Losing televised sports as an interest

   When I was a kid, I loved sports. I enjoyed playing and watching them, and baseball was my favorite. I very much liked seeing the games in person at the stadium, but the television experience was still plenty exciting to me. In those years I was a big fan of very non-local teams like the Reds (from Cincinnati) and the A's (from Oakland), I imagine at least partly because they were so successful back then. I certainly didn't know where Cincinnati or Oakland were located, nor did I seem to care.
   A few years later, perhaps in my mid-teens, I recall going to Yankee stadium with my father and being amazed that he would get bored so early in the game and want to leave. At this point I was beginning to prefer other sports (I believe that hockey, being a sport that my friends at that time would play, was becoming a new favorite), and these preferences would continue to change the older I became. Still, I couldn't understand the boredom on my father's part.
   Now I can.
   I don't know exactly when it happened, when the actual break took place, but I realized perhaps a week ago that I generally cannot watch any sport on television for more than a little while without becoming extremely bored.
   This change did not occur suddenly, but over time I did notice that the different type of sports I watched had shrunken, as had the time I could bear to do so. Baseball was the first to go, then hockey, and now American football, which seemed for a time to take the reins and keep my sports interest from completely disappearing altogether. For a few weeks, European football (soccer in the U.S.), and even basketball had briefly appeared as a possible replacement sports interest, but these were short lived.
   At some point, I had developed the boredom and lack of interest of my father that had so perplexed me years earlier.
   For years, televised sports were something that I used to unwind after work, a passive activity that I could engage in without having to care much about the outcome. For a nervous person such as myself, being able to engage without invested attachment to something was alluring and relaxing, and it worked most of the time. My wife and I even coined a term, 'stupid t.v.' to signify watching television for this same effect, and we would often watch different programs together (She also allowed me to watch the sports I wanted, even though she absolutely hates them. and I am thankful to her for that).
   So it is that this lack of interest in sports has meant not only a change, but also the disappearance of an avenue for me that was useful for decompressing from a world that I often feel quite fearful in. I mourn this loss, truly, but hope that it signifies that I will be moving on to discover new methods that are more in fitting with the person I am currently and will become. This is not only a hope, but also a wish.

An altered view

   Below is a picture that I took as I walked around Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. About a week ago, we had a good rainstorm accompanied by strong winds here in San Francisco, and one of the large trees fell into the lake. It had stood next to the bench seen below.
   For some days the car path located just outside of the picture was cordoned off for what the people that walk here said was a crane to remove the trunk, but after a few days the fallen tree and cones remained.
   It's interesting to me that somehow the area had appeared relatively unchanged from how I'd known it for some years (even with the tree laying horizontally in the water), but today I noticed that something was different; it had finally been removed.
   Although I have passed this spot more than a thousand times, and seen here much more than just this specific tree, the visual absence of it made the area appear completely new. It really fascinated me that my perception could be so radically altered by the removal of just one thing, no matter the size, from my field of vision.
   I realized at that moment in a very visceral way that my eyes did not in fact translate empirical information, but rather helped to form the subjective beliefs that I use to determine what is true and not in the world. It was a powerful reminder that what I often determine to be irrevocably correct can conceivably be so to the contrary.

The recent and distant past

   I'm confident that I'm not alone when I say that the idea of time is a very elusive thing, but to me, it just feels entirely too subjective sometimes. Actually, I guess that it feels as unreal to the physicists that deny it exists as a linear thing.
   Like most people, I follow the clocks, and am quite obedient when it comes to being early, on-time or late according to them, but in terms of my memory and my own experiences (as well as my experience of people that have had or have some importance in my life), I cannot say that this obedience seems to carry any weight; either the clock, or my allegiance to it fails me.
   When I have some reminder that nudges me to think about the past, it often feels like I was both there and not, or as if the event thought of might have occurred a week, a month, or even  many years in the past. Sometimes, more recent events seem stronger, while other times the strength of the memory or sensation associated with it seems of greater import. It reminds me of paintings before the renaissance, when the size of objects depended on their cultural importance, rather than their portrayed closeness to the viewer.
   As hazy as the past can sometimes be, so can the future, so I rarely think about it, other than worrying over short-term things like getting paperwork done at my job or planning on what clothing I might need on an upcoming vacation. If events that happened when I was younger are unreal, the future is unfathomable. It's not that I do such a good job of living in the present that there is no need for a planned future, but rather that the sense of one remains too imagined.
   So it is that when I recall memories or sensations that have occured in my life, I am often happy and delighted to try to employ them to learn more about how they have contributed to the person that I am now. More tellingly, to the man that thinks about who they are, because the sense of self needed to feel wholly like me, like Adam Cooperstein, is as hard to fathom as is my own past.
 
 

Marxism as a style

   I was recently working on an entry in this blog about outdoor clothing, and the writing and thinking on the subject led me to think about clothing made from coarse materials. As I thought on clothing made from these less-refined textiles (and who might have worn them years ago), images came to my mind of the early twentieth century worker proletariat. As it turned out, I chose not to include these ideas in that particular entry because the post seemed too rambling, but the idea has stayed in my head, so I'm writing about it here.
   I don't know why exactly I thought of these image-ideas, but I do know that this history has at times been very important to me, as I have in the past considered myself a radical Marxist, at least in theory. I still believe in many Marxist economic ideas, in particular, the exposition of capitalist ideologies as written about by people like Antonio Gramsci. I also suspect that old posters celebrating the worker proletariat, and the films of Sergei Eisenstein, had very much to do with it.
   So it is that as a person that very much likes particular styles of clothing (I wouldn't however consider myself fashion-conscious or fashionable), I have always associated clothing with particular times and social movements, and my current obsession with water repellent clothing has led me to discover the wonders of clothing that places these properties over comfort, and the connotations with workers and their struggles from one hundred or so years ago that it holds for me.
   So as I sit here writing in a pair of 65/35 polyester-cotton blend pants designed to be water resistant, I am thinking about how Marxist-proletariat idea(l)s have become for me more an interest in retro fashion and design than in active political movement.
   I think about the visual design style of Constructivism in what was then the Soviet Union, the buttoned-up-to-the-top suit jacket made popular by Mao (but originally called the Zhongshan Suit), and the early twentieth century newsboy hats often seen in posters from that era propagating popular struggle and worker strikes. I myself wore a kind of newsboy hat almost twenty years ago (also favoring buttoning the top button on my wool jackets at that time), and although I don't wear clothing in that way anymore, I still have a kind of leftist belief that there's probably nothing worse in personal style than trying to show that you've got money in the way that you dress.
   So as I finish up this short entry on the idea of certain clothing fabrics connoting a classic radical leftism, I realize that although it's true that I have very little interest in active political struggle, I still retain a place in my heart for a style associated with one of its' applications. Marxist? I doubt it. Materialist? Perhaps.
 

Outdoor clothing

   I walk everyday around Stow Lake, which I enjoy very much, both for exercise and to help clear my head of the seemingly endless chatter that occurs there (though this aspect of my walks is not always so successful). I have set myself the strict routine of walking there no matter what the weather, and because I dislike using an umbrella, I sometimes find myself getting wetter than I prefer to, especially when I have to be at work for the rest of the day. Even if I do use an umbrella when it's raining hard, my lower legs often get pretty soaked (my waterproof jackets and water resistant/proof shoes take care of the rest of my body), and I absolutely refuse to use an umbrella large enough to cover this area (I find huge, dome-like umbrellas a bit obnoxious).

   But then, 'outdoor clothing' enters my life

   By perusing different websites for clothing in general, I came across a brand named Fjallraven from an English website called Oi Polloi, and through further exploration found that they make a 'jeans' style (i.e.-slimmer fitting) hiking pant that doesn't look so much like well, hiking pants. I bought two pairs online in different sizes from a discount website, and decided on the smaller pair, which were very tight around the waist, but slimmer fitting.

   Because they felt so restricting, I decided to try to lose a few pounds, which I did, and now they are pretty damn comfortable. This is in consideration of the fact that they are made of a cotton/polyester blend that the company calls "g-1000", and which is not, let us say, the most flowing of materials. I've gotten pretty into the idea of being somewhat waterproof in my clothing, and can't help thinking that there's a subconscious aspect to it for me as well; something like being bulletproof.
   It was a few years ago that I first bought some rather heavy canvas pants from a local company here in San Francisco called Taylor Stitch, who make a sort of slimmed-down version of classic Carhartt work pants, and when I first became interested in the idea of clothing that wasn't so comfortable. Like the bulletproof notion, I assume there's a similar association with stiff clothing, but there's also a quality to it that I think I also like in a very tactile way. It feels in some way that I am wearing clothing that was made a very long time ago, when production techniques were not so fully automated, and which produced rougher, more imperfect articles. I really like imperfect.
   When it is raining, and I am wearing my 'outdoor clothing', I feel like I can go where I want, unfettered by anything in the world at that moment, and for a man that can at times feel too vulnerable for my own comfort, that is a nice feeling, even if I'm receiving it vicariously from my clothing.

Smelling marijuana

   When I am home in San Francisco, I use my car daily, but when my wife and I go on vacation to another city, we always try to take the local mass transit system. This is a wonderful relief for me from driving, especially when I am not particularly familiar with the place I am visiting, as I am usually more nervous behind the wheel, making it harder to enjoy the place I am visiting. Another wonderful thing about taking buses and trains on vacation is that it enables me to see the place without having to concentrate on anything in particular, and to see it the way that the local people do, but with the fresh eyes of a visitor.
   So, there my wife Fernanda and I were, on one of the TriMet loop trains in Portland, Oregon (I can't remember if it was the A or B loop), and had recently gone over what I believe was the Broadway Bridge. We were passing the Oregon Convention Center, when we saw a sleek retail facade, which we quickly realized was some kind of marijuana business (it actually looked a bit like a contemporary high end clothing store). My wife and I marveled at its' very professional looking exterior (the medical marijuana dispensaries back home in San Francisco look to me from the outside to be engaged in something very illegal), and agreed that it would be fun to see what it was like inside. We remembered that our taxi driver from the airport had told us that a recreational marijuana bill had recently been passed locally, and decided to get off the train to check it out (we were equipped with an all day pass for the TriMet, curious minds, and were on vacation).
   As we approached the entrance, I was filled with nervous excitement; I very much enjoy new experiences, but also have intentionally not smoked marijuana for a very long time, and thought I might be tempting fate a bit. Anyway, we entered, and after having our names entered into the system by the nice people at the front of the place, were buzzed into the main room in the back, where we were welcomed by a very friendly, burly looking gentlemen. He proceeded to tell us about the contents of the store, as well as what was available for purchase and what we would need medical marijuana cards to buy. I had a lot of questions, and the man there was very informative and seemed happy to answer them.
   There was a lot of information on the labels of the different cylindrical glass jars, and he told me (with the help of a woman from the front desk that had come back to either assist, listen or monitor), what each strain was beneficial for, medically speaking (in my experience, all marijuana was good for basically one thing; getting high). Most of all, I was interested in who got to name the strains, as many had names that I found quite amusing, such as platinum animal cookies, Tyra Banks, and my personal favorite, headband (seen in the picture below). He told me that they were all named by the individual growers, and I was a little disappointed. I think that perhaps in the back of my mind I was hoping that I could perhaps be a person that names these strains for a living.
   Next, the burly gentleman asked if I would like to smell some of the strains (I could already get a kind of group smell just by being in the room), and I was amazed how unique some of them smelled. When he said for example, "this one smells like grapefruit", it really did, and when he said "this one smells like petrol", amazingly it did too. I found it quite remarkable, and I'm as sure as I can be that it was not his power of suggestion which made them smell as he said they would for me.
   As I slowly read and smelled a number of varieties, I came across a palm-sized burlap sack, and the man told me to sniff it (it was filled with whole coffee beans) before smelling each variety to clear my nostril palette, if that's the correct way to put it. He said that the judges at marijuana growing competitions do that. I certainly had never thought about the idea of such a thing existing!
   I remembered that when I used to buy and smoke marijuana that smelling it was the best way that I knew how to ascertain the quality and grade of the stuff; never did I think that smelling the substance could be so interesting in itself.
   Although we didn't buy any of the products, I did leave a nice tip to the worker who provided us with all of the friendly, useful information, and I felt like I had just been given the best marijuana experience I had in immediate memory, and my clear-headed state had allowed this to occur.

Smelled, not smoked

The very, very sad disappearance of music blogs

   Most of the music that I've discovered during the past five or six years I've done so through music blogs. I was going to say most of the new music I've discovered, but the reality is that almost none of the music is new at all. In fact, most of it is at least one generation or older, as well as being otherwise unavailable or extremely difficult to find for purchase in any form. Of course, I am aware that there is new music being released all the time, but I find so much of it to lack the soul of older music, due in part to modern production techniques, but also, I believe, because the artists who are making new music are writing during a time when the expectations of who will be listening to it are an audience of people raised on smartphones with, in my belief, less patience for imperfection and a differing view of what it means to be in the world than I have. I'm trying not to be bias in this idea, but we all generally respond to the eras when we are born, and I am very much a product of mine.
   I wish that this blog entry was written only to praise the writers and researchers who brought to my attention (and made available) so much of this music, but unfortunately it is being written as a kind of eulogy, because very few of these blogs exist anymore, and the ones that do don't make any of the music being written about available to hear. I find music to be most moving when I can listen to it.
   The reader who knows nothing of this subject might wonder why it is that such a wonderful service, one that helps people to broaden their musical horizons, maybe the ways that see the world, and share the discoveries they've made, would be written about in a sad memorial; and the answer is, unfortunately, because these blogs are all but dead.
   It seems that the music industry (and their trade association/watchdog, the Recording Industry Association of America), in an over reaching effort to combat file sharing, has put the lean on the blog sites that post this music, forcing them to fold under legal threats from this powerful group and their financial allies.  From what I can tell, the music industry is not really interested in music at all, because their laws and lawsuits against music sharing services have had the effect, planned or not, of making otherwise beautiful, forgotten or unknown unavailable music now completely unavailable and unknowable.
   When I think about how many wonderful and varied artists I first learned about by reading and downloading music from the numerous blogs of just a few years ago, it makes me sad that it will be that much harder to have these kind of consciousness expanding musical experiences going forward.