What I learned this week, January 27, 2012

A great method from “Developing Story Ideas” by Michael Rabiger. I don’t play CLOSAT as a game, but filling in all the items is a crackerjack method for building a story.

CLOSAT

The Game called CLOSAT

Journal observations, your bank of ideas from which to write, will become playing cards for an instant story-making game called “CLOSAT.” To speed retrieval, tag each item in the margin with one or more of these CLOSAT categories:

C = description of Characters who could be used in a story.
L = interesting and visual Location.
O= curious or evocative Object.
S = loaded or revealing Situation.
A = unusual or revealing Act.
T = any Theme that intrigues you or that you see embodied in life.

CLOSAT Definitions and Examples

C (character) is anyone whose appearance, mannerisms, occupation, or activities suggest potential for a character in a story.

L (location) is any place that suggests a setting for something to happen.

O (object) is any that is worth recording because it is eloquent of place,time, situation, or owners. Examples:

S (situation) is a conjunction of circumstances or a predicament that puts its characters under some special pressure.

A (act) is any human deed or action that seems freighted with meaning or potential.

T (theme) is the central or dominating idea, seldom stated directly, that underlies the subject of a story and that comments on it.

There was a time when we all dreamed of flying. Now we are reduced to an addiction to watching other people flying on YouTube.

Want To Lose Weight For The New Year Of 2012 ???

1: The most simple tip to lose weight EVER is “Eat less and move more” – Common sense I know but it’s what every single weight loss plan is based on, TRUST ME !

2: Control the AMOUNT you eat at each meal time – make sure your meals are low in fat. This is not set in stone for instance you might want to also think about calories or portion control.

3: Get weighed – Measure your body, hips, thighes, chest, arms, neck……what can be measured can be managed. Always weigh-in on the same day in the same clothes on the same scales at the same time of day.

There is no point starting on a weight loss plan unless you get weighed first. This is very important. You need to be able to monitor your progress to know how well you are doing and that any changes in your lifestyle and eating are reaping the rewards or where you are making mistakes.

4 Keep a food diary – write down what you eat and what exercise you have done. Make sure you look at Calories n vs Calories out and try to ensure that Calories out is MORE than Calories in – If it helps you write down your feelings.

5.Smarter Shopping The golden rule here is to NEVER EVER go food shopping hungry. You make the decision to eat biscuits and crap food’s when you buy them in the shops, not when you take them from the cupboard. Don’t buy them in the first place.

6, Make a Goal list – write down achievable goals.

I like pens… but this is too much.

Old photographs

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Bill Chance

I just finished typing up a new short story and am about written out – so I’ll throw up three old photographs instead. I’ve been digging around in my archives and came across these – I’ve put them up before on my old journal and they are floating around the ‘net, but wanted copies here.

These were taken sometime in the mid-eighties at a parade in support of KNON radio. The Criswell Bible Institute was trying to take over their radio license (they eventually settled the matter amicably) and a parade was held to keep the Baptists at bay. The pictures were taken with a 35mm film camera (I used Tri-X Pan exclusively then) – I printed them at the time in my bathroom and scanned them about ten years later (I’ve since lost the original prints and negs).

Loco Gringos

This is a notorious local band, The Loco Gringos. They played on a stage mounted to the roof of an old hearse. Notice the driver chugging Tequilla.

Joe Christ

The guy in the sunglasses standing next to the car is Joe Christ. He performed with his band, The Healing Faith at the afterparade party in Deep Ellum. I would always run into him at all sorts of disreputable places back in the day. I’m afraid that Joe passed away a couple years ago.

La Reina de Hi-Ho Ballroom

I have always liked this picture. The girl was La Reina de Hi-Ho Ballroom, a latin dance hall in Grand Prairie. It was taken outside Dallas City Hall at the end of the parade.

Dallashenge

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Bill Chance

A few days ago I read about the phenomenon of Manhattanhenge – the phenomenon that occurs several times a year when the rising or setting sun happens to align perfectly with the canyons of New York City. It is called Manhattanhenge in honor of Stonhenge… which is in putative alignment with its own set of heavenly circuits.

Image from New York Bridge and Tunnel Club

I really never thought about the fact that the streets of Manhattan don’t run perfectly East-West. They are aligned with the long axis of the island itself, about thirty degrees off of the meridian.

I began to think about Dallas, so I pulled up a map. The streets in downtown, the ones that run between the skyscrapers – Commerce, Main, Elm – don’t run perfectly East-West either. I don’t know what the layout is based on… probably where the deer and the antelope used to roam. Looking around the internet, I found suncalc.net, which made it easy to find the directions of sunrise and sunset at different times of the year.

According to suncalc.net in 2012 Downtown Dallas, the Sunset Stonehenge moment will be at 6:13 PM on February 15, and the Sunrise Stonehenge will be 6:53 AM on April 19th. That’s when the sun will rise/set right along the canyons of buildings along the streets downtown. I’m going to try to remember and be there to take some pictures.

One big question is where. I’m going to have to go downtown and walk around and look for good places. Commerce, Main, and Elm all have a lot of tall buildings lining the sidewalks, but it’s hard to tell where the best spot is. One problem is the Lew Sterrett Center sticks up at the west end of Downtown; the jail will block the sun.

Another problem is how to get the picture without getting run over. The streets of downtown are busy at the evening hour and I’ll have to wait for a walk signal, run out into the street, take a snap, and then get the hell out of Dodge. Looking through Google Maps I found this:

Googlemap Streetview

Maybe that pedestrian overpass would be a good spot. I’ll have to check it out and make sure it’s open to the public and that the glass is clean.

It would be cool to have a group down there taking photographs. If any of y’all are interested, get with me, and we can talk.

If the weather is bad, another Stonehenge Sunrise will come on August 23rd (6:57) and another Stonehenge Sunset will occur on October 25 (6:43).

WordPress Blogs:

Chicagohenge:

Chicago is interesting because its streets do run straight East-West. Therefore, their “henge” is on the equinox.

Kelsey Gunn – Wasting your time, but not very much

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Bill Chance

http://vimeo.com/35175220

As I scoured the depths of YouTube for bits of amusement to stick into my one per week “lazy entry” that I call, “what I learned this week” I kept stumbling across these little jewels of odd humor done by the folks at 5 Second Films. These were only eight seconds long (the three second title sequence doesn’t count) and would cram more story, characterization, and humor into those tiny slices of time than any SNL sketch.

As I watched and collected the ones I liked, I noticed that the same actress kept showing up in my favorites. She was always referred to as “Kelsey” and it wasn’t hard to figure out that she was Kelsey Gunn.

So I have become a fan. Why? I don’t know – she is funny, of course, and has that nerd-girl pretty quality. So now I’m subscribed to her on Facebook and watch her Vimeo Channel and follow her on Twitter and watch her 5 Second Films, and See what she’s up to on IMDB (She’s Actually Kelsey Gunn (II))

Will Kelsey Gunn ever become famous and win Oscars and stuff? Is Batman a Transvestite? Who knows?

Oh, here she is at 2:16 in “Meter Maids” – I’m not too sure about her Southern Redneck accent (but then again, I am a cono-sewer of the type) but the “Sexy Dance” is up there.

WordPress Blogs:

5 Second Films: Wasting Your Time, But Not as Much as This Article

Forget The Lengthy Summer Blockbusters. Michael Rousselet Talks To Kevin & Bean About 5-Second Films

The Joy of 5 Second Films

5 Second Film’s “Another Spider”, w/ the 5SF debut of Juliette Lewis

5-Second Films With Patton Oswalt – Part Two

Favorite YouTubers

5 Second Films Compilation

5×20 Seconds of Fun

Sweet Gender Divide Bro

Brave Combo at the Art Museum

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Bill Chance

I first saw Brave Combo in 1982 or so… a good thirty years ago. I had an evening out with a friend and I drove past Nick’s Uptown. Nick’s was a live music venue, long gone now, near where I lived on lower Greenville. It was the location of the famous Ice Machine in the Desert. The marquee promised “Brave Combo with Beto y los Fairlanes.”

That looked irresistible, though I had never heard of either band. With names like that, though, they had to be great.

Beto y los Fairlanes was good – a sort of big band latin salsa fusion group… but Brave Combo was a revelation.

They were/are a “Nuclear Polka Band.” Their music defies any kind of category.

Here’s what they say on their website:

Trying to describe Brave Combo’s music requires a pretty extensive vocabulary – at least when it comes to musical styles. For the past three decades the Denton, Texas based quintet has perfected a world music mix that includes salsa, meringue, rock, cumbia, conjunto, polka, zydeco, classical, cha cha, the blues and more. They are America’s Premier Dance band and a rollicking, rocking, rhythmic global journey — offering what one critic recently wrote, “Even if you come for the party, you’ll leave with something of a musical education.”

That’s pretty good – a better description than I can come up with.

From Wikipedia:

Brave Combo is a polka/rock band based in Denton, Texas. Founded in 1979 by guitarist/keyboardist/accordionist Carl Finch, they have been a prominent fixture in the Texas music scene for more than twenty-five years. Their music, both originals and covers, incorporates a number of dance styles, mostly polka, but also rumba, cha-cha-cha, choro, samba, two-step, cumbia, charanga, merengue, etc.

As part of their perceived artistic mission to expand the musical tastes of their listeners, they have often played and recorded covers of well-known songs in a style radically different from the original versions. Examples include polka versions of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze” and The Doors’ “People are Strange”, The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” as a cha-cha, and “Sixteen Tons” as a cumbia. While their records may have a sense of humor, they are played straight and not usually considered joke or novelty records.

I still remember from 1982 the band playing Lady of Spain or some other dreary old chestnut on the accordion; then, all of a sudden, breaking into a series of odd, distinctive chords. It was In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, the old Iron Butterfly tune, the distinctive music of my early youth, the one song every Junior High Sock Hop Local Garage Band had to play, the one where you had to get a good girl to dance with because it was so long. I had heard it at so many youth rec center dances, those chords will always bring back memories of the smell of hundreds of teenage sweaty sock feet.

I had heard that song a thousand times, it took up half of an entire eight track tape, but I had never heard it played on an accordion.

What is so important and impressive about Brave Combo is that they are so very skilled, practiced, and skilled musicians. They have won two Grammy Awards. They were David Byrne’s wedding band. They have been on The Simpsons. When they play the Hokey Pokey… they are serious about it. They work very hard to play the best damn Hokey Pokey you have ever heard.

So, like many folks around, I became a big fan of Brave Combo and saw them as many times as I could. The only problem was that they became very popular and it began to get to be difficult to see them because of the big crowds they drew.

One enjoyable concert was at Fair Park in 2000. Candy and I were at an art festival when I heard from a long way away someone shout, “It’s Salsa Time!” into a PA system. I knew it was Brave Combo.

Brave Combo in 2000

Jeffrey Barnes in 2000

I loved watching this couple dance while Brave Combo played. The reflecting pools were dry and the Art Deco sculptures looked down on them.

That was eighteen years after I had first heard them. Now it is twelve years later and they are still going strong. This time at the Dallas Museum of Art for their Late Night Friday celebration. The place was really crowded, though by eleven the huddled masses was beginning to thin a tiny bit. I was able to fight my way into the venue and work into a small spot next to the dance floor.

All night I had been looking at the high fashion walking around and thinking that this was not a Brave Combo crowd. I was wrong. The minute the band started playing the dance floor filled with a wildly diverse group of people all thrashing around like crazy people with ants in their pants.

That’s really the key to Brave Combo’s popularity… with these folks working so hard at their polka and other world dances, how can you be embarrassed to leap around no matter how unskilled, untrained, or uncoordinated you are.

It was pretty cool to be hanging out late at night at a major art museum, in the middle of the Picasso, Degas, and Matisse and listen to a cluster of aging musicians hammer out The Chicken Dance and seeing everybody flapping their arms.

So when you find Brave Combo coming to your neighborhood, go out and give them a try. Don’t forget your dancing shoes.

Brave Combo at the Dallas Museum of Art

Conga Line

Dancing like crazy people

The Machine’s Pump (Carl Finch’s Blog)

Bob Dylan plays Brave Combo

Brave Combo at the Dallas Observer

Cook and Son Bat’s Blog

Late Night at the Dallas Museum of Art

Posted on January 22, 2012 by Bill Chance

I remember when the Dallas Museum of Art was constructed (its building – the first edifice in the Arts District, before that it was in Fair Park) – I was working in the now long-imploded Cotton Exchange building right next door. In those salad days, the museum was free and almost empty. I would go over at lunch, eat from a sack and look at my favorite sculpture – Rhythm in Space (now gone, I don’t know where) in the garden and then stroll past the Stake Hitch (gone too, sadly, controversially, and inexplicably) to see what was up.

That was a long time ago.

A few days back, looking ahead, I found information on the festivities in the Dallas Arts District on Friday Night. This was their Late Nights at The Museum where the place would be open until Midnight with all sort of activities scheduled. It was also the birthday of the museum and also, outside, the Crow Musuem of Asian Art would be celebrating Chinese New Year.

My intention was to leave from work and get down there at about six. I was exhausted, however, and went home for a quick power nap and a bite to eat (I ate at home to save money, there would be food trucks in the district) before I caught the train downtown.

I was glad that I had wolfed down that sandwich – sure enough, there were eight trucks in a double line along Flora Street, but they were engulfed in a massive crowd. The lines to get some vittles stretched out hundreds of yards.

The crowds mobbing the eight food trucks along Flora Street in the Arts District.

I continued on down the street to the Crow. There was a dragon dancing in the middle of the street but I could not even see it through the massive throng of spectators. It looked cool, but I decided I would flee from this crowd by retreating into the Dallas Museum of Art.

That didn’t work. The museum was even more packed that the street outside. Everyone coming through the door was immediately directed into a long line to purchase admission tickets. Everybody (except me) was dressed to the nines. The The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk is the exhibition that has all the town talking and everyone had dragged out their best fashions. There were two tall beautiful women wearing short metallic dresses in line behind me and we talked about a Lady Gaga lookalike contestant (there was going to be a contest later) that slowly tottered by. Her massive platforms made for difficult walking across the glass-smooth and rock-hard polished granite floors.

There were many Gagas in attendance – in many different incarnations. There was the big blonde hair and high platforms with sunglasses and fishnets mentioned above, a lot of long platinum wig with bangs and glued facial bling (Poker Face) and I saw one with drink cans in her hair (Telephone). I didn’t see anyone in a meat dress.

Before long, a young man in an expensive Italian suit walked up and gathered the women and their extensive entourage from the queue behind me and whisked them off. He had some sort of connections and was able to bypass the waiting. The line did move quickly and before long I had paid my ten dollars and received a little purple cardboard square that went around my wrist on an elastic band.

I fought my way through the thick and fashionable crowd to the restaurant area at the North End. The Dallas Museum o fArt is not set up to handle large crowds very well. There was a stage set up and a Madonna impersonator with two dancers were gyrating around, but it was almost impossible to see anything. A few folks had arrived earlier and taken possession of the few tables and were holding their turf like a Roman legion. The museum guards were rushing around making sure nobody leaned on a balcony edge or stood on a stairway, making it impossible for anyone else to get a glimpse of what was going on.

I have been to the museum hundreds of times, so I knew of a hidden little slit window up on the top floor that looked down onto the festivities. I walked up there and watched for a while.

The Madonna Show

Gawkers reflected in the windows behind the Chihuly glass flowers.

The Gaga lookalike contestants parade around in front of the judges. This is the best view I could get, from the little slit window high above.

For a couple of hours I walked the galleries. Back amongst the paintings, it was fairly empty, actually. The massive crowds were concentrated out in the main hall -where folks waited to get into the Gautier exhibition or simply milled around aimlessly.

The crowds in the central hall of the Dallas Museum of Art.

I wonder what this guy was thinking... "Wow, there are too many people here! I give up!" or, more likley, "Hey! Quit staring at my penis!"

I always criticize Dallas for not having a culture or a scene of its own. Now, with the rise of the Dallas Arts District and the explosion of people actually living there (Uptown, Downtown, the Cedars) there is a chance for something exciting to develop. Of course, that means I give up the experience I used to love – of being there almost by myself, of the feeling that all this was built just for me. It means fighting the crowds, which I don’t like. Of course, I can always find someplace else.

At ten I fought back into the festivities to listen to Brave Combo (another blog entry). Then I retreated back into the European Painting Galleries. Earlier, I had noticed a sign promoting a late night DJ back there promising, “Stroll through the galleries while listening to retro and punk French music spun by – DJ Wild in the Streets.” Oh that sounded like a plan.

In the foreground, The Masseuse, by Edgar Degas. In the background, DJ Wild in the Streets.

The DJ and her entourage.

DJ Wild in the Streets

And it was very nice. I was tired by then and it was very relaxing to look at the Impressionist paintings while the DJ spun her disks. It wasn’t too loud and there weren’t too many people and I liked it a lot.

At midnight I hoofed it back to the train station at Pearl before it turned into a pumpkin. A couple was having an amazingly loud an angry argument – I heard her yell, “His name is Maurice… OK! OK!.” and the response, “I don’t give a fuck what his name is!” I moved on down the platform and considered calling 911 before they came to blows. There were no police at the station, even though there was a deadly shooting there only a couple days ago. Before I did anything, my train pulled up and off I went.

I almost nodded off on the ride home – but at one point a couple of folks standing at the front showed each other their Museum of Art purple wrist entrance things, and I, and the rest of the train car, raised our arms and showed them ours.

Gawking over the Gaultier Exhibit

“Like a Virgin”: Countdown to Gaultier’s First Exhibition

DC9er Mixtape, Vol. 12: DJ Wild in the Streets

Style Alert __ Jean Paul Gaultier

From The Sidewalk To The Catwalk

Enfant Terrible

Fashion World Of Jean Paul Gaultier At DMA

I always think of this clip by John Hughes as the quintessential Art Museum experience. Late Night at the DMA is not like that.

Eccentric Flint

Posted on January 21, 2012 by Bill Chance

When I go to a local museum – one that I visit on a regular basis – I’ll usually pick out one piece of art, go to it, and study it for as long as I can.

Plus, there are pieces that I always go to and… it feels like checking in – or paying a visit to an old friend. I don’t know why certain works resonate with me… and I try not to think about it. I like ’em, and that is something I want to be good enough.

At the Dallas Museum of Art, one piece that I have always loved, one that I keep going back to ever since I first saw it decades ago, is an eccentric Mayan ceremonial flint knife.

Mayan Flint Knife from the Dallas Museum of Art

From the museum card:

Eccentric flint depicting a crocodile canoe with passengers.

Mexico or Guatemala: southern Maya lowlands, Maya culture

Late Classic period, c. A.D. 600-900

This sacred blade shows a moment in the Fourth Creation of the world on August 13, 3114 B.C. The blade is shaped as a monstrous crocodile canoe; water flowers decorate its belly as it sinks down into the dark waters of the spirit world. In the canoe is the soul sacrificed First Father accompanied by two attendants, who may be embodiments of his parents. The canoe represents the Milky Way, pivoting in the night sky from east-west to north-south. The Maya saw this pivoting as the sinking of the canoe and the raising of the precious maize tree. When the canoe sank, First Father was miraculously reborn as Maize, the sustenance and flesh of humanity.

Because it represents this mythic act, this blade was probably an especially powerful talisman of a living king, who became the reincarnation of First Father as he held the blade. The blade itself, bundled in textiles, was probably carried by the king into battle as the focus for his spiritual energies and as his tactical inspiration. The flinty stone connoted lighting to the Maya and was called by the same name as the bright but dangerous bolts of light that accompany life-sustaining rain.

There is a brutal beauty about this flint. I can picture the Mayan king going into bloody battle with this ceremonial knife gripped in his fist.

Teaching packet on the Mayan Flint

Wikipedia – Eccentric Flint

What I learned this week, January 20, 2012

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Bill Chance

Best if watched in Full Screen mode.

150 Resources to Help You Write Better, Faster, and More Persuasively

As a student, writer, author, journalist, poet, or screenwriter, you know that you probably spend more time on research, editing, and proofreading than you do on the actual writing. Therefore, you might not have time to find resources to help you write better, faster, or more persuasively. This is where our list comes to your rescue, as the following links focus on places where you can conduct research, software that is free and easy to use, and services that will remove that “extra work” monkey from your back.

Best if watched in Full Screen mode.

We can follow the sun until the daylight is gone

Haven’t seen my girlfriend in two weeks. This is how it was when I finally saw her today.

Advice & Inspiration for Writing Short Stories

One of my own favourite quotes is attributed to Mark Twain. The great author and prolific short story writer, in a letter to a friend, wrote that he “would like to have written a shorter letter but didn’t have the time.” For me, that sums up short story writing nicely. – Clem Cairns.

Best if watched in Full Screen mode.

Seth Godin’s Blog – Advice for authors

Please understand that book publishing is an organized hobby, not a business.
The timeframe for the launch of books has gone from silly to unrealistic.
There is no such thing as effective book promotion by a book publisher.
Books cost money and require the user to read them for the idea to spread.
Publishing is like venture capital, not like printing.

So, what’s my best advice?

Build an asset. Large numbers of influential people who read your blog or read your emails or watch your TV show or love your restaurant or or or…

Then, put your idea into a format where it will spread fast. That could be an ebook (a free one) or a pamphlet (a cheap one–the Joy of Jello sold millions and millions of copies at a dollar or less).

Then, if your idea catches on, you can sell the souvenir edition. The book. The thing people keep on their shelf or lend out or get from the library. Books are wonderful (I own too many!) but they’re not necessarily the best vessel for spreading your idea.

And the punchline, of course, is that if you do all these things, you won’t need a publisher. And that’s exactly when a publisher will want you! That’s the sort of author publishers do the best with.

Don’t worry about full screen mode. It doesn’t help this one.

Food Truck in Richardson

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Bill Chance

I live in Richardson, Texas – a first-ring suburb of the enormous Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. For the last year or so, I have been enjoying tracking down the various Gourmet Food Trucks that wander the highways and byways. I have been finding them at various locations – mostly in the Dallas Arts District – but have yet to have one show up in my own hometown.

The one struggle for the Food Trucks all over the country is finding locations to park. The owners of brick and mortar restaurants traditionally have a lot of political clout and are always working to enact harassing regulations designed to eliminate the portable competition. I have plenty of sympathy for restaurant owners – that has to be one of the hardest ways to make a living – but I think they are mistaken. The food trucks are mostly a quality replacement for fast food plus they get people used to eating out more. I don’t think the food trucks are a serious threat to quality restaurants.

So I was excited when I left work and checked my social media and found out that the Nammi Food Truck (one of my favorites – First Visit – Second Visit) was going to be setting up for dinner in Richardson. They were going to be at the RunOn! store at Campbell and Coit – not very close to my house – but I wanted to support a truck coming out to my town. The Nammi Truck serves Vietnamese Banh Mi sandwiches, rice bowls, and fusion tacos. I drove home, checked with Candy and decided what to get, and then drove out to RunOn!.

That store brings back a lot of memories. When Lee was younger we used to drive him out there for running lessons. I used to kid him about “lessons” – I’d say, “Left, Right, Left, Right… how hard can it be?” It worked though – the direction and practice Lee received helped him become a good and enthusiastic long-distance runner.

While he would run I would hang out at the Starbucks or wander around the shopping center. There is a lot of interesting stuff around that intersection.

Tonight there was a recreational run going on with a nice little crowd of runners outside the store, stretching, talking, hanging out, and getting ready to head out together. Saucony was there with a truck loaning out test shoes (WTF?) and promoting their products. They had an Xbox Kinect hooked up on the back of their truck and the runners would take turn playing track and field games – running in place, jumping, and throwing a virtual javelin. It looked like a lot of fun… I’m an old fart and had never seen the Xbox Kinect working before.

There was a continuous short line at the Nammi Food Truck. I waited my turn and ordered a BBQ Pork Banh Mi sandwich (these are big sandwiches and Candy and I would share it) plus a lemongrass chicken taco and a beef taco. It didn’t take long and I took the stuff home for dinner.

As always, it was good.

Nammi tacos. They taste better than they look in this picture.

Related WordPress blogs:

People’s Choice Food Truck Winner: Nammi

The Food Truck Dish: Nammi

Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’–Keep those food trucks Rollin’

Eating Out :: DFW Food Trucks, Nammi

into the weekend

The How To Guide for the Texas Swanky Bride -Dallas Food Trucks – The New Wedding Trend

Kansas and Baylor

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Bill Chance

I am an American male – so therefore, I am a sports fan. And I admit it. I like to watch sports on television and live. It’s an entertainment, beauty and skill… it’s a demonstration of man’s abilities to exceed his putative limitations… and it’s something that there is no way to know the outcome ahead of time.

Now, I do believe in cheering for the teams that represent the city that you live in. Here in Dallas, there is an extra lift in the steps of the folks on Monday after the Cowboys win the weekend before – and that is a good thing. Otherwise, though, I try my best to avoid the trap of rabid fandom, of believing that the winner or loser of a sporting event is important beyond the game itself. I try, but I am not always successful.

The one team that I am an admitted fan of is the Kansas Jayhawk Basketball team. I feel that is my right, as I did graduate from there and it is a team with support, future, and history that deserves and rewards this fandom.

I thought of all this Monday night as I wasted too much time watching the Kansas/Baylor game on television. It was a home game for the Jayhawks and Allen Field House was rocking – they said on television that the crown noise was at 114 decibels. Kansas was ranked seventh in the nation and Baylor was third and undefeated.

It was not a very good game for anyone other than Kansas fans – KU pretty much stomped all over the Bears, the game was not in doubt after the half.

Photo by Nick Krug from Kusports.com.

Thinking about it, I remembered about another Kansas/Baylor basketball game, in 2007. It is impossible for me to get tickets to home Kansas games, but living in Texas enables me to see an away game every now and then. At that time Nick was a KU fan too and we drove down to Waco. I wrote about it in my blog back then:

February, 2007

Rock Chalk

Hey, over here!
Have your picture taken with a
reclusive author!
Today only, we’ll throw in a
free autograph! But wait,
there’s more!
—-Thomas Pynchon, The Simpsons

When I went from high school to college I knew nothing about basketball. Actually, we played basketball, but at ANS it was played outside, in the tropical heat, on a concrete court with no spectators and no players over six feet tall. Once I arrived at KU I was convinced to buy student tickets to the basketball season, though I couldn’t understand what the big deal was.

It was amazing. The excitement and the sound were something I had never experienced before and have never experienced since.

In those simpler days tickets at KU were twenty dollars a season and, though some hardy souls would hang out to get better seats you could walk up at game time and sit in the rafters of Allen Field House. What I liked the most was the ebb and flow of the games – how one team would eke out a lead and then the other would go on a run. The whole thing was driven by emotion, fear, and confidence. Those were only kids out there, after all, and were obviously susceptible to the foibles of us all.

Several months ago, Nick and I noticed that the KU Jayhawks would be playing a Wednesday evening game in Waco against Baylor and before Christmas I bought a pair of tickets from their web site. Late January seemed a long time in the future, but time flies and here we were. Nick skipped soccer practice to get out of school a bit early and I took a half day of vacation. The trip was easy – I have made that drive to Waco a thousand times but I was worried about parking. I shouldn’t have given it a second thought – the basketball fanaticism in Waco isn’t as strong as I feared (not too surprising, given their sordid recent past) and parking was not only plentiful and close, but free (I’ve lived in the big city too long… free parking is a rare treat).

The game was, as expected, a blowout win for Kansas. The facility was beautiful, though not nearly half full. There seemed to be as many Kansas fans as Baylor fans in the place. With home tickets so difficult to get, KU fans do tend to pack in the visiting arenas. Near the end of the game the “Rock Chalk Jayhawk chant was really obvious, especially around our seating section. A Baylor student behind us shouted, “But what does it mean?”

For Christmas, Candy ordered a KU basketball for Nick. When it arrived, I noticed that half the ball was covered with white leather. “That’s not a ball for playing,” I said, “That’s for getting autographs.” Nick decided to take the ball to Waco and see if he could get someone on the team to autograph it. Now, I know nothing about getting autographs – didn’t even know if it was possible. After the game, we fetched the ball and a black sharpie and walked around the arena. In the back was a steep driveway full of television trucks and littered with thick cables. At the top of the driveway was a couple of long-haul buses, idling, air brakes hissing, their cargo holds open and full of athletic bags. There was another family standing there, two kids, one with a ball like Nick’s, the other a poster.

“This must be the place,” I said, and, sure enough, one by one the players came hiking up the driveway, each carrying a pizza box. They all looked exhausted, most limping, but were very friendly and accommodating to the three kids that wanted autographs. A couple of walk-ons were first and they seemed really happy to have someone ask for an autograph. Then the starters started coming out and signing Nick’s basketball. A center, Sasha Kaun, from Russia, signed and Nick said, “I’m used to tall players, there’s some high school players almost seven feet tall, but his hands were huge. When he took the pen out of my hand I couldn’t believe how big it was.”

We stood out there for almost an hour and collected autographs from all the players on the team, plus Danny Manning, and head coach Self. It had worked out perfectly with the players stringing out over time, in no real hurry to board the bus, and only three kids standing there. They were quiet but all did talk a little; they kept asking the kid with the poster, “Where’s me?” so they could sign in the right place.

After the last signature we hiked back to the parking lot while the bus pulled out. When I was in school I had a Center from the basketball team in my 7AM Analytical Chemistry lab and he would be so worn out during the season – arriving back from west coast games and going immediately to class for the next day.

We had it a little easier and made it home around one in the morning.

Unfortunately, I cannot find any of the pictures I took of Nick getting the ball signed. I wasted most of this evening digging through my backup files… I’m afraid they are lost. I had good pictures of him with both Danny Manning and Coach Self.

This was in 2007, the team won the national championship the next year. The championship team’s signatures are all on the ball except for Cole Aldrich.

The Autographed Ball

Nick was a fan of Kansas Basketball for his whole life up until his senior year in high school. Over time, he built up a nice collection of Kansas Basketball memorabilia with the autographed ball as the most prized item.

Then he applied for early consideration to Duke University. For those of you that don’t know American Basketball, Duke is another of the elite Basketball schools.

I was in Seattle on business and on a plane flying back when the decision would come down on whether Nick would get into Duke or not. When I arrived home, I looked in my office and there was a pile of Kansas stuff that Nick had hauled out of his room and heaped up on the floor. The signed ball was on top.

So I knew he had got into Duke.

Other Blogs:

Baylor needs to hit somebody. Observations from their trip to Lawrence

Jayhawks Get All The Ladies

Baylor’s Undefeated Season Ends in Kansas

Bill Chance

This is Not Going to Turn Out Well

Yearly Archives: 2012

What I learned this week, January 27, 2012

Old photographs

Dallashenge

Kelsey Gunn – Wasting your time, but not very much

Brave Combo at the Art Museum

Late Night at the Dallas Museum of Art

Eccentric Flint

What I learned this week, January 20, 2012

Food Truck in Richardson

Kansas and Baylor

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: