You write to entertain your family and friends.  You sit down with a cup of coffee and you lay your fingers on the keyboard.  Words escape from your brain like wine from your cellar.  You stare at the screen.  You update your Facebook profile.  You sip your coffee.  You navigate to MLB.com and read up on the latest baseball news.  You go to the bathroom with the Sports page in your hand.  You finish.  You walk back to your computer with a newfound purpose to write about your incredible bowel movement.  You ask yourself, who wants to read about your shit?  Your mother in-law and then your wife descend from upstairs and both mutter the same thing, “Buenos Dias, Carlitos” and they head into the kitchen to make their breakfasts.  You’ve already eaten your instant oatmeal and are ready to get busy.  You tell yourself to remember to blink.

Nothing surfaces in your brain.  You stand up, you do 20 pushups, you stretch out your legs.  You listen to Pandora.  You stare outside the living room window to draw inspiration.  It’s time to go workout.  You’re mad at yourself for not coming up with anything.  You’ve just spent the last 90 minutes drinking 3 cups of coffee and going to the bathroom.  You figure the elimination of waste is better than nothing.  You put on gym shorts, a tee shirt, and a fleece sweatshirt.  Your gray one, because you think it makes you look hot.  You’re in your 50’s.  You’re not hot.

You punish your body for 60 minutes by warming up, doing squats, bench presses, dead lifts, clean and jerks, tricep curls, bicep curls and then more legs.  You love the burn.  You stretch out your pulsating muscles.  Sweat drips off your nose.  You think if only you could write freely it wouldn’t be so much effort as exercise.  You feel better for having worked out but worse.  Pulsating in your brain should be so much easier.

You go for a 5 KM run.  Your iPod blares songs by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Linda Ronstadt, Bruce Springsteen, Sheryl Crow.  You meet back up with your wife at her car.  She has finished her yoga class and is ready to go home, make you lunch, and take her mom shopping.  You climb into the car and complain you have no idea what to write about this week.  You feel like a loser.

At home, you lie on the couch, you eat, you watch the Shawshank Redemption for the 100th time, you kiss your wife goodbye, you turn off the TV and you settle in for a nap.  You wake up in 30 minutes refreshed and forget about your writer’s block.  You dive into the Rosetta Stone website and spend an hour learning Italian.  You stink.  You need a shower.  You want to write but you know your wife and mother in law will be home soon and they’ll be asking you to put away the groceries.  Arrivederci!

You blow off the shower and start writing.  You really have nothing witty to say or an interesting point of view.  The ladies come home and you put the bags on the kitchen counter and return to the computer and you start to write. You write about your day.  Your sad, pathetic, day hoping that in the words perhaps someone might find this interesting, original, and worthy of their precious time.  You are, after all, an artist.  You view the world differently.  You are creating something out of nothing.  Whether or not you want to believe it.

Besides baseball, Sports Illustrated swimsuit models and, of course, my dear wife, I love the movies. In our crazy, hectic, lives I look forward most to Saturday date night which almost always includes dinner and a movie. When the Academy Award nominations are announced, we make it a point to get to all of the nominated films that we haven’t already seen.

I’m not a lovey dovey movie fan. In fact, if the preview even remotely suggests chick flick I fake an injury and pull myself out. The wife, although not a true chick flick fan herself,  takes her mother or goes with a girlfriend while I enjoy a good sporting event on the television. As a fan of my blog, you probably already know my favorite kind of movies are original, thought provoking dramas or comedies. This year’s crop didn’t disappoint.

In fact, I really liked “Her.” OMG, what an original story. Spike Jonze outdid himself and I surely hope he takes home the Oscar tonight. Joaquin Phoenix was in every scene of the movie and his performance was incredible. I am shocked he wasn’t even nominated.  Popular sentiment has Matthew McConaughey and Leanardo DiCaprio as Best Actor but Phoenix had to carry the picture all by himself and did an outstanding job. Frankly, he made the story.  After all, story is all about characters.

But, “Her” wasn’t best picture this year. That distinction goes either to “12 Years a Slave” or “Gravity.” While “12 Years” was incredibly difficult to watch (how can anyone not think so?), “Gravity” was equally  spellbinding but in an other worldly sort of way. Sometimes to me the story seemed a little too far fetched. How could any astronaut, let alone a scientist, survive that ordeal?

I have my father to thank for my love of movies and my wife to help sustain the passion. Story telling has been a part of our daily lives since Adam and Eve. When I’m sure Eve asked the proverbial question, “Adam are you listening to me?” as she relates the tale of her day cleaning the cave, gathering berries, and being chased by a wooly mammoth. I just love stories, don’t you?

I really don’t think the movies are an escape. Rather, I look at the 130 minutes (i.e. the average movie length in 2013) as an opportunity to hear, watch, and feel something new. A good story touches me in a way like Jessica Gomes in a bikini – all my senses come alive. I look for the meaning, the learning, the moral if you will of the story. Stories teach us something about ourselves. They are by their very nature depictions of life.

So, let’s take time out tonight to be entertained by Ellen DeGeneres and guess along with The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences on who we thought gave us the best performances, the most original stories, the greatest art. Other than a major sporting sporting event, like March Madness, this is my favorite night of television.

We have dear friends coming over to the house and with a $1.00 bet on the line, we’ll fill out our ballot like critics. It isn’t so much about the $5.00 pot as much as it is about telling the story afterward about how you won.

Flattery will get you everywhere.  Do you really believe that?  I can tell you when someone compliments me, even a dear friend, red flags go up.  I immediately try to figure out if this person is sincere or fucking with me.  When it’s sincerely expressed, I feel like I’ve just scored the winning run.  I want to run outside and yell, “I am fantastic.”  My feet barely touch the ground.  I want to give more of myself than I’m capable of giving.  I feel invincible.

When someone’s fucking with me, I shrug it off as best I can.  However, a remnant of self doubt trickles into my brain thinking maybe I really am not that creative.  This person may be kidding, but maybe there’s a hint of truth to what they’re saying and I become immediately consumed with self doubt, convincing myself I have to change.

Insincere flattery will get you no where.  I can’t think of a bigger turnoff, can you?  You know the type.  The flowery, over-the-top terms of endearment that make you want to strangle the other person or vomit or curl up in a ball and wallow in your own piss.  Usually, I immediately change the subject.  My personal force field rejects insincerity like Captain Kirk raises the shields on the Star Ship Enterprise when the Klingons attack.  Khan!

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?  Oh, I don’t buy that either.  I get pissed when someone tries to imitate me.  I feel like they’re stealing my originality.  In fact, I admire most in a person their original thoughts, comments, perspectives.  It takes a special kind of person to dream up something from scratch and to make it interesting.  Greatness is derived out of diversity and innovation not from sameness and being a copy cat.  My favorite movies almost always have an original screenplay.  In fact, this is my favorite Academy Award category because someone thought this shit up from scratch, people.  Brilliant!

It’s why I like short fiction.  There’s very little similarity with the annually awarded Pen/O. Henry Prize Stories.  Each year, I’m ever more impressed with the collection of anthologies which make the published version.  No two stories are even closely alike.  And yet, to be selected must be an incredible honor.  This is, I guess, the kind of recognition that I seek.  To have non-vested professionals say my shit was so damn good, you deserve a prize for thinking it up.

Everyone loves to be recognized.  Everyone.  Myself included.  Hell, myself maybe more than anyone.  I know when people “like” my Facebook profile updates or read my blog I get a lift that encourages me to drive forward, to write, to try and create something original that people want to read, to like, to forward, to remember, to think I’m the most creative mother fucker they’ve ever met.

So, flattery will get you somewhere maybe to a place you don’t think you’re capable of.  Flattery is great motivation for without it no one would really do anything of note.  Fake flattery might get you a punch in the nose or it might turn the other person off so bad they may realize they better start changing things up because, believe me, everyone can tell insincere from sincere.  Sorry, ladies guys actually can tell when you’re faking it.

So, in the end, flattery gets you somewhere.  Just maybe not where you want to go, but it does move you somewhere.  What really drives you nuts is when you don’t hear anything.

The month is nearly over and I’ve made some progress on my New Year’s resolutions.  I haven’t won the Nobel Prize in Literature.  I’m not the 2nd baseman for the San Francisco Giants.  I haven’t received an Academy Award.  I haven’t saved someone from dying.  I haven’t changed the tire of a complete stranger.  I haven’t nursed a wounded animal to health.  I haven’t learned Italian but I did buy the Rosetta Stone CD’s.  The tour of Italy is scheduled for July so I’ve got that one in the bag.  It’s not baseball season yet, so hitting the baseball hard every time is still a solid option, as is making the routing play 100% of the time.  I’ve finished half of the PEN/O. Henry Prize stories for 2013 – good progress if you ask me.  My 1st basketball game is next week and I’m so going to break the full court press even if it means I foul out.  Three rounds of golf in January and no holes in one.  Damn it!  Working out 5 times a week has been no problem.  Yeah, I fucking rock.  I drink red wine so much my pee has a great nose.  I haven’t been home the last 3 Sunday nights, but I sure as shit will cook something new THIS Sunday or else my wife is going to have filet of Charlie.  Oh, I’ve been living to eat AND eating to live this month.  I haven’t won the Lottery, in case you were wondering, because there are still animals in shelters wanting to share their pure love.  I hate racists.  I always will fight them.  I help those in need simply by giving when I can like on the streets of Hong Kong when I emptied my pockets.  I haven’t gone to Karaoke this month, so you can’t get a standing ovation when you don’t sing.  Thank God it’s not Easter or Christmas yet so the 2 x per year Mass requirement is still good until March.  Even in Asia, I’ve watched sports every day.  Love sports no matter where I’m at.  So, how am I doing?  It’s too early to tell but I have 11 more months to be great.  Just watch me or better yet read me. 

Dear Reader, it’s been too long since I reached out and touched you with a new post. You know I’m full of myself.  You should also know I don’t always take myself seriously.  So, as I sit down to write my New Year’s Resolutions, my hope is you’ll sit back, relax, and enjoy.  Here’s my game plan for 2014:

1. Win the Nobel Prize in Literature
2. Become the starting 2nd baseman for the San Francisco Giants
3. Receive an Academy Award for Best Screenplay
4. Save someone from dying
5. Change the tire of a complete stranger
6. Nurse a wounded animal back to health
7. Learn Italian
8. Tour Italy for 5 weeks with my dear wife
9. Hit the baseball hard every at bat
10. Make the routine play 100% of the time and the spectacular play most of the time
11. Read the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories for 2013
12. Break the full court press
13. Get my 1st hole-in-one and buy drinks all around
14. Exercise 5 times a week
15. Drink red wine 7 times a week
16. Cook something new every Sunday night
17. Live to eat
18. Eat to live
19. Win the Lottery
20. Free all animals in shelters
21. Fight racism
22. Help those in need
23. Get a standing ovation at Karaoke
24. Go to Mass on Easter and Christmas Eve and beg forgiveness for all my sins
25. Watch or play sports every single day

This should be a great year.  I better get cracking.  Ciao.

The icons in my life are starting to pass away like Lou Reed, James Gandolfini, and one of my most beloved High School teachers, Ron Shoemaker.  These men taught me through their art and skill to walk on the wild side, to be tough, yet vulnerable, and to love unconditionally.  Still, death – famous or not – brings with it a wake up call.  A realization that your life doesn’t extend forever and you can’t take ‘it’ with you.  My friends ‘it’ is your nest egg, if you have built one.

I’ve been saving money since my Uncle Allen taught me at 19 my most important financial lesson of all, pay yourself first.  I’ve been doing that ever since.  And now decades later as I approach the final decade of my working life, I’ve built a nice financial situation for my wife and I which should enable us to live a comfortable final phase of our lives.  As long as we continue to be healthy, our retirement should be fun filled and worry free.  Just the way I wanted.

I don’t often wax philosophical about getting to be about that age where I’m glad I saved enough for retirement, that I won’t have to rely on Social Security checks to survive, that I didn’t spend more than I made when I was young, middle aged, or past middle aged.  It hasn’t been without some luck along the way but also years of incredible financial discipline to get to this stage of my life and I’m proud of what I’ve done.  Anyone in my situation would be.

But, here’s the thing, if you aren’t taking care of yourself, if you aren’t planning for the future, you’re guaranteed to be eating cat food out of a can when your time finally comes.  It’s OK to be a little crazy, to have fun, to be tough, but fair, and to love unconditionally, but there are also times when you have to be disciplined.  When you have to recognize what do I want my future self, my grey haired self, to be like?

I’ve always believed your life is lived in three phases.  The first phase is all about your education, the second phase is about building a family and career, and the third and final phase retirement.  No one knows when you’ll make your final exit, but it is worthwhile to plan for your final phase so that in the end it will feel like it’s all been for the best.

Is there anything more upsetting than losing a game?  I don’t care what it is you’re playing but when you lose it sucks.  I have a pit in my stomach that feels like a bowling ball.  My National Adult Baseball Association team lost in the championship game yesterday 5-1.  We had gone the whole week undefeated up until that point even beating the team we were playing for the 2013 NABA World Series title 7-3 on Monday.  But we didn’t hit.  I didn’t hit.  I want to cry.  I want to jump up and down and yell and scream.  I want to punch something.

There is something about losing that motivates the team to work harder, to learn from mistakes, and I’ll even buy that it makes winning all the more sweet.  But, what is the point?  Why after so much success does a team and an individual fail?  We had won 6 in a row heading into yesterday’s game.

I’m NOT looking for sympathy.  In fact, dear reader, do NOT comment if you think I’m fishing for a feel good cliche.  I’m not!  I need to get this off my chest before I drive myself crazy with regret.  So, it would be better if you had anything to say, comment on how you felt during a contest when you lost and what you did about it.  Please no “better luck next time” crap, OK?

It wasn’t that we didn’t – I didn’t – want it bad enough.  It wasn’t that we hadn’t trained.  We didn’t give the game away.  We simply failed to hit.  The pitcher was good, but not so good we couldn’t hit him.  I myself had pitches to hit but didn’t.  It is the unpredictability of baseball that drives exhilaration and utter despair.  Earlier in the week, I was hitting balls over outfielders heads and at the end of the week I couldn’t hit it out of the infield.  Was I fatigued, surely, but I should’ve been able to do better.

The funny thing about hitting is that it is contagious.  When one guy gets a hit, others follow.  Usually.  For some reason, it just didn’t happen yesterday.  We averaged 15 runs per game heading into the title bout.  We scored 1.  Seriously?  I am still pissed not so much at my teammates but at myself.  Why does this happen?

I’ve been playing this game since I was 8 years old.  I’m not about to give up now.  I’m going to spend the winter contemplating what happened in my last game of 2013 and, of course, use it as motivation in my training.  I’ll probably take the week off to heal up, but I’ll be out running again before you know it.  I’ll be in the weight room and I’ll be hitting in the cages.  I know I’ll do better next time.  I have to keep the faith that if you want success, you have train harder and I will.

There’s no crying in baseball but I sure want to every time I fail.  And I know I’m not perfect, I just want to be.