GM Super Bowl Ad — I Was Ahead of my time…

Delighted to see both Doctor Evil back in action & GM embrace what my buddies at The Union of Concerned Scientists‘ was asking of them when I worked there some two decades ago. To show we were indeed “ahead of our time” here is a PSA pitch I sent to Mike Myers’s agent when I worked there in ‘04.

Coincidence? Watch the ad and then read my pitch (that Myers promptly, but politely declined). If GM wants to settle with me, I’ll take the Kramer billboard agreement 😉

DRAFT PITCH LETTER TO MIKE MYERS

November XX, 2004

 

Mr. Mike Myers

c/o Ina Treciokas
I/D Public Relations

 

Dear Mr. Myers,

As a tremendous fan of your ability to tap into and lampoon some of the basic tenets of pop culture and society, I am writing to ask you to channel those talents in an effort to defend California new global warming regulations on automobiles—an initiative that will impact not only California, but the entire United States and your home country, Canada.

We have recently launched our “Automakers v. The People?” campaign to counter current auto industry tactics to undermine California’s new regulations.  In doing so, we asked ourselves this question, “Why in the world would automakers ignore consumer will, thwart their own potentially lucrative market, and use their lawyers rather than their engineers to ensure that their vehicles would continue to emit higher levels of greenhouse gases?”  If taken to its ridiculous extreme, this sounds like something Dr. Evil might do to “destroy the world.”  And that thought is what has brought us to you.

It is our opinion that automakers must understand that they cannot “spin and sue” with impunity in the face of over 80 percent of Californians who in polls have supported clean car solutions to climate change, and the potential for a lucrative, job-creating market in providing consumers with cleaner vehicle choices.  

While we are admittedly not ourselves comedians, we thought that the automaker tactics were rife with potential for satire, and that, whether it be through a parody using your iconic Dr. Evil character or in some other clever way, we might be able to work with you to create amusing and informative audio and video spots for use in the media and on the internet.

We have had some previous success teaming up with celebrities on global warming issues, most recently with Kevin Bacon on a print campaign that got placement in magazines such as Rolling Stone and Us Weekly.  

Your creative contribution could have an enormous impact on this campaign, and we hope you will have interest in being a part of it.  We have enclosed a copy of our report on this subject, Climate Control, and more information on the Automakers v. The People? campaign is available online at http://www.ucsusa.org/general/special_features/page.cfm?pageID=1534.  If you have interest, please contact our Clean Vehicles Program organizer, Scott Nathanson, at 202.223.6133 x143 or at snathanson@ucsusa.org.  

 

With sincerest thanks,

 

Kevin Knobloch

President

UCS DR EVIL SKETCH

Fade in—Dr. Evil’s conference room.

 

Much the same as his evil lair from Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Dr. Evil sits in his black swivel chair at his conference table, stroking his hairless kitty who stands on end, hissing.

 

DrE:  There, there, Mr. Bigglesworth, I know he is scary snookums, but finally we have America’s premiere sleuth, their “Top Dog” if you will, in our clutches.  Now that I’ve given you my infallible truth serum, tell me all about your secret crime fighting syndicate.

 

Cut to: The opposite side of the conference table where, chained in a chair with a giant spiked dog collar sits a person dressed up in a McGruff the Crime Dog costume.  Embedded in his oversized mascot eye is a small syringe.  In the cracking, frightened voice of a teenager, McGruff begins to speak.

 

McG: Listen, dude, I’m just getting paid 4.35 an hour by the San Demus Police Benevolent Association to do Christmas parties.  I can’t even drive yet.  I–

 

Cut to: Dr. Evil in his chair

 

DrE: Zip it canine crusader!  I’m impressed, nay astonished, with your ability to withstand my drug Crime Dog, I must remind myself to have my chemist liquidated.

 

McG:Dude, the needle didn’t even make it through the plastic googly eyeball…

 

DrE: You’re a worthy adversary, but I have no more time to match wits.  Guards, muzzle this pooch and place him in the room of 1000 cute fuzzy kittens. 4000 tiny, razor sharp claws should be enough to get this doggie to sit up and beg—FOR HIS LIFE (evil laugh).

 

2 guards come in and put a large novelty muzzle on McGruff and drag him out of the room.

 

Cut to: Top of the conference room.

 

No. 2, Dr. Evil’s right-hand man, enters the room and makes his way down toward Dr. Evil.

 

DrE: Ah, No. 2, you bring good news I hope.

 

No2: Yes, Dr. Evil, we have successfully insinuated ourselves into controlling interest of the major automakers as you requested.

 

DrE: Splendid. And what do you have to report?

 

No2: I’ve done a preliminary analysis, and I have identified a lucrative new opportunity.

 

DrE: Go on, dazzle me Number 2.

 

A computer screen comes up from the center of the table with a label on it saying “computer screen.”

 

No2: Automakers in the American market have traditionally made, promoted, and advertised gas guzzling cars and “SUVs” filled with over-powered engines and hyper-inflated size.

 

The computer screen shows a montage of ultra-manly car and SUV commercials with scantily clad women ogling men revving their monstrous machines.

 

DrE:  Ah, America, land of the free and home of the Humvee.

 

No2: Yes, well as usual, automakers have myopically attuned themselves to that market and ignored the fact that as gas prices have gone up and sources of petroleum more unstable, most Americans these days just want a safe car that will save them cash at the pump, drive cleaner, and suck up less foreign oil.  The small but burgeoning hybrid market has shown an inking of this potential.

 

The computer screen changes to pictures of hybrid cars and SUVs zooming past a gas station filled with souped up cars and SUVs filling up.  At that station you find the gas price sign showing the Price of Regular gas being “ARM” and the price of premium being “LEG.”

 

DrE: Sensible. Mind-numbingly boring, but sensible.  

 

No2: But here’s the kicker.  California has recently proposed groundbreaking regulations to control global warming pollution from automobiles.  This gives us the perfect opportunity to use clean car improvements and let us profit from this market rather than handing that money to the oil companies.  Indeed, 80% of Californians support these regulations.

 

DrE: Well, of course they do, and they’d like to make their bumpers out of compressed oat bran and their gasoline made magically out of the smiles out of the good little boys and girls across our fair land. All this “clean car” technology sounds expensive No2.  And I’m still a bit in hoc for that drill to the center of the earth to unleash the red-hot magma, as you might recall.

 

No2: Dr. Evil, most of the technologies needed already exist and are sitting on automaker shelves.

 

DrE: Sounds like someone is trying to blow a little smoke up ole’ Dr. Evil’s keester, No2.  You won’t get Daddy’s MasterCharge that easily.

 

No2:  I anticipated your reluctance, so to prove it, I have brought in the only engineer that you would know and trust.  I give you…

 

No.2 moves to a chair at the table that had been turned around, and slowly and dramatically spins it toward Dr. Evil.

 

No2: Geordi LaForge, chief engineer of the Starship Enterprise!

 

The char reveals LaVarr Burton in an ill-fitting, original Star Trek uniform and a hair clip over his eyes to poorly simulate his trademark visor.

 

DrE: Ah, the most trusted name in engineering since Pops Racer.  So tell me, Commander, what 24th century technologies might “cool the savage car?”

 

LB: As I told your friend here before they kidnapped me and threw this costume on me—one that’s from the wrong series mind you—I am not Geordi LaForge.  I’m LaVarr Burton, an actor.

 

DrE: Yes, yes, a clever little ruse to save your precious “prime directive” about interfering with the time-space continuum.  Go on, Commander, tell me, a “warp drive in every garage?”

 

LB: (sighs) Okay, I’m not an engineer, but even I know that carmakers have a whole host of clean car technologies sitting on their shelves that they just don’t integrate into most standard vehicle models.  Things like VTEC engines, variable valve timing, cylinder deactivation, and continuously variable transmissions are all available today.  You don’t need warp drive to make cleaner cars.

 

DrE: Okay Number 2, color me convinced. But what does this mean for little old Dr. Evil?

 

No2:Well from merely letters sent to the automakers from around the country in support of these clean car regulations, we estimate a market of at least—

 

Closeup on Dr. Evil.

 

DrE: Let me guess—ONE MILLION DOLLARS!?!

 

No2: Actually, Dr. Evil, it’s more like a billion dollars.

 

The computer screen pops up with the figure of $1 billion.

 

DrE: Billion, with a “B” you say.

 

No2: Yes, billion—a thousand million.

 

DrE: That’s a lot of mutated sea bass with lasers on their heads.

 

No2: Exactly Dr. Evil.

 

DrE: A most interesting presentation, No.2.  But while I hate to “flush” your ideas down the drain.

 

Dr. Evil chortles.  No.2 looks annoyed.

 

DrE: No.2—flush—that never gets old.

 

No2: Yes, Dr. Evil.

 

DrE: I have decided on a slightly different plan.

 

No2: And that is?

 

DrE: Nothing.

 

No2: Nothing, Dr Evil?

 

DrE:  I’m sorry, what didn’t you understand about my answer.  The “NOT” or the “HING?”

 

No2: But, I don’t understand. The market, the profit, the sea bass–

 

DrE: As per usual, No.2 you don’t see the bigger picture.  I have done some looking into this as well.

 

The computer screen changes to a screen saying “Operation Hot Gas”

 

DrE: It seems the goody-goody Union of Concerned Scientists have done some climate simulations. They predict a future of melting mountains in the Sierra Nevadas, the great redwoods tumbling, Napa grapes drying on the vine. Glaciers melting so quickly it would be like pouring a foot of water over California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado. More droughts in the farm belt, beachfront properties potentially swallowed by the sea…

 

As Dr. Evil recites this list of cataclysmic horrors, a corresponding picture appears on the screen.  Finally, a scene of a giant tidle wave destroying Manhattan pops on the screen.

 

No2: And the gigantic tidle wave?

 

DrE: Oh, that’s just a scene from “The Day After Tomorrow.”  I just like it for effect.  And, in a breathtakingly simple scheme, all we must do to ensure that these catastrophies come true is make sure that everything stays the same.

 

No2: Stays the same?

 

DrE: Yes, my cyclopic sidekick.  As long as nothing is done to address global warming pollution, we will succeed in –

 

Closeup on Dr. Evil

 

DrE: MELTING THE WORLD!

 

LB:  Dr. Evil, that’s insane.  Being part of the climate solution is cost-effective, profitable, and the right thing to do.

 

DrE: Okay, Geordi, you’ve convinced me, now beam back to planet sunshine and lollypops and let me get back to my plan.

 

Dr. Evil presses a button on the table and Lavarr’s chair tilts back into a hole leading to a firey pit.

 

Dr.E: So our first order of business must be to eviscerate California’s landmark legislation.  It could set a dangerous precedent that other states might follow.

 

No2: I’ve heard the Canadians are already looking at similar regulations.

 

DrE: Those ridiculous Canucks—you would think they’d like to get rid of some of their snow.  We must act quickly.  Number 2, unchain—THE LAWYERS.

 

No2: No Dr. Evil, not, the lawyers.

 

Dr. Evil presses a button on the table and a large panel on the far wall slides open.  There a group of well dressed lawyers with leather briefcases are chained along the wall, growling, foaming at the mouth, acting like a pack of caged wolves.

 

DrE: Oh, yes, No2.  We will sue the consumer to keep them away from their clean cars, and continue to shove inefficient monsters down their throats, making sure that advertisements and dealers around this great land speak only of “power” and “size” and dual 8-track cassette changers.  And with that, the world will burn under my fingertips…moo-haa-haa-haa…MOO-HAA-HAA-HAA…MOOOO—HAAAA-HAAAA-HAAAA!!!!

 

As Dr. Evil elicits reluctant evil laughter from No.2, a disembodied voice begins to speak.

 

VO: Okay, no one really thinks that Dr. Evil is controlling automakers threats to sue Californians in order to stop their precedent-setting regulations on global warming emissions from automobiles—

 

Dr. Evil and No. 2 abruptly stop laughing and start looking around for where the voice is coming from.

 

DrE: No.2, how many times have I told you to make our secret chamber voiceover-proof.

 

VO: But how else can you explain why they are threatening lawsuits, ignoring the will of Californians, and the demand from consumers around the country for the cost-effective, no-compromises, clean-car solutions their talented engineers could provide us?

 

Dr. Evil grabs a spray can labeled “Voice Over-Away” and begins to spray it around the room.

 

VO: If you think automakers should send their engineers, not their lawyers, to help provide consumers with clean car solutions, better jobs for their workers, and more profit for themselves, let them hear it.  Go to www.automakersVpeople.org and take action today.

 

Fade out to posting of the website address.

2020 & The Tyranny of “Time”

It is December 31, 2020. The end of a horrible year.

Covid is raging.

My Father can’t remember anything past 15 minutes — he has multi-infarct dementia.

My little brother — my Best Man — is about to die — he is in the final stages of brain cancer.

I am crying.

Almost uncontrollably.

Yet, simultaneously, I am listening to my brother play. A captured moment in time off of his solo album, Heavy Breathing.

It reminds me of an exchange that I had with my other Father who now lives in the Clearwater area. One is my biological father, the other my step-father. I will not tell you which-is-which, as when it comes to my heart, that is an irrelevancy. He has had some battles of his own with his health, but is sound of mind. Here’s our recent exchange as his adopted hometown Rays made their run to the World Series:

I call it “Ratatouille” moments. There are times when we simply remember things, but there are other times when those memories become present, like when a bite of an elevated peasant’s dish took Anton Ego directly to the moment when his mother cured a little boy’s boo-boo with the flavors his favorite meal. Past and present intertwine. The two Doctors meet as their Tardises (Tardi?) overlap at the same moment, even though those moments are at two different places in linear time.

To nerd this up just a bit more, let’s talk science & philosophy. A recent article I read suggested that physicists have new evidence that the future is not the open question that we living in linear time intuit to be. Indeed, it seems that the counter-intuitive notion that the future is as fixed as the past seems more-and-more what the science is suggestion is the truth.

Of course, to a Star Trek nerd raised on Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, this rubs against the grain. But, as Professior Alison Fernandes of Trinity College Dublin sagely notes:

“Human minds aren’t geared to intuit what fundamental reality is like. Typically, it takes a lot of empirical work to figure out the way things are. It was very natural at one time to think of air as weightless, and of solid objects as filled with matter. But we’ve learnt that air is weighty, and that solid things are mostly empty space – even if we can also make good sense of why these things seemed otherwise. Given these lessons, it would be very surprising if we had direct insight into the fundamental nature of time.”

That lack of fundamental understanding shaped by what we feel is a major reason I am almost militantly agnostic. Much to I’m sure the aggravation of devout Atheists like Richard Dawkins (one of my 10 different Covid-reading books I’m in the middle of is his, The God Delusion), I do not think that we are even close to enough of an understanding of our universe to simply dismiss faith. That level of certainty seems to be on par with those on the opposite side who demand that their belief is somehow proveable.

On that side of the coin, I recently got into an exchange with my devoutly Jewish mother as we cried together over the impending end of my brother’s life. She finds comfort that which is Dan, “Everything that is not of the body,” as Sarek says of Spock after his demise at the hands of Khan, will go on; his soul traveling to heaven.

She chafed at the fact that I could not share that belief with her, as I have no idea if there is something beyond our bodies, or whether we have a definitive beginning, middle, and end. The Taoist philosophy that we are all part of one larger way, and simply shift in our form in that flow, certainly always held appeal to me. But air is not weightless, and solids are mostly empty space…

To my surprise, my mother decided to continue this conversation via email. Below is the exchange, including the link to the video my mother asked me to watch:

https://youtu.be/Oc3YpDG9hMg

Love to know what you think of this. Mom

******

Okay, so I watched this. Not sure you’ll like my reaction to it, though. I found the logic here to be so tortured as to be almost comical. Essentially, the notion is, “These events have historical proof, and the Bible says that G-d played a hand in it. Therefore if you believe the Bible, it’s incontrovertible proof s/he exists.” So essentially the only actual “proof” of G-d is in the Bible.

The argument that because the Jews have survived so much it’s obviously proof of the Hebrew G-d is similarly silly and ethnocentric. There are MANY ethnic minorities and cultures around the world who have faced similar threats and survived. Large empires attempting to stamp out ethnic differences or assimilate them is a historical standard. Armenians, B‘’hai, Zoroastrians, Buddhists, and countless others could tell similar stories. I’m not saying the Jewish story isn’t impressive—it absolutely is—it’s just not unique.

What this means to me personally is the very same that it did before I watched it. There is a real power to a “leap of faith” but it is just that. You are leaping beyond logic and proof and trusting in something that really cannot be proven. I understand the attraction and power of making that leap and will never bash anyone for having that (provided they do not attempt to foist their belief on anyone else—that’s where I draw a line). But, if anything, watching this made me even more agnostic because I feel it’s almost dishonest in twisting history and archeology to try and make a factual case for what is clearly a leap beyond logic (which is fine, but that’s what it is so I say just own up to it, IMHO).

So, there you go — your agnostic son’s view. Hope you don’t find this insulting but you asked my opinion, so there you go.

The fact that I love you and you love me is definitely something I have faith in!

Shmoolik

******

Thank you for taking the time to listen to Solovechick and to respond. Noone claims that we are the only people chosen to have a path that can help perfect this world. But you ignore or explain away all the “coincidences”. How amazingly the prophets have predicted what would happen, the Assyrians simply fading away with a plague just as they were about to sack Jerusalem. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree, I guess we will find out when these bodies give out. Yes I do love you very much, but not your choice in liquors. Mom

*****

I’m not ignoring prophecies. Frankly, given how many prophecies were wrong or so vague or metaphorical as to mean about anything, I find the fact that some of them happened to hit home doesn’t do much for me, personally. Here’s a good article that encapsulates how I feel about biblical prophecies:

https://whistlinginthewind.org/2014/01/15/were-the-biblical-prophecies-fulfilled/

You are correct, we’re going to agree to disagree for now. I’m happy to keep listening and reading the stuff you send — I often do. Maybe my opinion will grow and change. Being agnostic rather than atheist is that I don’t know or believe I’m right — I just don’t think you are, either and so far I just don’t see anything except leaping beyond logic into faith, which nothing in my experience has made me do.

Hope you’ll be able to join the Zoom in a bit,

The Shmoo

Indeed, as this tortured year—and my Best Man’s life — comes to an end, I am finding a strange and unexpected comfort in my uncertainty. If time is not really as we experience it, and things to come are just as fixed as a memory of things past, then past and present are just as eternal and real as the undiscovered country.

Perhaps the illusion is the very notion of beginning and end. Those Ratatouille moments are indeed two fixed and forever points in time intersecting. This would mean that if we have a beginning, we never actually have an end. That the love I feel now for my brother is indeed forever; as is he. His impending release from his tortured present body in no way erases his existence. He existed, and therefore, perhaps, he always exists.

With so many having lost so much this year, perhaps there is some comfort in that for others. After all, before his resurrection, Spock told his brother from another mother, James Tiberius Kirk that, “There always are…possibilities.” (Make sure you read that line with Bill Shatner voice in your head for maximum dramatic effect)

I will have far more to say about my brother in time, but, at this time, that is about as much as I can type between tears. May your New Year’s 2020 be a safe and peaceful one, and thank you for joining me in this moment in time.

Strength vs. Bluster

Vice President Biden with wife Jill and Tara Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, in India, July 2013. Credit mkgandhi.org

So about 100 years ago (or 2011 to be more precise, given everything pre-COVID seems ancient now) I wrote a piece called, “The strength in sorry” with this quote from Mahatma Gandhi:

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

Typos and all (trying to forgive myself for those…), that piece was about the strength in asking for forgiveness and how that can open the door to more dialogue than the traditional, defensive, “Let me explain” mode we often get into. The other side of that particular coin, of course, is the actual act of forgiving itself.

In many ways, Joe Biden’s address at the DNC was the epitome of displaying that kind of strength. “I am the Democratic candidate, but I will be an American President.” Well before anyone casts their first vote, Biden is already forgiving anyone who did not agree with him. Indeed Biden has often throughout his career been attacked (inclusive of his Vice Presidential choice, showing another act of powerful forgiveness) for being too willing to reach out and try to understand the other side in an effort to make progress on a particular issue.

Another attack on Biden’s sense of forgiveness is that it will turn him into a punching bag against the bullying rhetoric that Donald Trump and his acolytes have, are, and will be hurling against him. That Biden’s reluctance to demonize his opponents opens him up to exactly the kind of smear campaign that Trump unleashed on Hillary Clinton.

Yesterday, I believe he showed exactly how wrong that was. If you haven’t watched it in its entirety, it’s worth your 20 minutes:

Much like Gandhi’s campaign against the racist, colonial presence in his native land, Biden cannot abide a bully. In India, the ultimate success in removing the British came from forgiveness—the ability for Hindus and Muslims to look past their differences and unite behind a common good. While history showed that sustaining forgiveness in that region has been a difficult proposition, there is no doubt that Gandhi’s ability to bring disparate interests together changed the course of history.

Biden’s blistering attack on Trump yesterday was not, “going low.” Instead it was straight out of the playbook of Gandhi, King, and Lewis. In calling out Trumps myriad lies about his own record and his refusal to call out all sides who have used violence as a tool, the Vice President literally brought truth-to-power. And he put his money where his mouth was; himself condemning any rioting done under the false flag of legitimate protest by using the words of forgiveness and peace from Jacob Blake’s own parents to reinforce both the admonition of violence and the need for reform.

Of course, there will be some who will go straight to the, “Sleepy Joe” rubbish, focusing on a few circular sentences or misspoken words. The recent spread of an obviously falsified video by White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino shows they will go to any length to demean and degrade. Lawyer and SuitUPNews host Exavier Pope took Trump apologists to task trying to simply dismiss this fabrication as parody:

Such an obviously disprovable fake of that Harry Belafonte sleeping video swap of Joe Biden, but by the time it spreads to Facebook and other social media many people have ingrained what the images convey and don’t care about a “fact check.” That’s why propaganda is so dangerous

As the father of an Dean’s List college student with a stutter, one who braved his condition to win a middle school public speaking competition, and trips over the “B” in “Biden” each of the thousands of times he’s been making calls as a volunteer for the Biden/Harris campaign, I can hear it every single time Joe circles his sentences to keep from tripping on a word, or misspeaks because he doesn’t have the luxury that most of us do of not having to think about how he is saying things.

And every time I hear it, I hear strength, not weakness. True, humble, and genuine strength; not the bluster of narcissistic hubris.

As my son continues to brave his stutter for BidenHarris, now while in an isolation dorm awaiting the results of a COVID test (he developed a fever a few days ago though it’s gone now and we’re keeping fingers-and-toes crossed that it was just a quick, not-so-novel coronavirus), he continues his mantra that, “This is personal for me.”

I hope it is for you as well, and that you choose true strength over arrogant bluster.

Bring Back the Draft? A Parent’s Perspective

And so the tit-for-tat begins. Iran responded with what is clearly a symbolic military strike, using its own ballistic missiles to show their capacity and technology to strike, but not with the devastating impact that allowed America the political room not to escalate.

But you can read about that anywhere from those more in the know than I. One of my areas of expertise is, however, being a Dad. My High School freshman came back from school yesterday talking about how his AP World History teacher (yes, I’m humble-bragging that my 9th Grader is taking an AP class…) engaged the class in a discussion on what’s happening with Iran. It seems the core element of the discussion was Mr. Moses trying to calm their fears of war; noting that Iran recognizes that U.S. military might is not something they want to instigate a full-scale fight with.

Of course, Mr. Moses is likely right, and the Iranian response seems to validate that theory. But that hasn’t kept my College freshman’s Instagram from blowing up with fears of war—but more pressing to young men and women—fear of the draft. It reminded me to make sure that my boy was indeed registered with Selective Service as I did 30-plus years ago.

My big fella has a lot of his mother’s practicality in him, and spent most of the time trying to settle his friends down. I agreed with his rationale and rationality. There is no political appetite in this country for a draft, and with the force-multiplier of technology (remember, it was a drone that killed Suleimani), the likelihood that we’re going to spend the time and money to increase the size of our standing forces is a distant threat to Millennials and Gen Z.

But while something like a draft would mostly impact my sons’ generation, and the impact that Millennials have on the workplace and culture are almost obsessively covered by the media (AOC, anyone?), very quietly, the overlooked middle child of the “O.K. Boomer” battle—Generation X—are taking the levers of leadership. Indeed, as this fascinating article points out, The Global Leadership Forecast for 2018 shows that Xers have taken the majority of world leadership positions for the first time.

Besides the certainty that music attained it’s absolute height with Peter Gabriel’s “So” in 1986 and there can-and-will never be a better action movie than Raiders of the Lost Ark (note: it is NOT “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Star Wars” is NOT “Start Wars: A New Hope”), I as a GenXer remember the establishment of AmeriCorps, President Clinton’s initiative to expand the notion of service beyond the military or international aid (aka Peace Corps) both by providing direct government services such as teaching, construction, and poverty amelioration with grants to existing organizations to bolster their ability to employ and expand their reach. Indeed, it is a model strikingly similar to the signature program that the first GenX President put in place—Obamacare.

I’ve often termed Generation X as the “Live Aid” generation. In general, it’s a notion that we want to make the world a better, place, but there’s no reason we can’t do that and keep the things we love about the world we have. Global hunger? Okay, let’s have a mega-concert and collect a zillion dollars to feed the hungry!

Indeed, I’ve heard from so many of my contemporaries the notion of “working the problem.” Perhaps that’s why as a coach I am so taken with the the RAMP-C method from the Heads-Up Baseball school. Calm down, breathe, don’t get ahead of yourself, and give the best you have at the moment to an immediate goal. Reset, assess, and go at it again. It’s not sexy. It’s not revolutionary; it just works.

I graduated from college before AmeriCorps kicked in. Instead I went the nonprofit direction, spending the next two decades working for various arms control and environmental organizations. I’m still proud of the little, tiny sliver of a Nobel Peace Prize I can clam as my organization worked as part of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. But as much as I loved the idea of AmeriCorps back then, I must admit that I had to look it up this morning to see if it indeed still even existed. And when I mentioned it to my College Boy, he looked back at me as blankly as if I had asked my Denison University first-year whether he knew the Occidental College fight song by heart (Of course, it’s, Occidental Fair!).

Right now, he’s planning on public service, but in the government arena as a Poli Sci major. While as a history nerd and non-profit advocacy vet I’m proud of that choice, getting him upped for Selective Service has really reinvigorated the aspirational ideal of AmeriCorps in me. As I mentioned in my last Iran post, when I was a student in Israel, I almost marveled as my friends packed-up the dorm room in order to do their tour in Gaza as part of their obligatory military service.

In a nation so polarized, could mandatory national service be a way to empower the next generation toward a sense of a common future? And could we afford such a thing?

The more I think about it, the more I think that we cannot afford not to.

I’ll leave that on a cliffhanger. In my next post, I’ll give you my idea of why, and how, I think it can and should be done, and how I got at least my Gen Z College Kid to sign off on it.

New Year’s Challenge—Integrated Coaching

For a few years, I was the chair of the Social Studies Advisory Committee for Arlington Public Schools (APS). One of my passion projects as a part of that group was the idea of integrated learning. Education, to my mind, has been developed in far too stovepiped a manner. Understanding Newtonian physics could be far enriched and broadened by understanding the life-and-times of the scientist who developed those concepts. Conversely, understanding the historic value of the industrial revolution could be far enhanced by understanding the machines that ushered in that age—experimenting and understanding the steam engine, for example. Life is an integrated exercise, so why shouldn’t education?

In this effort, I will admit I had little success. I was happy that some individual English and History teachers worked to combine reading lists, that was about as far as it went. Teachers and administrators I spoke with argued, and with some merit, that the established curriculums and testing requirements were too entrenched to permit significant integration, even at the elementary level. Teachers had way too much to learn about their own subject, and too many resources were available to give them deeper expertise on what they were teaching, to have time to work on another subject.

I was thinking of this as some 7,000 baseball coaches descended on Nashville for the four-day American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) national convention starting on January 2. I’ve never been (hoping to go next year as the convention is coming to DC), but all the coaches I know who have been absolutely love not only all the great presentations, but the chance to compare notes and talk shop with so many other passionate, knowledgeable baseball coaches around the country.

One of my go-to podcasts is the ABCA Calls from the Clubhouse, and their great resources only scratch the surface of the endless incredible resources available online, conventional old-school paper books like Heads Up Baseball—not to mention just swapping stories with the great coaches I work with. It’s more than enough information for this lifelong learner to last more than a lifetime.

But as I sift through all of the new signs, drills, and philosophies in the notebook I have to learn for my new gig at Falls Church High School, that quote from Coach Kyle Nelson from Cornerstone Coaching Academy I mentioned in my last post keeps popping in my head:

COACH NELSON: One of the things I am going to do this year at our school…is go to different practices. I’m going to go and watch a volleyball practice. I’m going to watch a football practice. I’m going to go watch a soccer practice. And I’m going to figure out what they’re doing that I like. Is there something they are doing that I can learn from and incorporate into what we’re doing. Because coaching is coaching, right? The sport is just the tool you are using to do it.(my emphasis)

At APS, the Social Studies department adopted a fantastic teachers’ curriculum called History Alive! It really delves into how to use history as a vessel to teach students critical thinking skills by using the key question so many primary school Social Studies classes so assiduously (and unfortunately) ignore—Why? And while most of the teachers who took advantage of the program were, as you’d expect, history teachers, there were a minority that took the course because they saw how those skills could port toward invigorating a love-of-learning beyond just that subject matter.

Coach Nelson’s comments brought me back to a time when my younger son was playing Rec basketball in 5th Grade. Coach Jones sent all the kids home from their first practice of the season with an article from Jay Bilas from of ESPN (pdf) on “Toughness” — a subject he immersed himself in enough that he ended up writing a book on the subject. As a nosy Dad/Coach, I couldn’t help but read it over myself. Indeed, I wrote a bit about this very subject a few years back.

Immediately I saw that while some of the specific instructions were hoops-specific (“Set a good screen” “Jump to the ball” among others), many of the lessons from “Talk on defense” to “Take responsibility for your teammates” were equally instructive for baseball. And, as I thought about it, even the subjects that seemed to be basketball-only really had cross-sport value underneath; from a good screen being about thinking about how making a teammate better makes you better, to preaching an aggressive style of play that encourages “new mistakes.”

I used the Bilas piece to create a “grinder’s guide” for my house and travel players, and even created “Grinder of the Week” t-shirts I gave out to players to wear to practices based on how they embodied the spirit of the guide.

For me as a coach, I think there was real value in that. In some ways, it’s almost too easy to hear from and follow subject-specific instruction. As I’ve inculcated the great mental instruction from Heads Up Baseball into my own coaching, there’s been a lot of “plug-and-play” — using the sport-specific terminology and instruction that the authors came up with. While that’s not a bad thing, it was the Bilas article that inspired me to make my own connections, and bring my own approach and experience into play.

So while I will certainly continue to dive into baseball-specific coaching instruction (indeed, I’m just cracking open The Mental Game of Baseball), I am challenging myself to read, watch, or listen to at least one non-baseball coaching or teaching resource each week. I’d love to hear suggestions from coaches and teachers, or others that work on leadership or other “portable skills” out there about their favorite resources, and I’m happy to continue to share mine, including non-baseball materials like Bilas’ article that really helped me.

So here’s to a new year of Integrated Coaching. Looking forward to getting better with all of you.

Batman, Bibi, and the Killing of Quassem

“Life only makes sense if you force it to.”

—Earth 99 Batman/Bruce Wayne in the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths

Maybe it’s just me, but this one feels different.

The US assassination of Quasem Suleimani, general and leader of the Qods Force of Iran, doesn’t feel like the usual tit-for-tat in our endless war. This would be like Iran directly assassinating our Secretary of State or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Several intelligence sources have noted that both the Bush and Obama administrations had Suleimani on their radar and had opportunities to conduct similar strikes. Both administrations decided not to move forward because of the potential for uncertain results.

However, one of those Bush Administration officials, Michael Doran, saw this move as a positive. He said in a “hot take” in the New York Times:

In Washington, the decision to kill Mr. Suleimani represents the final demise of Mr. Obama’s Middle East strategy, which sought to realign American interests with those of Iran. Mr. Obama’s search for a modus vivendi with Tehran never comported with the reality of the Islamic Republic’s fundamental character and regional ambitions. President Trump, by contrast, realized that Tehran’s goal was to replace America as the key player in the Middle East.

I personally disagree with Doran’s assessment of the Obama Administration’s efforts in the region. I see it more as a belief in multilateral pressure as the key component to moving adversarial powers in the region to policy directions more in line with stability and U.S. interests. Such a core belief had its successes (Iran nuclear deal) and failures (rise of Islamic State) much like the very similar global foreign policy successes (Oslo Accord) and failures (Rwandan Genocide) of the Clinton Administration.

So while I might see that part differently than Doran, one thing I completely agree with is that this action marks the final demise of the Obama (and Clinton) Middle East policy. And, at it’s core, I believe what that means is particularly tragic.

It means the death of hope.

And that’s where Batman comes in.

For while I don’t have Mr. Doran’s pedigree, I have a Nerd’s Eye View he lacks.

While I tried and just didn’t enjoy the soapy, millennial stylings of most of the CW’s “Arrowverse” shows, I have always come back for their crossovers, as to date they have brought back and referenced the “multiverse” of heroes beyond just the shows currently on. And this time, leaping off the seminal 1980s comic series Crisis on Infinite Earths, the writers decided to go all out, bringing in everything from Christopher Reeve’s iconic Superman to my Batman, the Batusi-dancing caped crusader of the 1960s.

But while perhaps the most satisfying part of the first three episodes has been Brandon Routh’s return as the successor to Christopher Reeve (Bryan Singer deprived us of a fantastic era of Superman with his poorly constructed film), what has been most striking was the iconic voice of Batman, Kevin Conroy, making his first live action appearance as the Broken Bat. For while we first think he will become the “Paragon of Courage” we quickly learn that, instead that what light was in this Dark Knight’s soul was snuffed out long ago.

If you’ve got a little over 4 minutes, here’s the segment in its bleak, glorious entirety:

https://youtu.be/62GpdErpjr4

In essence, this feels like what would have become of Batfleck in Batman vs. Superman had he succeeded in killing the last son of Krypton. Indeed that Batman says almost the same bleak line that I quoted to start this piece, before finding hope in Superman’s humanity as Clark seeks to save his earthling mother even at the cost of his own life.

But this Bruce instead saw his world as a bleak and endless battle; the only survival coming from forcing one’s will on reality. It is why he rejects Kate’s pleas to help save the universe. The end of everything is a release from misery:

KATE: Do you understand how many people, how many worlds, are going to die?

BRUCE: If they’re anything like this world, maybe that’s for the best.

KATE: How can you even say that?

BRUCE: Because there is no hope for this world.

For me, this is at the very core of why despite the failures of Clinton and Obama (for Clinton, I highly recommend the incredibly difficult, but entirely brilliant book We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch), I will take this world view of neocons like Doran, who tried to force the Middle East to make sense by attempting to export western democracy at the edge of a sword.

Indeed, I remember seeing hope spring in the Middle East when I was studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the summer of 1992. Yitzhak Rabin and the Labor Party had just come to power on the promise of a serious effort toward peace with the Palestinians. Israeli friends of mine who had to leave school to do their tour of duty in Gaza expressed a spark of hope that it could be their last. And, almost unanimously, they told me that I should be following their lead and voting for “Kleenton.” Time to take a chance on the man from Hope.

Perhaps somewhere else in the multiverse, Rabin avoided assassination at the hands of a Jewish zealot fed in part by the political machinations of one Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. I could go into detail, but if you want the full picture, I recommend Dan Ephron’s seminal Killing a King: The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and the Remaking of Israel. Or perhaps there’s an Earth where Rabin’s slaying inspired Yasser Arafat into seizing on Ehud Barak’s offer at the Camp David summit in 2000. But we don’t live on those worlds.

Instead, Israel’s hope was broken, and what replaced it was Netanyahu’s cynical efforts to bend the situation to his will, inclusive of the call-and-response of Hamas missile attacks on Israel and Israeli strikes aimed at high-level military operatives in Gaza. The Labor Party of Rabin has been reduced to an afterthought. In its stead are parties fighting over who can best manage dystopia.

In this fateful action the Trump Administration has taken, it smacks to me of that final surrender of hope. While it began with abandoning the nuclear agreement and the international consensus behind it, this action feels like Batman finally snapping the Joker’s neck. A decision to rule in hell rather than serve in heaven.

This morning, my wife retweeted something from Congressman Richard Dangler (D-WA) that I think should resonate with any parent:

I try to be a little less judgmental, but the worry rings true.

But despite how I feel, I still find some light. The world’s greatest superpower is still a democracy even in the midst of a growingly undemocratic world. Change is still possible.

As the multiverse collapsed, Brandon Routh’s Superman, flying from universe-to-universe trying to save what was left of humanity, returns to the heroes, slamming his fist on the floor having failed one now-destroyed reality. Lois Lane (from another universe, his Lois was murdered by The Joker) attempts to comfort him:

LOIS: Clark?

SUPERMAN: I couldn’t save them.

LOIS: Do you want to take a minute? Looks like you could use a break.

SUPERMAN: When I put this on—this crest—I made a promise, to keep fighting, no matter what.

LOIS: Hey, why’d you add black to it?

SUPERMAN: Because, Lois, even in the darkest times, hope cuts through. Hope is the light that gets us through the darkness. I must go back.

And in this moment of darkness, I will—no, I must—hope that maybe, just maybe, that we can Make America Super Again.

Coaching Kids—Are We Doing it Wrong?

My Arlington Babe Ruth T-Ball Kids. To them I’m “Da Commish”

So this 50-year-old is about to try a new trick, as 2020 will mark my first year coaching high school baseball. I’ll be Head Coach of the JV team at Falls Church High School (Go Jaguars!) and hoping the old axiom, “We all rise to the level of our own incompetence,” will not apply.

I think I’m a pretty good coach. I’ve been at it a while and have gotten more compliments than critiques. But, as I noted in my last post, I’ve found in mid-life that the more I learn, the less I know. This doesn’t mean that I think learning is stupid. But having so much confidence in what you know that you’re unwilling to have it challenged—or better yet, to challenge it yourself seems at best counterproductive.

That’s why as a coach, I consider myself a “lifelong learner.” I credit my past successes, but think it’s folly to believe that just because something worked in the past that it’s the right way to do things. And baseball is a particularly dangerous game in this regard due to the conservative (small c) nature of the game. We care about tradition, and the fact that we feel we can compare players from 25, 50, or even 100 years ago and see an even competition play out among them in the diamonds of our mind.

I have a lot of tools in my coaching education toolkit. For drive time, I’m a podcast guy, though not a religious listener to any one in particular. One of my faves is Coach Caliendo’s Baseball Outside the Box. I was intrigued by a particular episode called “Decision Making in Practice” as I’m always looking for new practice tips and liked the idea of something that seemed to include the mental side of the game. For having graduated from coaching kids to teens, one thing I can tell you without question is that coaching a 12-year-old and a 13-year-old is decidedly not the same.

Now, I have coached mostly boys, so I will leave my thoughts on girls and baseball for another post (I absolutely have thoughts on that one—get ready Little League as there is a black mark on their collective soul in that regard). But there is no doubt that each and every teenage player I’ve worked with is trying to listen to me while their Hormone Monster, and Shame Wizard bark constantly in their ear. Now add the sometimes invaluable, sometimes head-smacking chatter of their parents and teammates, and that’s a whole lot of internal and external chaos all on hand while trying to play a very difficult game at a high level.

So while I was listening as always for tips on new drills, this time thinking about things that might be more advanced for h school-level players, the guest on this particular podcast, Coach Kyle Nelson of Cornerstone Coaching Academy, made two comments that got me thinking in an entirely different direction.

The first comment was a shorter aside near the end of the program when Coach Caliendo asked him about what sort of things he is trying to do now to make himself better as a coach:

COACH NELSON: One of the things I am going to do this year at our school…is go to different practices. I’m going to go and watch a volleyball practice. I’m going to watch a football practice. I’m going to go watch a soccer practice. And I’m going to figure out what they’re doing that I like. Is there something they are doing that I can learn from and incorporate into what we’re doing. Because coaching is coaching, right? The sport is just the tool you are using to do it.(my emphasis)

As I’ve made quite clear on this blog, I’m a baseball guy. But this simple statement really hit me. In my interview with the Athletic Director at FCHS, I noted that my primary goal as a coach is to give my kids the life-skills that baseball brings, focus, handling failure, problem-solving, dedication to a goal beyond just your own, and devotion to a regimen, among others.

But this quote for the first time really reversed my whole prism on why I coach. I don’t coach because I love baseball. I love baseball because at heart, I’m a coach. Baseball happens to be my particular canvas of choice because I grew up with it and see the benefits the game brings to kids. But I know plenty of people who are equally as passionate, and for very similar reasons, about their sport of choice.

Coach Nelson’s comment also reframed an earlier conversation he was having, this time about one of my favorite things—coaching mistakes. For while I love to hear coaches talk about their successes, I find it just as valuable when they talk about their shortcomings. Goodness knows I’ve made plenty, and discarded everything from standardizing pitching motions to focusing on top-hand swinging. But Nelson’s comments I found more illuminating:

COACH NELSON: Yeah, that’s one of my biggest complaints about the way I used to teach and used to coach… I could get players to get good at hitting in practice, but it didn’t always translate into a game… Or I could get players really good at fielding ground balls off of the backhand when they knew it was coming.

But with baseball, with the exception of the pitcher, almost everything we do is a reaction. To give you an example of this, the next time you’re working with a kid to catch, and you’re working blocks, throw about four or five blocks in a row…and then throw one down the middle, and watch them drop to their knees and have it hit them in the chest.

What you realize is, is that you’re working the mechanics of blocking, but one of the most important parts of blocking is recognizing the pitch that needs to be blocked and to beat it there… You’re not using that mechanism at all when you are simply blocking 10 pitches in a row. So I would say that happened about seven or either years ago when I looked at our practices and said, “We need to get more decision making into our practice before performing a skill.”

We need to have them make a decision when they’re hitting. They’re not just going to come in the cage and swing at the first eight pitches that we throw. We throw balls in batting practice on purpose. We throw bad pitches on purpose, because if they don’t work on pitch selection in practice, when are they ever going to work on pitch selection? Well, that will be in the game, and if they’re not very good at it, and coaches are going to get upset with them swinging at pitches above their hands, or swinging at balls outside… But if you allow them to get away with that in practice, you’ve really fed the problem.

For infielders, we’ll work “Here’s ground balls at you, here’s ground balls to your forehand, here’s ground balls to your backhand.” They don’t need to read the ball and make a decision on what kind of a movement they need to make.

That to me was seven or eight years ago. I really made that change because I felt like I wasn’t preparing guys for what they actually were going to see. I was preparing them to be really good in practice, but not really good in the game.

COACH COLLANGELO: You know what? Makes 100% sense. And I’ve got to believe that coaches in the U.S. and around the world at all levels, especially at the younger levels, because I’ve said on the show many times we’ve got to make sure that our coaches working with the younger levels, some of them happen to be volunteers, some are not because there are now travel teams running young teams so they’re professionals in the game. A lot of them are guys who study the game. I’m hoping more and more they are taking this philosophy because it’s the only way I see the game getting better.

Kids get a lot better and have more fun because they get to make decisions… Practice is a lot more fun. They get better…

While this is great advice on its surface, including more game-like decision making in practices to get them more prepared for game action, this led me a step further. If, “coaching is coaching,” then why practice, why play games, if we’re not using them to instill the life lessons the game allows us to bring to the players? Are we so invested in the granularity of our particular sport that we as coaches miss opportunities to bring something more valuable to our kids?

I now think so.

After happening by this ESPN piece on how Evan Langoria went from an unrecruited high school player to a Major League star by focusing on his mental approach to the game, I became really intrigued with the “coachability” of the mental side of the game. I bought and read Heads Up Baseball 2.0 written by Tom Hanson and the late Ken Ravizza, both noted gurus of the mental game (Ravizza is prominently featured in the Langoria piece).

I’ll give a full review of this book in my next post (short review—it’s tremendous, all baseball coaches should have one and I think it has value for all sports coaches and, I think educations and parents as well), but the one major ding I had on it—at least at first—was the fact that it is very redundant. Their method, RAMP-C (Responsibility, Awareness, Mission, Preparation—Compete!) is repeated over-and-over in both name and image, and the specific instruction they have for offense, defense, and pitching is so similar that by the end I felt it almost felt like filler.

But then it struck me—the book is written with the same repetition that the authors are asking of the players and coaches; developing a muscle memory with the material that would make it routine. And as I worked with my teen players on the RAMP-C method, I did note that sometimes players would chafe at the repetitive nature of this approach. They understood the value, but it was clear their Hormone Monster was also saying, “Shut the hell up and let me go play, Coach Jackass!”

But while teens might chafe at redundancy, young children eat it up. As this Psychology Today article so perfectly puts it, young children want and need repetition to learn. What might be excruciatingly annoying to an adult (see my personal version of hell listening to The Wiggles “Fruit Salad” song for the 500th time), it is not only desired, but required for a kid.

And yet, while the mental side of the game is really the portable skill that 99% of player will take with them into their adult life, and the vast majority of youth players will never play high school ball (not to mention about 0.5% of all high schoolers will ever play pro ball), I now realize we are waiting too long to focus on the mental skills with our children. Given the rising tide of childhood and teen anxiety and depression, it makes that much more sense that we reimagine sports as a classroom teaching support skills for mental health and strength.

But our shortcomings in this regard are only natural. Most coaches in the 5-9u levels are volunteer parents, just like I was. They are good-hearted amateurs looking to teach the game “right” and focus on the fundamentals; in the case of baseball it’s hitting, throwing, fielding, and running. But what Heads Up Baseball shows is that it is just as easy, and far more valuable in the long run, to teach them how to use routine to help command focus, or how to use a cleansing or energizing breath to take control of your own emotions, among many other life lessons.

So, in my usual long-winded fashion, I have come to the realization that we’re leaving too much on the table for our kids to start focusing on the mental side of the game when they’re older. For my sport, I believe that Little League, Babe Ruth, and, yes, the proliferate of travel teams that in many cases are replacing league play (much to my dismay) need to start integrating the RAMP-C or other methods into the game at the youngest levels, when kids are most responsive to repetition and routine. There are ways to make these methods fun and age-appropriate (we actually use some in the “Game & Derby”(pdf) system I’ve developed for Arlington Babe Ruth (I’ll get to that post, too).

For if you teach a kid to swing, s/he’ll hit for a decade, maybe two. But teach a kid to compete, and s/he’ll compete for a lifetime.

A Useful Tool

So here I am on my fancy new iPad my sister gave me for my big Five-O. The last two iPads were victims of my Forgetful Forties—both sacrificed to the travel gods when placed hurriedly in airplane seat pockets while coordinating the family exodus.

The nice thing about a new device—and a new decade—is that it gives me a chance to both start fresh and look back. I always love when cognitive dissonance comes into play—it’s such a wonderfully human trait. After all, every person has an inalienable right to hypocrisy.

As far as starting fresh is concerned, my mid-century tech boost enables me to bid farewell to the literally dozens of failed blog posts, op/eds, and first chapters that litter my old PC. Indeed, I’m really hoping this missive doesn’t wind up in the same virtual dust heap as all those others—it will at least prove that something is different this time. For my 40s featured mostly a point/counter-point that started with some point, and countered with my realization that I really wasn’t making my point particularly well.

The 40s me simply hated the sound of my own voice.

Indeed, I recently made this point to my great college friends in life in a 50th birthday bash weekend in LA. 30 years after wandering as boys into Eagle Rock, California, Thom, Dan, and I rounded back to see the decay, gentrification, and renewal in both our old stomping ground and ourselves. To quote one of Thom and my favorite pop culture characters—FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper—such trips are invariably both, “wondrous and strange.”

Dan became a business and marketing expert, though his true profession is people, as it was even back in school. His interest in culture and his natural ease enabled him to build a career that for years took him hopping all over the globe, mostly in Asia. Even so, he and I always had a small pang of regret that we never tried our hand at following Occidental College legend Terry Gilliam in the art of satirical comedy.

Both caustic and quick, Dan and I found pleasure at pushing at pillars we thought needed toppling. Our most memorable campus moment came when we decided that the Oxy Glee Club’s annual Valentines Day foray—going into classes and serenading a student at a lover’s behest—needed a counter. Dan and I felt that it unfairly left out the angry and alone among us, and used our friend Thom as a willing rube to regale his class with a thrilling rendition of everyone’s favorite tune, “I Hate You, You Dirty Sonofabitch!”

Ah, the college comedy stylings of Dan & Scott…

Unlike we Python wannabes, our accomplice Thom did decide to make a career in comedy. He’s written and directed some fantastically funny short films, and with representation now seems on the verge of his long-deserved breakout moment. As we sat in the hotel drinking in every moment together (as well as some plain-old drinking), I gathered a bit of bravery to expose some of my vulnerability.

“So do you ever get frustrated with what you write?” I queried.

“Of course!” Thom responded. “Sometimes I just can’t find the right line, the right joke, and I’ll just put, ‘think of something funny here’ as a placeholder.”

I envied his ability to simply push on over that obstacle. But I selfishly wanted to get more to the heart of my own issue.

“But do you ever look down at the page, and just find yourself sick-and-tired of your own writing? Do you ever just dislike your own voice?”

Thom’s response was almost instantaneous, almost reflexive.

“Oh, that’s just ‘imposter syndrome.’ You can’t let that creep in.”

Our conversation moved on, but my thoughts dwelled on the apparent ease in which he was able to dismiss what for me as a writer is at my core. Indeed, even as I write this, I feel both verbose and whiny.

But my new iPad compels me forward.

So I will punch the keys.

I can see that for Thom, imposter syndrome might be the correct diagnosis for such a malady. But I’m not so sure that applies to me. Not everyone is a good writer—and there are many out there who think they have talent, but simply do not. Why can’t my poor self-review be honest, rather than simple self-loathing?

People who like you, love you, root for you are oft unflinching in their support; for your happiness is their happiness. That’s not selfish—at least not in a bad way. It’s human nature—a symbiotic circle of giving and reciprocity. And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make, as a fabulous set of four philosophers once crooned.

I understand this as a husband and father. My greatest moments of joy and satisfaction lie in knowing my family is thriving. My greatest fears are their struggles. My greatest failures are their failures. I have invested my entirety. And so it is only natural to want a return.

The same goes for my, “relentless optimism” as a coach. I simply do not have it in me not to invest in the kids I work with. To simply give them Xes and Os defeats the purpose of teaching the game. And while I’ve come to understand that my own style needs to change with both age group and the particular player, I cannot distance myself from every pitch, swing, and throw my players take. It’s probably not healthy, but it’s true.

But while I understand that selfish altruism (there’s fun with cognitive dissonance again!), the flip side of that comes with it the pressure to measure up. In my personal case, it’s the pressure that I think comes from everyone who wants you to see yourself as positively as they see you. If they think you are awesome, and you don’t think you are awesome, something surely must be wrong with you. It must be imposter syndrome. It must be depression. You must need therapy, Prozac, something so you can see what they see.

As a teen, my mother put me on anti-depressants, and everyone just loved how happy I was. But I didn’t feel like they were helping me. It felt more like they were replacing me. I felt like I was feeling someone else’s feelings. Like I was the me others wanted to see.

I stopped taking those medications, and some 35 years later with an incredible wife and two fantastic boys, I’ve never regretted the decision to be me; warts and all.

This is not to say I don’t think medication is a bad thing in itself for mental health. It is a crucial component for many and I don’t begrudge anyone that choice. But for me, it was a moment best captured by James T. Kirk in one of the fleeting moments of quality from the ill-fated Star Trek V. When the antagonist Sybok attempted to enlist him as a follower by releasing him from his greatest mental anguish, he refused, saying, “I want my pain. I need my pain!”

And here you thought you’d escape an arcane pop-culture reference. Wrong blog.

In my 20s, that pain was tempered with the endless, impetuous possibilities of youth.

In my 30s, that pain was put to use with empathy, passion, and love to build a family and career.

In my 40s, that pain overwhelmed me with the realization that the endless, impetuous possibilities of youth had given way to the understanding that inevitably comes to most—that I was not special. My mark would be local—not global. I was good at my job, but so would the person taking my job after me, and the next. That what I contributed might be of value, but it certainly wasn’t novel. Indeed, “Midlife Crisis” isn’t a stereotype for nothing.

Here in the infancy of my 50s, my pain has dulled into a sort of resignation—no—an understanding is perhaps the better term. I am loved and lucky. I have made an overall positive impact on the lives of the people closest to me, and of some others around me. I will never become a best-selling author or write the bill that changes the world. I understand now better than I ever did before that the more you learn, the less you truly know. But I see that what I have become still has its utility.

My pain and I are, at last, partners.

I am, finally, a useful tool.

And, at least right now, that is enough.

The Imitation Game

We’ve all done it.  Picked up a pool noodle, started some heavy breathing that in any other case might seem a little pervy, and thundered those immortal (if slightly incorrect) words, “Luke, I am your father.”  Or perhaps you caught yourself with a hairbrush and a mirror, belting out your favorite tune as if you were preening in front of thousands of fawning fans.

Imitating our idols, heroes, and even that occasional iconic villain is a universal part of the human experience.  Putting on Daddy’s over-sized coat or Mom’s heels is our entry portal into the world of your imagination.  And triggering that imagination, in all its forms, is a vital part of making things fun.

Sometimes, fun is something that I think coaches forget about too quickly.  I know that I have often gotten myself caught in the, “We need to get all these boring reps in and when we’re done we’ll scrimmage” work/reward trap.  As alternative, we lean on making the repetition into competition.  Turning bunting drills into a contest for best balls or rewarding the win to the group with the most cutoff men hit.

While I deeply believe that increasing competition orientation in drill work is a crucial element in keeping young players focused, motivated, and engaged, it doesn’t take advantage of that even more fundamental part of the human experience—creativity.  That’s where imitation comes in.

Indeed, over the years, I’ve seen boys step up to the plate and do their best to waggle, stride, and swing just like their Major League icons.  Here in the D.C. area, the Bryce Harper is iconic and almost universal (for now).  My older boy used to love to figure out how Travis d’Arnaud could be on time with the bat head pointed straight at the pitcher.  Indeed, I used to do the same trying to figure out Gary Sheffield.

But when it comes to teaching, we coaches will often use video to show kids how the big guys do it, but we’ll often shy away from actually telling our kids to actually try to imitate the pros.  As we know, everyone’s swing is different, and while the MLB players are great examples, they can do things that your average 11-year-old can’t.

This fall, I decided to do something different.  I decided that each week, we’d go out and actually imitate a particular player.  I let my kids make suggestions, then I went and watched video and decided on the player that might teach a particular lesson well.  My kids loved to debate with each other, try to one-up their teammate with an arcane suggestion, or, of course, as one of my kids did, suggest Max Scherzer every week just to get under this Mets fan’s skin.

Now, I know every parent/coach or coach/parent out there is already thinking about the unmitigated disaster of having nine kids all trying to ape a big leaguer’s swing.  I mean, every swing is different, and if you have kids trying to do everything different, all you’ll do is give them brand new bad habits to worry about.

So here’s the wrinkle.  Rather than focus on the entire swing, we picked out one particular component of that player’s swing to work on.  This allowed us to break down the swing into component parts, and push them out of their comfort zone in digestible bits.

In case you’re interested, due to lots of rain, we ended up with 6 sessions.  Here’s how they broke down:

• Ben Zobrist: Hand position and load
• Chris Carpenter: Shoulder rotation
• Daniel Murphy: Front foot movement
• Mookie Betts: Core engagement
• JD Martinez: Arm movement
• Tony Gwynn: Body momentum and balanced landing

In each case, for some guys it was an easy transition.  If a player happened to be a “tight hands” hitter like Zobrist is, there wasn’t much transition.  But for my “hand casters” – of which I have many – it was really, really different.

When we worked Zobrist off the tee, holding our hands tight against our body and keeping them there throughout the swing the complaints were legion.

“This feels funny!”

“It doesn’t feel right!”

“I can’t do it!”

“You’re killing my swing, coach!”

And I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t killing their swing.  But as they swung and struggled, I saw them working at it, laughing at each other (and themselves) when they messed up, and getting psyched when they “Zobristed one up.”  I think the fact that they were not using “their own swing” but instead imagining themselves as someone else allowed them to push out of their comfort zone, try something totally new, fail, and be okay with that.  Another plus of getting the kids out of their own skin.

At the end of the tee period, I told all the kids to “go back to their normal swing.”  In the Zobrist case, I moved the tee to the extreme inside corner.  And what I saw excited me.  Most of my casters took one or two “normal” swings and jammed themselves.  Then, on their own, I saw them move their hands in do the “shake-and-rake” prep move, and THWACK, manage to barrel one up.

As coaches, I think we sometimes get caught up in a little too much self-love for our own expertise.  We know each player’s swing is different and has different needs.  But we sometimes forget that young players’ swings are still evolving, and tweaking what’s there may not be as productive for them long term as opening them up to different options and let them find something new that clicks with them.

To borrow form old angler wisdom:

Coach a kid’s swing, he’ll hit better for a season.

Teach a kid to coach his own swing, and he’ll hit better for a career.

CoachN’s Preseason Tips: Snitchball

Here in Arlington, we’ve had a baseball blessing.  George Washington University has combined forces with the county to create the GW baseball team’s home park just a 15-minute drive from home.  Better yet, when the Colonials aren’t using the field, our boys get to go out and play.  This not only gives all the High School teams and the players playing house ball in Senior Babe Ruth access to a big-time ballpark, but the entire field, save the pitcher’s mound, is artificial turf.

Now, I hear all you baseball purists saying, “Turf?  What an abomination to baseball!”  Memories abound of balls bouncing and skidding off the thin green excuse for fake grass in the Astrodome, or poor Andre Dawson handing the Cubs a blank check just to get his aching knees off the carpet in Montreal.  But while it still ain’t grass, turf has come a long way in creating a reasonable baseball experience rather than something akin to playing on something between a tennis court and a trampoline.

Best of all, turf stops rainouts!  I can personally attest to this as I set up a game this past summer for the Greater Washington and Northern Virginia Maccabi teams (I coached the latter) to play on the GW field at Barcroft Park.  Even after a virtual hailstorm came down upon us, in 20 minutes, we were able to play.  I’m delighted that after a lot of lobbying, our youth players will be getting their first turf field come fall.  Even for practices, it is a huge advantage.

There is, however, one place where Turf does no favors for a ballplayer—the infield.  And it may not be for the reason you expect.  One thing I tell my youth players is that in some ways, baseball is harder for them then their heroes in the Majors.  With 50,000 screaming fans, crowd noise is just that, noise.  But with 30 or so folks watching, you can hear every individual voice loud-and-clear, be it your school buddy on the other team giving you grief, or your Mom yelling for you to stop pulling your head.

Another way is on the field.  MLB fields are almost always perfectly manicured.  Millions of dollars on premium soil, grass, and drainage make the days of lumpy red Georgia clay divots at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium and playing through puddles at Shea a thing of the past.  The game is hard enough as it is to play even on the most perfect field, after all.

Of course, turf takes care of even the marginal issues on a natural field, like a ball hitting the seam between the dirt and grass.  And so, what I’ve seen in my time watching kids play at Barcroft is that those who play there too much will often struggle once they get back on a grass field.  They become a bit lazy, assuming the genuine hop instead of really looking to field the ball with soft hands and funnel it back into the middle of their body.

Funneling is one of Perry Hill’s “6F” fielding system.  “Bone” as he is known is the Miami Marlins infield coach, and was the 2017 MLB defensive coach of the year.  I didn’t know anything about Hill until I happened on the American Baseball Coach Association (ABCA) podcast Calls from the Clubhouse.  His baseline system – Feet, Field, Funnel, Footwork, Fire, Follow – had segments of much I had taught over the years, but in a form that anyone from my 11-year-old nephew to Gold Glove winner Dee Gordon could understand, with each F being a trigger to a specific skill set.

The “Funnel” F is one that I often have to teach from scratch.  Using both hands to bring the ball to the middle of your body is something that simply doesn’t come naturally for most players.  Indeed, when I did an early round of infield work a couple of weeks ago with my 11u travel kids, not a single one of them was doing it.  They were either over-charging the ball and had their hands way out front, or were trying to field the ball right between their legs.

Neither way prepares them the right way, as controlled aggression is the key to good fundamental defense.  But even with the 6F system in hand, I still felt I needed to find a way to get my kids to understand the nuance of finding that sweet spot between hard charging and soft hands.

And so while I am always looking to learn from the baseball experts on the techniques of baseball, I still tend to borrow from the world of pure imagination when it comes to creating the right mental approach.

During last week’s practice, I showed them this picture before we hit the court (indoor practice still for us):

“Can someone tell me what this is?” I asked

Hands jabbed in the air.

“Oh, a snitch!” most responded immediately (and enthusiastically—Potter’s popularity endures).

“And why would I be showing you a snitch before we go field grounders?”

Hands fell.

They pondered, and JoJo queried, “Because they’re hard to catch?”

“Good!” I boomed.  “You’re on the right track.  But go a little farther.  Does a snitch actually want to be caught?”

“No!  It tries to get away,” replied Christian.

“Exactly,” I stressed.  “Now, clearly a baseball isn’t a snitch, but it’s a lot closer than you think.  For instance, is a baseball round?”

Most nodded, but not assuredly.  They were starting to catch on to the fact that my obvious questions rarely have obvious answers.

“It may look round, but what about these?” I said, pointing to the raised red stitches.

“Yeah, I guess it’s only kind-of round,” replied Matt.

“Yep.  And how about the field?  Is it perfectly flat like, say, the basketball court we’re about to use for practice?”

“No!” Connor chimed.  “It’s got grass and dirt and all kinds of bumps!”

“And holes, and rocks, and divots in the grass” continuing Connor’s thought.  “Indeed, the fields you play on are actually harder than the ones the big leaguers play on, right?”

“Yeah!  Some are a nightmare,” Matt said, sounding more movie-critic than ballplayer.

“So while a baseball may not be alive like a snitch, it sure can act that way.  So the best way to play defense is to think of the ball as a snitch.  Once it comes off the bat, assume it doesn’t want to be caught.  Sometimes that means being aggressive and getting it before it takes a funny hop.  Sometimes it means giving ground as it tries to whiz by you.  But it always means you’ve got to focus on the ball and expect the unexpected.”

As I looked at the group, I could see the lightbulbs going off.  And I think perhaps my favorite part of coaching is coming up with a way for kids to expand the way they think about the game.  The mind controls the body, so those lightbulb moments seem to really stick and translate to the field.

But this is baseball, not Jeopardy, so making sure the concept translates physically is vital.  And I had nary a magic snitch in sight.

But I did have one of these:

“While we’re practicing indoors,” I said, flipping the odd, yellow object in my hand, “we’re going to challenge you to expect the unexpected.  Some call this a training ball.  But I call it a snitchball.”

“I’ve seen those!” said Sam.  “Those things go crazy!”

“Yep.  And you’re going to have to work together to control the crazy if you are going to get your pull from the Bag of Crap.”

We lined them up in two lines facing each other, about 30 feet apart.  Both players would hop over the cone in front of them into ready position (that’s the “Feet” F) and one would roll the snitchball to the other.  As long as the ball stayed in front of them, it would count as a catch.  Back and forth they would go until they reached 10 in a row.

They didn’t come close.

After frustration clearly set in, I stopped them.

“Okay, okay, take a break.  Why are you having so much trouble?”

“Because it’s impossible!” Matt replied despondently.  There were multiple nods in agreement.

“Because people are throwing it too hard!” Logan added.

“Ah!  Thank you, Wolverine!” I interjected.  “Matty, this certainly isn’t impossible, and I could make it easier by just having the coaches roll the balls to you.  I know these well and how to minimize the bad hops.”

“Could you?” begged Sam.

“Nope.”

“AWWWW…yeah!” the chorus responded, correcting themselves in midstream as they belched my least favorite sound.

“I won’t do that because part of this is learning how to win is how to work together.  No one is talking to each other right now.  No one told Matt he was throwing too hard.  No one gave Connor a pat on the back for a good funnel on a tough hop.  You’ve got to figure this out for yourselves.”

Now, I’d like to tell you they were a changed group, and promptly won the game.  But they were still too quiet.  Matty was just having too much fun flinging.  There was more complaining than cheering.

And they didn’t win.

But they did get better.

And that’s all I’m looking for as a coach.

When we finally got outside for our first practice the next week, I took a Ziploc out of the Bag of Crap, and carefully constructed a plastic replica of the golden snitch, wings and all.

“From here on in, every time we go out to play defense, every player must touch the snitch.”

There wasn’t a single, “why?” in the bunch.  Every player promptly went over, tapped the plastic, and headed out to the field.  Indeed, they’ve inculcated it so much that they blamed me for a tough inning because I forgot it in the car for the second game of our preseason tournament.

Baseball is such a difficult and complex sport that we coaches often get caught too caught up in building the body rather than the mind.  But finding techniques that build both is the real magic that builds ballplayers.

And you don’t even need to ride a broom.