Halfway to Anchors & Eden

Screw The White Flag: A Kings Novel

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 22:49:37 -0500

So Lance doped, Manti was duped and sports comes out the loser, again.

As it is, we’re conditioned to believe in fairy tales. The fairy tale wedding, the fairy tale romance, the fairy tale ending. But sports, in particular, can’t resist a good fairy tale headline: the fairy tale comeback, the fairy tale underdog, the fairy tale story of the perseverance and triumph of the human spirit in a game metaphorically representative of things much bigger.

Which is why we’re so hurt, so personally betrayed, when an athlete comes crashing down from our self-constructed marble pedestal, fairy tale and all.

And still we push onward, craving the next fairy tale story and continuing down this self-destructive path because, at the end of the day, at the end of the game, sports is transcendent. More so than most things.

An autistic high school basketball player whose four minute 3 point barrage endeared him to millions and made him a household name; a Miracle On Ice of the unlikeliest kind, which unified the entire nation for a winter in 1980; the relentless adoration of a professional basketball franchise stuck perennially in the NBA cellar, with unscrupulous owners, a sub-par record, a well-worn arena, a die-hard city that’s been given the death sentence more than once and a dire situation that has left Sacramentans with no choice other than to invest everything in the ultimate hail mary fairy tale.

An athlete, a championship, a franchise. All metaphorical representations of things much bigger.

And speaking of that last one, that franchise on the brink of elimination, that one is my heart-the reason for my intense, irrational (some might say), passionate love of The Beautiful Game. And for that reason, it’s impossible for me to write about this with the proper emotion and sincerity that it deserves because the words necessary to explain the intensity of the feelings behind this roller coaster of emotions-ranging from anger to betrayal to sadness to pride to hope-just don’t exist. And they especially don’t exist if I want to avoid every cheesy cliche ever used. I’ve been working on this post for five nights now, writing and re-writing, and I’ve decided that in the same way you can’t explain love to someone who’s never been in love, mere words can’t explain to you how I feel about what the Sacramento Kings mean to me.

Re-reading the above paragraph from a momentarily objective viewpoint, it sounds ridiculous. Especially to someone who didn’t grow up playing and watching sports. I can hear your collective thoughts, and I get it: It’s just a game. But it’s so much more than just a game.

It’s bigger than basketball. It’s bigger than 19 years of some of my best memories. It’s bigger than dreams about Mike Bibby’s game winner in game 5 and nightmares about Robert Horry’s game winner in game 4. It’s bigger than high fives with my dad in section 204, row B since the age of five. It’s bigger than Arco Thunder and the Bench Mob. It’s bigger than joining over 1,000 other Kings fans to listen to an impromptu Carmichael Dave radio segment at 12:00 AM on a Sunday night reassuring Kings fans that it’s not over-not be a long shot. It’s bigger than cowbells behind the Lakers bench. It’s bigger than ensuring that the retired jerseys of C-Webb, Vlade and Mitch keep their much-deserved home in the Arco Arena rafters. It’s bigger than Chris Webber’s proclamation on TNT that “The jersey’s not going down. Everything’s going to stay and we’re going to fight…it’s not over, Sacramento.” It’s bigger than Sign Lady. It’s bigger than a Mayor, who’s a Sacramento native and former NBA point guard, who declined Obama’s invitation to the Inaugural Ball because he’s #PlayingToWin for Sacramento. It’s bigger than those nights spent laying on the floor in the loft watching the games with my sister and mom. It’s bigger than the unification of Sacramento politicians because of a professional basketball franchise. It’s bigger than the local grassroots efforts of fans who’ve already pledged over $20 million in season ticket sales under new ownership. It’s bigger than Grant, Jerry, the G Man and Slamson. It’s bigger than all of these things because it is all of these things.

And more importantly, it isall of these things for most Sacramentans. Unlike just about every other professional sports city, we don’t have another big time college or pro sports team to turn to for solace. The Kings are the end all and be all. For a city which is the capital of the 8th largest economy in the world, most people can’t even place Sac on a map. But most of those people do remember the days when the Kings were the most exciting team in the NBA, contending for a championship year in and year out. Most of those people could tell you that C-Webb was the most dominant power forward in the game during those glory years. And they knew that Mike had ice water in his veins at the end of a game and that Peja had “Jimmer range” before Jimmer was even a twinkle in ESPN’s eye.

That’s not to say that the Kings are the only thing that makes us relevant, but for me, and most other people in this basketball-crazed city, the Kings are not only a large part of our identity, but they’re part of the fabric of the cloth from which we’re cut. I always wonder how I got so lucky ending up at the University of Kentucky, a school and state that cares about basketball and its team just as much as I do. Now I’m counting my blessings and wondering how I ended up in that same situation here. The Kings gave me the roots of my love for the game and now I’m getting a chance, along with my other tens of thousands of fellow Kings fans, to repay the favor in a powerful way so that hopefully my kids and my kid’s kids will have the fortune of those same roots.

So that is what the Kings mean to me and to this city- that vague description of things that only hold intense emotional weight to me. That’s my best effort at explaining why the thought of my team being unfairly ripped from us makes my eyes misty. (And if you’re interested in reading my message to the Maloofs in my best effort at a concise, honest and non-profane message to the infuriating owners who are trying their damnedest to lay one last haymaker to finish off a city that’s given them everything, and more, the past 15 years, scroll to the very bottom of this post.)

Despite a history of far more struggles than successes, we’ve continued to show up and show out, just as we’re doing now in the face of possible impending doom. Show me another fan base that continues to fill 70% of a decrepit arena in the midst of another lottery season and AFTER the sale of its team; show me a Mayor who’s put just about every other issue on hold while he fights for what he knows his city rightfully deserves; show me another city where this story is dominating damn near every air wave, radio wave, twitter handle and blog from media of every form. Show me another city that’s doing all of this and more, and then try and tell me that city deserves to have its team taken from them. Seattle lost its team in the same excruciating way (although, without equal intensity of political and grassroots efforts), so, yes, Seattle, you do deserve another professional basketball team. You deserve to have a team just as much as Sacramento deserves not to lose ours. And you know the agony of this conundrum better than anyone, which is why you’ll celebrate into the night, as you should, when an NBA team returns. Just know that it won’t be this year and it won’t be this team.

The glass Nike Hyperdunk is being fitted, the pumpkin-colored basketball is beginning to transform and our night in shining all-star uniform is setting us up for a movie-worthy fairy tale comeback. The shot clock hasn’t struck zero yet, and the game is far from over, but there are too many people who are pulling out every last stop and there too many fans who are too invested in this franchise for this fairy tale to come up short. This city’s efforts saved the Kings from becoming the Anaheim Royals in 2011 when everyone said it was “a done deal” and I have no reason to believe the outcome will be any different this time. This team has been a unifying force for this city and has revealed the character of Sacramentans, from Kevin Johnson down, and I couldn’t be more proud to associate with a team of people who refuse to lose, regardless of the “done deal” circumstances we’ve been given.

Sports have been in the national news for all the wrong reasons the past week and a half, but this story has a chance to make national news for all of the inspirational, valiant and admirable reasons our culture is so enthralled with sports to begin with. We are in the midst of the ultimate underdog fairy tale and I’ll be proud to take my future kids to Kings games (they WILL be Kings fans, dammit) because of the pride and ‘never say die’ attitude this city has gone all in with. Screw the white flag. I’ll take a purple flag with a SACRAMENTO Kings logo on it.

And here’s a reward for those of you (thanks, Mom) who made it this far. After hours spent watching hours of YouTube clips, I decided to eternalize some of them in my blog for my future enjoyment. So, here are some of the best memories I have of my 19 years of Sacramento Kings fandom. Some are more broad, some more specific. But all are awesome and still give me goosebumps every single time.

6: The Kings/Lakers rivalry was one for the ages. And it all started with the punch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvFfFnGcSnU

5: Ronnie Price’s dunk over Carlos Boozer. Probably the best dunk I’ve ever seen live, in person. It just came out of nowhere in the middle of a ho-hum game. Ronnie got a solid 45 second standing ovation afterwards as he shot his ‘and 1’ free throw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcS0xyoQO3w

4: Jason Williams. Known more fondly as White Chocolate. I wasn’t even in my teens when we drafted J-Will, so I never really got a chance to appreciate the unreal handles, passing and flair that he brought to the court. Watching his highlights now, I’d kill to have a guy like him to bring back that Arco Thunder. Bob Cousy -> Pistol Pete -> Magic -> J-Will. Hasn’t been another like him since.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmvnS69rOr4&list=UUMEKe36S1u-LRIfu80_n_gg&index=24

3: The Greatest Show On Court. Chris, Mike, Vlade, Jason, Peja, Bobby, Jon, Scot, Hedo. The passing was flawless. The construction of the team was beautiful. The chemistry was unrivaled. It’ll be a long time until we see something this special again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doDkDrQSp7M

2: This one is hard for me to watch, but the potential final send off of Grant and Jerry after the last game of the 2011 season is priceless. The team was signed, sealed and all but delivered to Anaheim that year (sound familiar?) and after the game ended thousands of fans sat in Arco waiting, hoping, crying, chanting and believing that the team would be back the following year. Grant and Jerry’s emotional send off exemplifies what the Kings mean to Sacramento.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X76R0iu5yk0

1: Hands down the best memory I have in my entire sports career (UK’s 2012 National Championship is a close second). My dad and I were there, in section 204 row B, to watch this game live. Mike comes around the pick and as he rises you can literally feel the air from the entire arena being sucked in. The ball goes through the net and I promise you, if the roof of the arena wasn’t cement, the top would’ve blown right off the place. By far the most beautifully deafening sound I’ve ever heard in my life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZRxCUfpGWI

Finally, to the Maloofs: You contemptuous human beings who pissed away the fortune your father built, ironically, on a foundation of customer service, integrity, loyalty and honesty. It’s a business, I get it, and technically you have the right to make a business decision. But when this unmerited business decision effects the lives of millions, when you mess with Sacramento’s team, the gloves will come off. It’s no secret that you’re broke and it’s desperation time because all your other sources of income vanished before your eyes, but what the hell did Sacramento ever do to you? Unless we count setting some of the NBA’s longest home sellout streaks in league history, putting up with your Ed Hardy playboy lifestyles all over Carl’s Jr. commercials, lobbying city council to work day and night to get an arena deal done, only to have you bail on your end of the deal at the last minute, or continuing to buy your over-priced merchandise, popcorn and tickets even when the team was horrible because you couldn’t afford to pay anyone other than mediocre role players and rookies. And in return for all that love and loyalty, you spend years dragging this city through the mud while you flirt with other possible suitors. And still we show up. You vehemently denied for years that the team was for sale and then like the snakes that you are, cut a deal in the dead of night to send the team to Seattle. And still we show up, stronger than before. Thank God that for the 6 of you buffoons that we’ve had to put up with for 15 years, we have someone like Mayor KJ to outwork and outclass all of you, combined. Tenfold. You might win in the end, but if nothing else, at least this city is now free of your incompetent, cowardly chokehold. So, in conclusion, good riddance to you. Don’t come back.

"There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it behooves all of..."

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:34:34 -0400

“There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, that it behooves all of us not to talk about the rest of us.”

- Robert Louis Stevenson (via creatingaquietmind)

Part 1: Welcome to the Big Blue Nation. How'd I get so lucky?

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 03:28:34 -0400

I don’t know how it happened. I loved my freshman year at Sonoma State. I didn’t really have any intentions of transferring until…I did. I’ll admit, I couldn’t have even pointed out Kentucky on a map until I landed in the Bluegrass state and immediately fell in love. All it took was one step out of our downtown Lexington hotel that sold me on my biggest life decision to date: the flower pots that hung from the lamp posts had basketball nets attached to the bottom. Although there were doubts that I had to keep pushing out of my mind, it was a mother’s intuition that eventually put those fears to rest. She somehow, “just had a feeling that Kentucky was the best fit”. You know, they do say Moms always know best…

I’ve always loved the South. Visiting family in Memphis was always an exciting trip that gave me an early appreciation for sweet tea, country music, southern drawls, incessant cicadas and the necessary aversion to humidity. Kentucky was everything I loved about what little I knew about the south, times 100. It had the southern charm: the lush, rolling hills dotted with immaculately sculpted thoroughbreds with bloodlines that the Kennedys would envy, the frat-tastic boat shoes and pastel knee-high kakis, the picturesque, magnolia-draped back roads that somehow always opened up just in time to see a huge, fiery sun sinking behind a horse farm, enough home cooked goodness to comfort you for years, and, most importantly, that history-laden tradition and school spirit that’s only truly done right in the south, of which I’d always dreamt. Above all, though, Kentucky had one thing no other school in the world really, truly had: basketball.

I never really watched college basketball because, unlike every single Kentuckian, I didn’t come out of the womb immediately attached to a college team. Sacramento has the Kings and I took full advantage of my pride and fandom in that one team that was really mine (as evidenced by this post http://anchorsandeden.tumblr.com/post/4581976599/the-color-purple), but California is primarily an NBA state. The Kings, Warriors, Lakers and Clippers far outnumber the main college basketball program, UCLA, and occasionally USC, Cal or Stanford. Kentucky, on the other hand, is ONLY college basketball. More specifically, it’s ONLY Kentucky basketball, but I’ll get into that in my next blog post.

These simple basketball facts make it all the more miraculous that I ended up at the University of Kentucky, the Mecca of college basketball, the winningest school in the history of the game, the only place where my rabid obsession with the sport could even be remotely matched. It was fate, and the Basketball Gods, that led me to the most-tradition rich basketball school in the world and I still look back on my time at UK in amazement. And that’s not an exaggeration. It still baffles me that of all 2,618 public Universities in the country, I wound up at the only school that fit me like a perfect, Big Blue glove.

You can talk about Indiana, North Carolina and Kansas as historical basketball states ‘til you’re (Go Big) Blue in the face, but they don’t hold a candle to Kentucky. The South, full of all its football tailgating glory, is the heart of American college football, as evidenced by the SEC having won the last 5 National Championships, but Kentucky is the anomaly. A proud hoops haven indifferent to the world around it. Make no mistake, Saturday tailgates before UK football games are some of my favorite memories, but football fans are different than basketball fans. Football games are played in the more favorable months where the weather obliges the all-day party that overtakes every surrounding city block, where the grill burns hot and the drinks flow endlessly as the fuzz spin themselves dizzy constantly turning a blind eye. Basketball, on the other hand, requires true investment in the game and the only partying comes when the Rupp Arena security lets you in the breezeway 3 hours before tipoff after you’ve spent the last 5 hours in line huddled with your friends in the snow. By that point, all your hard work and incredible luck of winning a ticket through the flawed (but necessary) lottery system, waiting in line for hours and sprinting to the best available 1 foot standing room spot left in the eRUPPtion zone would be useless if you were too sauced to give the game the full, undivided attention that it deserves. Because of this general understanding, Kentucky fans, young or old, male or female, are some of the smartest-gasping when the opposing team sets a solid back pick before the point guard even finds his open man and jumping out of their seats before the lob to Anthony Davis is even thrown. This intricate attention to detail of nearly every fan is what sets the Big Blue Nation apart and makes me appreciate even more the fan base to which I proudly belong.

Most of all, though, Kentucky fans know that it’s not “just a game”. In fact, Kentucky fans are God’s heaven-sent retort to the paltry denunciation that basketball is “just a game”. There have been countless clichés about the Commonwealth’s love affair with basketball, all of them as true as the state is Blue, but there aren’t strong enough words in the English language to explain something that is just so inherent. I won’t ever fully understand how it binds generations and divides families, how “just a game” enabled dreams in young men just trying to survive miserable years working in the coalmines or how it unified an entire Commonwealth to endure years of economic hardship.

Despite my propensity to be adopted as a Big Blue diehard, I wasn’t born in Kentucky, don’t have the Wildcat pedigree gifted from the generations, didn’t have the blue blood birthright from my first gasp of air and wasn’t born with that ‘Free Admission’ card to those with Blue gene lineage, but it took less than 3 years in Lexington to understand and identify with a group of people so seemingly different: it’s so much more than just a game, and in Kentucky it’ll get in your blood and turn it Blue.

Hundreds of UK fans waiting at the airport the other day for the team plane to land back in Lexington after advancing to the Final Four.

Brow Down.

That’s real. And not uncommon. And I love it.

Tradition defined.

The Water Is Black: My Dear Wormwood,

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:37:35 -0400

The Water Is Black: My Dear Wormwood,:

Absolutely incredible. Jed is just another example of the brilliant, talented, creative, empowering and caring individuals that Invisible Children collects. Amazing, Jed. Thank you.

thewaterisblack:

I received your letter this morning and I must say I am not the least bit pleased. You brag and gloat that you got the face of the world’s largest youth movement to go mad. To tear off his clothes and cry out to the Enemy in the streets for all the world to see. You list the lies you whispered…

You really should follow our Austin Street Team blog...

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:17:43 -0500

ATX Bucket List

This is our first post and our first installment of our ATX Bucket List. We asked the good people of Facebook for bucket list items and have come up with the following (and added some of our own):

Swim in Hamilton Pool-Collapsed cavern-turned-natural-swimming-pool fed by a waterfall

Go kayaking (Town Lake and Lake Austin)

Attend Austin City Limits Festival

Attend SXSW music festival

Eat at Franklin’s bbq

Swim in Barton Springs-spring-fed and over 900 feet long

Hike Mount Bonnell

Play disk golf at Zilker Park

Hike/Bike/Fish Lady Bird Lake

Eat at Torchy’s Tacos

Go to Amy’s ice cream and have them throw the ice cream across the street (apparently it’s a thing?)

Go to Sno-Beach and get sno cones

Eat Gingerbread pancakes at Magnolia Cafe — Just go to Magnolia Cafe in general, says Lindy.

Cliff jumping at Lake Travis

Eat breakfast burritos at the original Whole Foods

Have a cake shake at the Holy Cacao food trailer

Have something from each of the trailers in the iconic South Austin Trailer Park & Eatery (Torchy’s Tacos, Holy Cacao and Man Bites Dog) in one sitting.

Find and take a picture with Leslie, the famous homeless man.

This is phase one of THE LIST. Let us know if you have any more ideas for us to add and follow us here: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/atxstreetteam

"Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide whether it’s..."

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:31:55 -0500

“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide whether it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they’re deciding, make even more art.”

- —- Andy Warhol

A good reminder for creative souls. Never stop being creative and letting your mind go…so important to remember.

Long overdue and still not quite there...

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 03:37:37 -0500

I was asked to write a blog post for a girl who just started a blog about social change and getting involved to make a difference. She contacted our PR department asking if one of the roadies would be interested in writing about his/her experience on the road. I jumped at the opportunity when asked, but two things stood in my way…1) it was right in the middle of our intense, three week fundraising marathon in the office and all my time was spent fundraising and making calls (yes, I left out sleeping for a reason) and 2) every time I did have a minute and sat down to try to put my last year into a few concise paragraphs, it seemed impossible.

I was reminded tonight that the girl was still waiting and the blog post hadn’t been written so despite the late hour of the night and the mental mountain I had to climb to write it, I came up with…something. It’s nowhere near how I hope to some day write about my year at I.C., but considering how low my eyelids are hanging and the epiphany half way through that I’m probably always going to feel like I’m doing it an injustice, but that it’s still important to write about it regardless, it could be worse and I’m going to post it anyways! Oh, and it’s not been edited in the slightest. I’ve been writing and re-writing for two hours so re-reading it sounds even slightly less appealing than becoming a Lakers fan, sorry I’m not sorry :)

“Just go through with the second interview. It can’t hurt.”

I am forever grateful for my mom for those wise words last November when I was going through the interview process to be a roadie for Invisible Children, a non-profit organization working to end Africa’s longest-running war. A 26-year-long war, to be exact, where a madman named Joseph Kony has been leading his Lord’s Resistance Army on a tear across regions of central Africa (Uganda, Central African Republic, South Sudan and Democratic Republic of the Congo) killing, raping, pillaging and, most notably, abducting thousands of children.

My Invisible Children story started about 5 years before that fateful conversation with my mom when I was a senior in high school. During a free period I sat down to work on homework but my attention was immediately drawn to the film being projected on the wall in front of me. That film, I would later find out, was called Invisible Children: The Rough Cut, and as dramatic as it sounds, my world would never be the same after that, honestly. Having my eyes opened to that level of human injustice and never even having heard of Joseph Kony or the Lord’s Resistance Army was simultaneously frustrating and inspiring. On one hand I couldn’t understand why my parents, teachers and mentors hadn’t ever told me about the most neglected humanitarian crisis of the 21st century. On the other, it sparked something that made me not only want to get involved with ending this war, but made me more conscious of the world outside my bubble.

That spark would remain and would only intensify after I traveled to Kenya twice during college. After my first trip I came home and in the midst of my culture shock of being back in the U.S., realized that I could come back and allow myself to slip back into my world and only talk fondly of my “life-changing experience” or I could actually act on it. So I went to Kenya the following summer, graduated from the University of Kentucky, moved to Nashville to intern for another Africa-related non-profit called Mocha Club and decided to take that next big step and applied to be a roadie with Invisible Children. I got through the first round of interviews and didn’t expect a call back for round two. After all, this was a huge organization with hundreds of applicants from across the world dying for the opportunity to act on the same spark they felt after watching an I.C. film, like I did. Never mind the money I didn’t have to support myself throughout this 15 week internship or my paralyzing, mind-numbing fear of public speaking.

“Just go through with the second interview. It can’t hurt.”

I got the call for the second interview and if it weren’t for my mom I wouldn’t have just finished my second tour as a roadie for Invisible Children, would’ve missed out on by far the most formative year of my life and I would be a drastically different person than I am today. (Thanks again, Mom!)

Having the incredibly good fortune of touring Texas as a roadie on the Congo Tour in the spring and New England as a team leader on the Frontline Tour in the fall, I grew exponentially and learned things I will carry close for the rest of my life. I got to speak to and inspire thousands of students weekly (yes, I managed to get over my fear of public speaking…for the most part), cultivate life-long friendships with the three Americans, two Ugandans and one Ethiopian I lived with in a van as teammates over the course of two tours, set a new standard for the type of friends and community I will strive for after being in the most loving, inspiring and challenging environment I could imagine while at Invisible Children and countless more that I’d be doing a disservice both to you and Invisible Children trying to put into words.

I will never forget the honor I had daily to get on stage in an Invisible Children shirt daily and inspire audiences to join us on the front lines of this war and do more than just watch Joseph Kony commit these atrocities daily, because contrary to what they’ve heard, and at the risk of sounding cheesy, we can absolutely, without a doubt end this war. I got to do that standing next to a survivor of the very war we’re fighting. Both of my Ugandan teammates, Tony and Grace, had amazingly powerful stories of faith, resilience and strength and I stood in awe every single day as they choked back the tears and fought through the pain to recount their story for a new audience because their commitment to ending this war was so personal and ran so deep, seemingly coursing through their veins.

As much as my story with Invisible Children began in high school and carried through my trips to Kenya and my time on the road, it was the two of them who kept me going and reminded me daily the enormity and importance of our goal. As much as this story transformed from one I saw on a movie screen to one I was deeply entrenched in five years later, this is their story; they have LIVED it. As much as this past year has given me an epic adventure, lifelong friends and the courage to continually challenge myself and always defy the status quo, in the end it is not about the personal growth, it’s about Tony and Grace and the human connection.

I can’t tell you enough how imperative it is to get involved with something you care about. If Invisible Children isn’t the route for you, find something else. Take that next step and immerse yourself in whatever that is. Give everything you have to helping people and making the world better because you were here. In twenty years when your child asks you what you did when the world was (seemingly) falling apart, be able to say that you showed up.

I think it’s only appropriate to end with a quote from Invisible Children’s latest documentary, Tony (go here to watch it for free http://invisiblechildren.com/frontline-tony-documentary), “Push yourself, do what’s necessary. The world is waiting for you, don’t miss the invitation to join.”

This is the dream. Literally. I would do a lot of things for...

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:59:18 -0500

This is the dream. Literally. I would do a lot of things for this to be my house.

"I promise you not a moment will be lost as long as I have heart & voice to speak & we will..."

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 11:02:34 -0500

“I promise you not a moment will be lost as long as I have heart & voice to speak & we will walk again together with a thousand others & a thousand more & on & on until there is no one among us who does not know the truth: there is no future without love.”

- Story People

Who We Are

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 22:46:08 -0500

Via my BFF, Alex Alberico. AKA the word wizard.

We are roadies.

We are sons and daughters.

We are brothers and sisters.

We are friends.

We are a family.

We are the movers, the shakers and the world changers.

We are a culture; a new generation.

We are a movement.

We stand on the shoulders of giants, legends, anonymous extraordinaries.

We stand on a legacy.

We remember the past, embrace the present and write the future.

We have been through the tough and the even tougher.

More importantly, we have been through the beautiful and impossible.

We have sweat, bled and cried.

We have sacrificed everything and gained infinitely more in return.

We have, and will continue to, inspire and shape the world around us.

We are a movement.

We are a culture; a new generation.

We are the movers, shakers and world changers.

We are a family.

We are friends.

We are brothers and sisters.

We are sons and daughters.

We are roadies; a force to be reckoned with.

thewaterisblack: to say something plain, let me quote a hero of...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:21:49 -0500

thewaterisblack:

to say something plain,

let me quote a hero of mine:
We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them

i am a piece of a focused machine that has deployed US troops
to help pursue a warlord, a mass murderer, a leader of a rape-cult,
a child destroyer,

and potentially kill him and his commanders

i believe Joseph Kony is a human being with a childhood and a soul

our call is to arrest him. but we understand that in forceful arrests, he may resist,
and in that situation, he will be killed

i accept that I may be, in a way, killing a piece of a man
or many men

i accept that i could be instrumental in the death
of an american soldier fighting for congolese victims he has
no national interest in protecting

and that that exemplifies a selfless hero
and that we don’t see those very often

i believe in action

and i believe in monsters

and that all human beings have the potential to be monsters

and i believe in the chance of redemption, and a trial and life in prison is what we demand

and i believe in peaceful resistance to the detriment and even death of myself,
from regimes that are mistaken and capable of hearing the overwhelming voice of the people

but i also believe in sociopaths who use human beings as fleshy-holsters for their machetes. for a dark dark dark that can move into the mind of a man and turn him into a force of nature

i believe in human beings no longer capable of persuasion. or said differently, the patience it would take to continue discussion would enable them to kill another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another, and another as I wade in blood with a megaphone saying ‘please’

if a brain injury can render a man incapable of speech and motor function, could not a spiritual injury render a man beyond the reach of words and reason? resolute to destroy other human beings and amused by their begging tears? by spiritual injury i may mean brain injury. just that more important part of the brain

at that point, his prolonged days on this earth are a hindrance to his redemptive crash with the Lord

this dark line can only be manifest in his actions and the exhaustion of diplomacy

i am crass because war is crass and to kill a man even a monster is crass

i am uncomfortable with the purity of fundamentalist pacifism

as i am uncomfortable with any fundamentalism

because it denies the fact that nothing exists in a vacuum

and the assumption that it does empowers a lie that empowers its opposite

but let me be plain with you, i want this man arrested. for arrest saves me the weight of holy decision. if we let the man live his days robbed of the lust and drunk stupor of his jungle power, the fragrance of redemption may just find him

i am not the first to struggle. much greater men, Bonheiffer. Lewis. taught me these things. as did the victims

and i believe we cling too desperately to life
like nasty bundles afraid to die

and the people most noble understand this
and the people most powerful understand this, and that power can be used for evil
and sinister spirituality and magic and murder and the LRA

and G-d understands this better than i. that when our flesh falls
He has something to do with it

that every knee shall bow

but if i am the wall, or the builder of the wall, that blocks the wave from the town
then so be it.

i would rather save the town
and stand before G-d honestly mistaken

than sit beneath the tree and write of the shame of it all
as i keep my legs pulled tight so as not to touch the blood

for we are too afraid to die, yes

but we cannot be afraid to live

and a monster makes the world afraid to live
and a monster invites the world to produce heroes that will sacrifice their comfort
and maybe even their lives to define nobility, equality, virtue, and sacrifice

i believe the physical life matters,
but
i think the spiritual life matters more

but i don’t know how that ties in to all of this.

but i am acting on lofty words, and have been, and believe there is virtue there.

may G-d have mercy.

Beauty in the breakdown

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:40:57 -0400

This tour has been full of ups and downs. Drastic extremes of highs and lows. Endless To Do lists that I can never catch up on. Tests of strength, endurance, love, compassion, kindness, will, determination and countless more.

Today was both a summation and culmination of the past 8 weeks of tour…ending tonight in a pretty thorough mental, physical and emotional breakdown. Sitting just outside the building not knowing how I was going to pull it together to go inside and work the merch table because, frankly, I just wanted to run away and come back an hour later with the van packed, fundraising calls made, host homes set up, promo calls made, accounting finished and credit card expensing done.

Sometimes I don’t think it’s possible to keep going. It’s just too much…until I bring it home and remember exactly why I CHOSE to be under this stress. For things to happen like the 13 women and children who defected from the LRA yesterday night (most of whom had been in the LRA for 10 years) and for the INCREDIBLE letter sent to our team by our contact from our screening last night, both of which are instant band-aids that make everything worth it.

Both the letter and the news of the defections caused breakdowns of a whole different manner, thus bringing the analogy of intense highs and lows full circle.

It was after reading the letter that I really appreciated the beauty of being so beaten, bruised, worn and broken for something of which I’m giving literally EVERYTHING I have and being so vulnerable in the moment in the midst of that state of exhaustion and emotion. To be picked up and pieced back together by friends and allies in this fight makes it that much more real, that much more beautiful.

The breakdowns tell me that I’m doing it right. The exhaustion whispers affirmations as my eyes close upon hitting the pillow each night. The “to do” lists are endless because of the promise that there is still work to do, but that it’s not in vein.

These thoughts are scattered and fogged by the creeping exhaustion, but the intent and the meaning behind them is very real.

The break downs are only a means for the build ups. And there is no joy or hope in the build up without the beauty in the break down.

Can you paint with all the colors of the wind?

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 20:00:53 -0400

Wayfaring New England back roads in the fall is akin to following the seductive stroke of an Indian paintbrush…the incessant, ever-winding stream of blacktop entangling us in flurries of the autumn paint drops as they reluctantly release from their increasingly barren captor and wistfully make their return to the earth which bore them…the artist’s palette is sprinkled with beautifully worn barns, (the far less authentic twins of which were seemingly plucked from this beautiful land and placed in a restoration hardware catalogue).

The beauty I find on these roads (paired with the beauty of the people with whom I’m discovering them-both in my own van and in vans (and an office) across North America) is a reminder of the eternal beauty of this world, both because of, and in spite of the purpose which has brought me to this far corner of the country in the first place.

On this particular Tuesday...

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:35:30 -0400

I have two things…

Being fortunate enough to be in New England in the fall has made me realize there are not many things more beautiful than an autumn leaf’s graceful submission to gravity.

And I absolutely LOVE how quickly audiences fall in love with my brother just by watching a 45 minute film about his life. Even though I’ve seen his film well over 100 times, I never get tired of sitting in on screenings, especially at new venues, to experience the hysterical laughter and unmistakable sniffles that coincide with the rising and falling story arc of Tony’s life on film. He just has that beautifully undeniable personality and soul that makes perfect strangers fall in love with him through a movie screen.

I miss him dearly.

invisible: Yep. Our CEO certainly gets it. - JJ

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:18:31 -0400

invisible:

Yep. Our CEO certainly gets it. - JJ

invisible: I’m so down you have no idea. - JJ Yep.

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:14:13 -0400

invisible:

I’m so down you have no idea. - JJ

Yep.

Breakfast in Kentucky yesterday. Lunch in NYC today. (Taken...

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:51:34 -0400

Breakfast in Kentucky yesterday. Lunch in NYC today. (Taken with Instagram at Urban Rustic)

Before I sleep...

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:35:32 -0400

Last night was one of those tour memories that’ll stick with me for years to come. I drove the day shift yesterday-7 hours from San Diego to Tucson. Finally got some dinner and met up with a number of other teams at around 8 and was ready to get back in the van and sleep straight through the next 6 hours until we reach Las Cruces.

Instead, there was some van switching and I ended up in a different van with some incredible friends from other vans. Not only did I not sleep for a single minute in those last six hours, but I didn’t stop having one of the most beautiful, vulnerable, funny, thought-provoking or incredible conversations for a single minute, either.

There were so many things we talked about that I’ll be processing and thinking about over the course of the next couple days of long drives, but one thing from one of the topics keeps coming to mind-our scars are such a beautiful thing. Especially when shared in a trusting, vulnerable atmosphere with people whom you just know will protect your scars and vulnerability with everything they have. That feeling of mutual vulnerability traded for fierce protection has transformative, almost healing, powers.

I can’t say it enough-I’m so grateful for this opportunity, this adventure, this organization, the intense sense of purpose I feel in what I’m doing. So grateful for the incredible people. The relationships. The shared scars. The shared experiences that’ll last a lifetime.

Most of all, in this moment, I’m most grateful for the 3 of you in the van last night (even if one of you was unconscious). It’s something I won’t soon forget and I’m both appreciative of you and so impressed by you for far too many reasons to list. You’re beautiful souls.

If it's real, you'll feel it...

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 03:35:12 -0400

And so it begins, again. Less than three days until I’m back in that all-too-familiar, yet simultaneously disparate, mobile neon home.

The only qualm I have with this fairytale place is the fact that everything here is so painfully temporary…we are always just an inch removed from Utopia, it seems. People come and go; things change rapidly. You learn to love it in different seasons, based on experiences shared with the beautiful new spirits (with whom you wonder how you ever lived without) who so gracefully fill the footsteps of the departed, but always with the dream-like aura of the memories made just months earlier floating about like guardian angels making sure their indelible handprint is not lost in the shuffle.

I’ve verbalized similar notions, but I don’t think I’ve yet given my brother a proper letter of appreciation (I apologize in advance for it being all over the place with this)…

If there was ever a time where words didn’t have strong enough meaning, even if I could find the right combination of them, this is it.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt a more searing pain than reluctantly releasing from one last tear-filled bear hug and watching you walk the opposite direction of me for the first time in nearly 3 months. I took for granted the fact that for ten straight weeks you were there every morning and every night. My constant in a situation destitute of constants. I grew accustomed to having your smile, laugh, love and innate “Tony-ness” envelop me in everything. Or in nothing. It didn’t matter because at that point in time we had forever.

Like most people, after being awoken by The Rough Cut, it was you and Jacob who gripped my heart with a ferocity that made it impossible to ever beat in accordance with the way it was before your fingerprints forever changed it. Unlike most people, I would have the honor of standing beside you before thousands of people five years later as you told your own story because your incredible perseverance and will wouldn’t allow you to have others speak on your behalf for any longer than necessary.

Now, as I ready to do this all over again, I know that I’ll be taking the stage after a film about your amazing life, without you beside me. These new audiences won’t have the fortune of knowing you outside of the movie screen and it’s up to me to carry you on the Frontline Tour, just as you carried Nate on the Congo Tour. I don’t think there’s anything that is both more humbling and more daunting because of the enormity of your persona and your life. Just as I’m failing to capture your spirit in written words now, so will I fail to do the same with spoken words in a few weeks.

Nonetheless, I will try then as I’m trying now because your larger-than-life legacy demands it. Your heart is too big to not be felt. Your laugh is too joyful to not be heard. Your life is too real to not be shared.

This letter is not even a drop in the bucket of what I want to say to you. I still sit down to write you to you (or just write about you) and can’t even come close to saying all of the things I want to say and just end up getting frustrated with words and their utter lack of meaning at such an important moment, like right now. This wasn’t supposed to be the end but I just can’t figure out what comes next.

I realize that everyone leaves this place sooner or later, and perhaps the reason it’s so beautiful is because each time it’s just a glimpse of that Utopia and then it’s gone.

fuckyeahprettyplaces: Yediburunlar Lighthouse, Turkey. Oh my...

Sat, 27 Aug 2011 15:19:47 -0400

fuckyeahprettyplaces:

Yediburunlar Lighthouse, Turkey.

Oh my word.