. I wasn't a juvenile delinquent. I was Pep Band President.
I should say from the outset that anarchy was the style of the Boulder High Pep Band long before I arrived on the scene. The first time I went to a football game with my older brother and saw what these guys were doing, I knew I had to be a part of that scene: crazy costumes, boisterous cheers with an attitude, and a powerful sound that belied their outward appearance. These guys could play. That's why it was so cool, to me, that when I found myself with the chance to join that same group. Qualifications: Ability to play a brass or percussion instrument. Check. Willingness to appear in a bizarre variety of dress and manner is a plus, but we had a few members who didn't always take the dressing up to an extreme. Some of us did. This was in large part thanks to my mother, who helped me design and execute a reindeer costume, and a Spider Man uniform, as well as any number of clever combinations of what we found in our store room or the local Army Surplus store. The other element necessary to be a part of this ragtag ensemble was a desire to be a part of a spirit building group. The Pep Band had to act, at times, as if they didn't care about what was happening on the field or court. But we did. Passionately. The Pep Band comprised some of the biggest sports fans in the school. We wore our athletic support proudly.
It was that anarchic edge that got us into trouble, however. When I say "us," I mean "me." I was the one who instigated the commando raid on the gym before the boys' basketball game. I was the one who suggested that we show up to our hated rivals' game dressed in black, carrying a coffin with a banner that read, "RIP Aurora Central" draped across it. I was the who sat across the assistant principal's desk shortly after those incidents and when I was asked what our next costume was going to be, I replied, "Clowns, Ken."
We never went as clowns. That was my way of brushing off authority, with the notion that the school needed us more than we needed them, so the idea of any sort of actual disciplinary action would be out of the question. I was flaunting the relative fame that I had achieved in my corner of the hurly-burly world of high school. I was a band geek but, to paraphrase Anthony Michael Hall in "Sixteen Candles," I was King of the Geeks. It was a nice ride, but it all came crashing to a halt when I missed that bus to the state championship basketball game. I wasn't there to help propel Boulder High's basketball team to victory. Actually, I was there. I sat with my friends, glowering at my band director and his sycophants who followed all the rules. The next Monday, there was an announcement made that the Pep Band needed a new president.
From that spring day on, the fun was drained from Pep Band. A lot of if was drained from me, too. There would be no more surprises or "acting out." Play the charts as written and don't get in the way of the cheerleaders. No one was coming to see the band. They came to watch high school sports, with the occasional and appropriate musical interlude to fire up the crowd. As far as I know, there was never another Pep Band like ours - mine - at Boulder High. For that I am truly sorry. There were plenty of band geeks who came after me who deserved to have the ride I had. I messed that up for them. But oh, what a ride it was. Sorry.