To Fall and Thus to Laugh

So I am back in California after winning the German Bowl Championship. (I must and will write on that but am kind of waiting for it to just come, i.e. Sing to me oh great Muse...)
The weather is great and I just went on a rollerblade down by the water. It was pretty fun, although my blades are not great and my knees might be worse. The scenery was beautiful and I think my 'blading' gave people something to smile about on their daily walks, runs, and bike rides. I was the only 'In-Liner'.
But as I used to be quite the skater, the ride lacked 'features'; you know stairs or mini jumps of the likes that liven up a ride. So when a little off road hill appeared, and my spirit ached for a change-up, I went for it. The drop in was exhilarating, but about ten feet into it I hit some soft dirt, dug in my front wheels, and flips over as if I was trying to stretch out for the pylon. However, I immediately began an uncontrolled, belly stirring laugh. It was super fun! I got to my feet, still laughing, and seconds later got leaning too far back, probably in some unconscious over-compensation and almost did a back flip into the dirt. This really got me going and I proceeded to sit down on a bench by the water and laugh at myself for a good couple of minutes.
My falls, failures by some measurements, were the most fun part of my blade. Even though I'm sure it didn't score me any 'cool' points with the attractive girl in black spandex that I had just passed, my day would not have been as good without my falls. Maybe there is some kind of lesson there.

Congratulations

I had my 26 birthday yesterday. Since the epic turning of 21 I have pretty much stopped getting excited for September 17th to come along. It seemed like another year just meant getting that much closer to 30.
And Time is, indeed, relentless.
Back home the traditional greeting on one's inception day is "Happy Birthday." On my first birthday in Germany I heard a lot of "Congratulations!" I do not know if it is a difference in culture or just a slight translation variance, but it got me to thinking...
The coming of another birthday is indeed an achievement deserving of a 'congrats.' We take it for granted in our First-World Supermarket, penicillin days of today, but Survival is the name of the game. Another year lived in the days of our early ancestors was gigantic. Huge fractions of our population at intervals through history have perished because of incurable plague -- plagues that did not discriminate from Peasant or Pericles. Wars have left entire generations 'Lost.'
Each year, indeed each sunrise, and each breath is an accomplishment. 'Young' is a state of mind. And because on the most basic level, your actual birth day is the starting point on a path to certain death, congratulate yourself each you extend the 'finish line.'

Misc.

I just won my first playoff game since high school. That was about almost eight years ago. While we won a conference championship in college, we were ineligable for post season action because we were in a five year probationary period for moving up form division II to IAA. (I never understood the punishment for moving up, but the NCAA has some issues.)
We beat the Weinheim Longhorns 30-13 in front of our home fans in Berlin. It felt good and this week we have a tough test with a good Marburg team.
I have been pretty invested in football and my creative outlet has been lots and lots of guitar. Thank you Marty Schwartz on youtube. I have not written much, and the vast majority of it has been devoted to writing letters back home to seemingly long-lost friends.
My mom sent me the first issue of Powder Magazine. I read all of the Shane McConkey tribute first. I knew of him, but never the entire story. So thanks Shane for your contributions to the sport and for the fat skies that will carry me this winter.
I will miss Berlin. It has been a fun and unique place with some cool people.
I hope to extend my football career again this Sunday.
Be Well, Jon

Update

I have not posted anything in a very long time. I have not even written anything in a very long time. I have played a lot of guitar lately and jotted in my journal a bit, but overall I have not felt much of a creative spark. Perhaps this is from focusing a lot of energy into our very successful football season. Perhaps it is due to applying for jobs and planning my next moves for when I return home. Perhaps it is from settling in to my life over here and becoming a little too comfortable. I do have the weekend off so hopefully the Muses will stop by for a bit.
And I am very much enjoying reading Zorba the Greek, and recommend it to all.

Fast Times at High Culture Europe

We left Berlin late on Friday. Tony had physio for his leg and much to my impatient chagrin had not packed his bag. We then had to drive across Berlin to pick up Pat and Dave and after circle back to our end of town to hit up with the autobahn. Berlin is not small; it took us a while.
The drive south through Dresden and into the Czech Republic was fun. It was nice to put some distance on the open road between us and Berlin. We got to Prague in about three and a half hours but then got seriously lost. We had ended up taking sort of a wrong turn and thus entered the city on the other side of town, opposite of the map I had drawn to our hostel. Living without a printer over here, I have drawn a lot of maps and written out a lot of mapquest rights and lefts.
Luckily for us we have a teammate who lives in Prague, happened to be in town to try out for the Czech national team, and was nice enough to swing by and lead us on the right path. His name is Latislav, but he goes by LJ, and he is a pretty cool dude who sometimes sports a bleached blonde Mohawk and goat-tee. Very Eastern Euro and I love it.
Prague was all that it is cracked up to be. It gives off a very medieval vibe, but with a lot of American accents. (It has gotten a name in the U.S. as a pretty cool spot and had the highest rate of Yankee tourists I had yet encountered anywhere in Europe. But that was also kind of nice too. We had a great morning and breakfast with two gals from Texas who shared our eight bed co-ed mixed dorm. They study in Innsbruck, Austria and we exchanged mutual invites to our foreign homes.)
We walked around the beautiful city and took in as many sites as we could. The city glowed at night, and it all felt kind of magical. After an absinthe bar and an impromptu visit to a quaint little strip bar (no entry fee thanks to some Tijuana-honed negotiating skills), and a trip to a very sweet dance club we called it a night and stooped back to the hostel to wake up the next morning and drive to Vienna, Austria. (Side note: Vienna is known as Wien in non English and it brings up a good moment to say that I believe countries and cities should be known only by the term in the indigenous language. Germany should remain Deutschland, Munich Munchen, Los Estados Unidos the United States, etc. Thanks)
The drive through Czech to the Austrian border was kept lively by seeing which road sign or town name was the craziest by English language standards. Words that started Jm, ending with zk, words with four consonants in a row, and words that perplexed the pronunciation programming of my Pacific Grove mind. So that was fun. And the Czech scenery and the hour of Austrian scenery were quite nice. I think we saw about ten castles; and we bought some big beers at a gas station for 12 Czech Crowns each, about $.35, so that was fun too.
We got to Vienna and followed signs to the Centrum. The city immediately impressed as we drove by palaces, churches, concert halls (this is the town of Mozart you know) and grand fountains. We parked on one of the side streets off the main drag and began to walk around taking photos and aimlessly trying to find reasonably priced lodging. As we were in the ‘Times Square’ part of town, we found none, and took a group vote deciding to just go strong tonight and crash in the car. It was actually an exciting moment of ‘road trip induced hysteria’.
We brought out the beers and some vodka we had in the car and sat on the steps of a palace and drank and talked for about two hours, watching local Austrians and tourists do the same on the park lawn in front of us. A bunch of people showed up and put a radio down and started Tango dancing to our immediate left which gave us some music to listen to and some upper thigh to look at.
After we were feeling a little bit jolly we continued to ramble around the city, take in the sights, and talk to passersby. Our big find was two Americans playing Cello and singing on the street. They were quite good, and we hung out with them after the police shut down their illegal performance. One had graduated from Yale with a music degree and somehow ended up in Austria and the other did not like the work she was doing on a certain cruise line, and so jumped ship and landed in Vienna. The night ended in the morning and we got a few hours sleep in the car before starting the day’s drive.
I had wanted to continue our excursion another night and stay up in the Alps or at least drive through the Alps and stay in Munich somewhere. (I really do love mountains.) However, I was outvoted by my tired and broke travel companions and we just drove a really long day home to Berlin. But the day was not lost: as Tony, Pat, and Dave slept like babies in the car I drove across pretty much the entire country of Austria and breathed in the beautiful countryside of rolling hills, fields, lakes and mountains. I saw a particularly beautiful mountain lake and village called Mondsee and pulled off the autobahn for a nice stop. It really was a beautiful setting of deep blue-green water against gray rock with clouds and boats and beautiful women. If I had to live on that lake the rest of my life, I think all would be ok in my book.
When we got back into flat Germany after coming in too far North to see the German Alps I got a little depressed and almost told Tony (who was driving at this point) to let me off in Munich and that I would catch a bus or train home on Monday evening. But I did not, and I am left with just the memories and the hope that after the season I will make it to the great mountains...
But, hot damn!, what a great two and a half day excursion-adventure. I give thanks to my travel buddies and all the cool people we met along the way. And to classic old cities and countries that never cease to amaze. JG out.

A Capulet and Montague World History

I borrowed a copy of Romeo and Juliet from a German friend over here and after the first few pages got to start feeling pretty down on the nature of Men. (Women, you are excluded from the following tirade.)
The first pages of the classic are spoken by a couple Capulet’s about the possibilities of fighting the Montague’s’ to the death and taking their women for sexual pleasure, no doubt meant as some toilet humor for the groundlings but also a real statement about our history: Pillage and Rape, brawn and the undoing of brassieres, conquest on the battle field and the bed. The true depth of the 'sophisticated' male mind.
Our synopses are instinctually programmed to fire easily in the directions of aggression and sexual satisfaction, (this rather blunt fact having engendered more than a few harsh words from the fairer sex when used as justification to some of my more base behavior); and the world today, shaped by millions of childish minds that favor conquest to mediation, who ban ideas, and bomb Parthenon’s, reflect that a certain type of man has been in charge.
Very rarely in any age do the men who have the charisma to take or be given leadership also possess the patience and humility necessary to admit wrong. The history of males in power is a pissing contest of who’s God is better, who can talk the loudest, and who can brandish the biggest army and the most deadly weapons. Even most of these ‘Leaders’ attempts at diplomacy come off as a verbal War of Words.
The fertile ability to reason is more often found in those men who do not possess the urge or even the ability to captivate an audience with fist shaking and seek power, because with their talent of perspective, they see the folly of a charging Viking clan intent on the plunder and rape of an otherwise innocent village because of shear proximity.
Perhaps these men, much more fit to lead a peaceful world, are just too feminine.
The most complex machinery on the planet, the human brain, possessesing the ability to reason and express versatile perspective has been shut out of Leadership in all but a small number of cultures in Its History. Other possible Fifth Century Athens’s of Earth have been stomped out by peoples and ‘leaders’ with banner of “Fight and Fuck, Fend off Foe’s and Fondle Fraus for Fun!” No more than a group of chimps raiding a neighboring clan and cannibalizing a victim, the thoughtless minds of our ‘Chieftains and Presidents and Priests’ have proved all too unable to swim against the instinctually violent current of our animal instincts, and throughout Time have merely repeated cycles of violence and mob mentality, executing and exterminating ‘radical’ individual thought at every chance.
And the Montague’s and Capulet’s provide a literary paradigm to this cycle as they perpetuate an ancient feud, of most-likely-forgotten-origin, with pre-programmed thoughts, words, and actions. Like a white race enslaving a darker one because of ‘facts’ both Biblical (cursed offspring of Ham) and viewable (Look at them eat that watermelon!) the fact of the other family’s evil is accepted and implemented without question. They wear symbols of House on their clothes not unlike a Nazi armband, they are quick to thoughtless action like a child who has dropped his ice cream cone, and never do they exhort their individual minds to action.
The Capulet’s and the Montague’s express all too well the fatuous nature of ‘Man’s Elite’, the ruling class of peoples and immature minds that mark our history with War and Rape, and brashness over subtlety in the endless game of ‘me greater than you’.

A Day to Remember

In the first half of yesterday's game in Braunschweig, it kind of all came together.
Like everything, a variety of factors played into the creation of the moment: a beautiful stadium, a perfect playing surface of manicured grass, a very worthy opponent, thousands of loud ass German fans rooting against us, teammates that came to play, and a gorgeous summer evening sky of pink and orange swirls that made the whole scene resemble Lando Calrisian's 'City in the Clouds', or the last scene in Gladiator when Maximus' friend buries his idols in the Coliseum dirt as the camera pans upward into the heavens.
Anyway, the stars were aligned and from the outset we moved the ball however we wanted. Guys that were supposed to block blocked, guys that were suppose to run routes to open spots and catch the ball did their job, and I was the lucky guy receiving shotgun snaps and getting to throw the ball. I had a good pregame talk with myself and arrived at a place of clear mind. Whenever I felt my mind stray to anything other than the immediate task at hand I would ask myself, “What time is it?” and reply, “Now!”
We scored four times in the first half and I threw two of the touchdowns and ran in another one. I smiled, laughed, high fived, hugged, and emitted thunderous yalps from some primitive place deep within. I was in the zone, and it felt good.
The second half’s enjoyment was derived more from the winding down of the clock and the knowledge that our lead was insurmountable because of said fairytale first half performance. After the game I really did not want to leave the field. I stood and watched players and coaches from each team conversing and after a while I sat down on a sideline bench. Some kids had come down to the field and were throwing the ball around and it reminded me of myself at my brother’s high school games and of the kids at Davis that would play on the field after the games.
I think I could have slept right there on the sideline in my uniform, but alas, I decided to take it in to the locker room to de-garb and shower up for the ride back. Before I departed the field I took one last mental picture to ensure that the place deep down where those primitive yalps originated earlier would remember this fine, fine day of American Football in Germany.