How about a threesome?

Survived another triathlon today. The fairport Harbor 16th annual. I didn't place, but I did register a personal best time!

That's me there - looking at the camera with the red cap on

As You can see - the water was invigorating and I am so looking forward

to the bike portion of the race

This is the "transistion" area.

I'm getting ready to put on my number and jump on my bike.

Returning on the bike.

Off the bike - now it's time to hit the streets

End of the run!

Proof that some folks really did finish after me.

My dad, me and my son Frank.

Stick 'Em Up

It has been awhile since I made a blog entry from an airport lounge. Up at 3am today to catch a 6 am flight from Milwaukee to Cleveland so I can make a 1pm speaking gig at Ashland College.

Sara and I have spent the last three days in Wisconsin working with teachers at the Walloon literacy Institute. The conference is run by our professional book publisher Heinemann. A professional book is what the teacher instructional guides we write are called in the publishing world – the straight up poetry collections would be known as a trade book.

This is probably our favorite conference, all of the presenters are fellow authors from Heinemann and it really is like a family. Our host and resident bigwig is Harvey “Smokey” Daniels – a real heavyweight in the educational theory arena and also on of the most genuinely nice people one could ever hope to know.

So about 25 or so of us presenters and upwards of 250 teachers converged on Lake Lawn Lodge in the Geneva Lake region of Wisconsin don’t ya know. Here we plotted on ways to actually teach and reach students while still jumping through the hoops that have been set up by the policies which make up No Child Left Behind. For those of you out of the loop on national education policy NCLB has proven to be nothing more than a boondoggle for administration cronies to peddle millions of dollars worth of mandatory educational programs which have recently been proven to be ineffective.

Now, these programs and other foofaw that have been foisted on our schools – mainly our poorer inner city schools (private schools don’t have to follow the NCLB guidelines, and this is a subject that I could veer off and vent about but I’ll spare you for the moment) don’t work because they were never vetted, never tested, were put together not by teachers but by text book corporations whose board members are on the government panel that dictated the policies to be set by NCLB. Sound a bit crazy, sound a bit like conflict of interest sound a bit like the wolf guarding the henhouse? If you agree you’re not alone, the government accounting office said basically the same thing.

So, we have a bunch of this administration’s goons – did I mention Neil Bush, W’s brother, is on the board of one of the biggest companies - perpetrating the injection of these non-working programs into our public schools raking in literally billions and billions of dollars. They’ve been at this for almost eight years now, wringing taxpayer cash from our kid’s schools as if they were bar rags. Now – after it is found out that the programs the schools were told they HAD to use don’t work one would think that the companies who shackled our teachers with these useless conglomerations of standardized tests, software and talking cows (there actually is a talking cow) would be held accountable wouldn’t you?

Hah! Fat Chance! You know what happens? These ratfinks get to pocket all the cash they have made selling non-productive programming to the schools AND because the programs didn’t work congress now cuts funding to the schools by the amount that was spent on the defective programming. As one of the Keynote speakers at Walloon Stephanie Harvey said, the schools still need the money, it wasn’t their fault it they were forced to spend it on stuff that didn’t work, stuff they had no option of refusing – but now they are the ones that suffer while the fat cats walk away counting their wads.

Just another example of how this crew attached to the Whitehouse has emptied the treasury – we’ve been the witness to the best burglary in history and they are getting away with it.

How’s that for an early morning rant?

There may be hope though - tell your legislature to support this document:

http://www.boldapproach.org/statement.html

It may be a little too sane for our government - but who knows?

Anarchy on the jogging path

Okay – my first triathlon of the season is a week and a half away. I’m feeling pretty good about my preparations this year. That’s one dubious benefit of a slowing economy – it gives one more time for training. Fortunately running and biking around the streets of beautiful Mentor Ohio and swimming in Lake Erie don’t cost anything. Unfortunately, entering races does cost. I was hoping to run at least 4 races this year but budgetary constraints have limited me to three, one in Fairport Harbor on the 27th of July, August 3rd in downtown Cleveland and August 24 in Lorain. I’ve done Fairport and Lorain before it’ll be my first go at the downtown race.

I’ve increased my running distance this year upwards of ten mile stints once a week with shorter runs, biking and swimming mixed in. I’ve decided to concentrate on the running portion this year since it is my weakest leg in the race. (I was also challenged to compete in a 10 mile run by a family member who has since quit training – you know who you are) So with a special emphasis on this part of my training regiment I have come to the conclusion that I am really really slow. I have shaved off a couple minutes from my 5K time – but anyone that knows anything about running knows that if you’re taking minutes off a 5K time – you are moving really really slow.

Anyway, I use an IPod when I run and the music I listen to is the music of my snotty punk youth: Angry Samoans, The Sex Pistols, Social Distortion, The Ramones, Iggy and the Butthole Surfers to name a few. The pace is nice and high and the lyrics are so inspirational, “I guess I’m gonna have to tell’em – that I got no cerebellum…” I lumber down the road (being over 200 lbs I am in the Clydesdale division) pounding my feet into the pavement in time with the boot step march back beating Holiday in the Sun by the pistols.

And I wonder.

How many more middle aged bygone punks out there popping glucosomine, walking on treadmills, figuratively and literally, the music of our youth blaring in our white ear buds extolling us to be anarchist, to smash it up to realize that there is no future? Did David Thomas ever envision forty-somethings jogging to Non-Alignment Pact, was the Dead Boys’ Sonic Transducer meant to accompany a cardio workout? Then we toss our gym bag into the back of the car and drive home to cut the grass.

I don’t think of this transformation as selling out, jeez if it was selling out shouldn’t I have something to show for the effort other than a car payment and shin splints? In fact, I think that maybe this whole triathlon thing is a way for me to stay on the fringes of society without sustaining the rug burns on my forehead received in a mosh pit. Tell people you run triathlons and they look at you a lot like they do the kid with the green Mohawk outside the food court at the mall.

So rather than shaving my head and wearing leather I squeeze into spandex bike shorts which in itself assures that I remain pretty anti-social.

Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear

So far this summer two writing and performance conferences where I was scheduled to present have been cancelled. The drag that gasoline prices have put on the economy added to the general malaise of a financial system bifurcating into hard-lined camps of haves and have-nots is hitting quite a few of the folks I know pretty hard. Add the subprime swindle waltz and the rising food price tango to this dance card and things are looking a bit bleak and unfortunately, I think it’ll be a few more years after this current crop of robber barons blow office before anything gets noticeably better. Not everyone is suffering though and silver lining like a few of the folks benefiting from this are not fat cat oil execs or bankers.

Bill, the owner of Blue Sky Bicycle on E185th Street here on the north coast told us business is booming. He’s selling 9-10 bikes a week and forgetting to close on Wednesdays as advertised. We biked over there yesterday, 26 miles round trip to talk about upgrading the wheels on my bike and to get some tuning done to Sara’s road bike (the latter actually squinted and winced when I brought it out into the sunlight from the garage where it had been hanging like a hibernating fruit bat– the bike not Sara, she has sunglasses.)

Bill’s a good guy – he takes time to talk with ya and he gives just as much attention to the person buying a new bike from him as to the kid whose water bottle bracket has fallen off the bike he bought at Wal-Mart. We discussed some option for new wheels for my road bike (god knows I can’t afford a new bike now) and had some adjustments made to Sara’s making it a bit more comfortable for her so maybe this one’ll get as much attention as her market bike now.

Speaking of attention.

It is amazing how stupid people driving cars can act when they encounter a bicyclist. Like some schoolyard bully held back three grades so they are bigger than everyone else on the playground - these Neanderthals wrapped in steel and glass act as if it is a personal affront that they have to share the road. So here are my top 5 examples of motorists acting like morons when coming upon a bicyclist:

1) Hooting, shouting, honking their horn in order to scare the feces out of the rider. What’s the point? You were able to frighten a person on a twenty five pound bicycle by making a loud noise from your two ton rolling pollution machine. Why not make a surprise appearance at a day care center dressed as a zombie?

2) Tailing a rider refusing to pass even though you have had a dozen opportunities. This one pisses me off big time. When being passed by a car I will hug the side of the road, muscles tense waiting waiting waiting - for the automobile to overtake me. I am existing in a proverbial second shoe to drop moment of suspense. Prolonging the passing just allows more time for something to go wrong – as soon as it’s safe, go around idiot.

3) And when you pass – give a little room. A foot or two will do – you don’t have to get all the way over in the other lane, that’s a bit insulting – like you expect me to topple over and slide with the speed of an air hockey puck in front of you. Even so, I guess taking the overly exaggerated swerve to avoid me is better than clipping me with your passenger side door mirror “Miss Sears Driving School Student Driver”. Likewise – if you pass a cyclist and are making a right hand turn – check that the cyclist is not right behind you. I’ve been run off the road a half dozen times by folks making right hand turns. I guess I could suggest that people use their turn signals then again I could also suggest that bush babies fly out my butt.

4) Any good cyclist will obey traffic signals (most of the time). I stop at traffic signals and can make rights on red too so leave a bit of room over there when you come to a stoplight when I am coming up behind you. I’ve seen many drivers pull as far over to the right as they can at traffic lights in order to keep that damn spandex wearing monkey from pulling even with them instead of taking his rightful position stuck directly behind a noxious exhaust pipe. I think you’re gonna beat me off the line Earnhardt, lighten up a bit. You may not know it but a lot of us riders out here are wearing shoes that actually attach to the pedals with spring loaded latches – this makes it a bit of a process for me to free my feet. That sudden swerve you just made to keep me from pulling up beside you could very well send me into a ditch.

5) Finally, relax. Share the road a bit. The thirty seconds added to your trip because of me out on my bike isn’t gonna make any difference. Hell the fact that I’m going to the store on my bike is having a positive effect supply and demand wise on the gas you’re pouring into your Hummer. Like Jackie Gleason said in The Hustler – “You owe me money!”

If the pickup in business over at Bill’s bike shop there on 185th is any indication – chances are you are going to be seeing a few more bikes on the road these coming months. Subsequently, a lot of these riders are going to be new – give ‘em a chance willya?

Oh yeah, don’t be surprised when, after she shouts from your open window trying to scare me as you pass, I catch up with you at the next light and squirt the rest of the contents of my sticky sports drink filled bottle all over your black lipsticked Goth wanna-be tart in the passenger seat of your Kia Rio.

What the hell was that?

Made a quick trip to Miami U of Ohio yesterday for a drive by gig with Sara.

We saw this on the way home halfway between Dayton and Columbus:

At first it was tough to see what it was - but whatever it was it was moving pretty quick - 80-85 mph and darting around traffic like a waterbug.

Once we got close enouigh I snapped a pic of our Mad Max impersonator with my cell phone.

And finally we left him behind as we pulled off to get some coffee!

Rock on...

Holly Hobnobbing

This past week I served on a panel judging a writing contest at American Greetings – the greeting card company headquartered here in Cleveland. Along with me were the executive director of The Lit – Cleveland’s Literary Center and the head of the Cleveland Institute of Art’s creative writing department.

The AG campus was fairly massive with its own Starbucks centered in an indoor courtyard. An empire built on the backs, blood and sweat of Ziggy, Holly Hobbie, Strawberry Shortcake and the duplicitously fluorescent colored Care Bears. Even so, everyone I met there seemed very nice and went to great efforts to see that we felt appreciated. The rumors of forced sing-alongs and oompah loompah-like chorus line productions ending in cupcake feeding frenzies are totally false. Our payment for the three and a half hour task were hundred dollar gift certificates to a hoity-toity steakhouse – one of those places where they have a meat parade at your tableside so you can pick out your cut. There was also a visual arts component to the contest – but those judges were long gone when we finished perusing our entries.

The works we read ranged in quality but those we chose as winners were good as or better than anything I’ve seen in lit journals. To boot, the company was coming up off some real scratch – we had $2500.00 smackers to divide amongst the winners in any way we deemed fit.

Mind you though, any of this is totally subjective. Three different judges may have come up with different choices – maybe not for the overall winner – but once you get past the one or two who immediately rise above, those who just make or miss the cut are a lot more idiosyncratic. There was even some dealing going on “you think they should be in – well then how about adding this one then…”

Such is the case with all contests, literary journals, etc. So many times inclusion boils down to the cliché of who you know as much as what you know. How many academics’ publishing credits are buoyed by their works being assigned to classes taught by their cronies? I know I have benefited by my connections with people on editorial boards. Any little nudge that gets your work out of the slush pile and into a person’s hand who can make a decision instead of some bitter grad student convinced her work should be filling the pages as sole feature of whatever rag she’s interning at. Of course once you’ve got your stuff untwined from the pile of submissions raked into the corner – you still have to have something worth reading. Just remember if you're lucky enough to to bust free – there are dozens of pieces just as worthy as yours that will never escape that black hole.

A couple years back I was asked to review a body of work being considered for publication by a local university. I hated the stuff – I found it a soulless exercise in linguistic acrobats intertwined with complacent acknowledgment of one's own superiority sprinkled with winking understatement - and I said so. Now I had never been asked to do an academic review before (nor since) but I had done book reviews – so this is what I sent back to the dean of the literature department – I thought the piece I wrote was great. Well my dear readers – it turns out they weren’t interested in my opinion as much as they had implied – in fact the work under consideration was already slated for publication and they were looking for fawning praise, words numbering in the thousands – not the sardonic and flame broiled 750 word skewering I delivered.

Anyways – there’s your lesson for the day. You want to get your stuff in print – do your homework, get to know the folks in charge. Having been one of them this past week I can definitely say – they ain’t anybody extra special so don’t get too full of yourself when accepted or too down on yourself when rejected.

Moon over Mentor

Here's a picture of the moon I took last night from my back yard.

Bobbing for snakes.

Bob is a snake. He lives in my basement.

My son Frank has set up a terrarium down there – the house came with a giant fish tank built into the wall in the finished basement and over the years that we have lived here it has housed some different animals – mostly fish. The quintessential trait required of fish living downstairs was their ability to go long stretches of time being completely ignored and in the dark.



This past year or so Frank has become interested in reptiles. I too have kept dormant an inclination and affection for the scaly little monsters so I am aiding and abetting in this foray into herpetological housing. So we’ve got a hundred and fifty gallon aquarium with four anoles six tree frogs and Bob the snake merrily cavorting about in their climate controlled kingdom.



Bob is the only resident down there with a name; he was christened by our grandson Scotty. I asked Scotty what we should name the small green snake and he replied without hesitation and no small amount of incredulity – “Bob”. The rest of the crew is anonymous.

Bob is an escape artist. He slithers through the tiniest crack and gaps in the terrarium’s lid. He doesn’t go anywhere once he’s escaped. He just curls up into a coil and hangs out on top of the tank on the bare wood lid instead of basking in the full spectrum fluorescent light inside of his live plant filled enclosure.

This must be a metaphor for something don’t you think? No matter how comfortable a cage is one still seeks to escape? Of course this is anthromorphizing our buddy Bob, bestowing some sort of thought process beyond electric firings of a primordial brain stem sputtering like the weak sparks emitted from a butane spent Bic lighter.

Or maybe the fact that Bob just stays on top of that cage – not venturing any further once he gets out - maybe that is the real metaphor. Either way – I’ve sealed up those cracks and Bob hasn’t pulled his Houdini stunt in a couple days.

We’ll See…

Y'know,

Michelle Obama took a bunch of flack for saying that she finally had a chance to feel proud of the United States awhile back. Well last night while I was watching Barack kick off the general election after clinching the Democratic Party nomination I think I may have been sharing his wife's sentiment.

Now I am not naïve enough to believe that one person can change everything immediately – but it was so refreshing to listen to an articulate and intelligent speech free from the ad hominem mean spirited character assassination that has passed as political discourse for the last decade.

When did we get so nasty? It will definitely be interesting to see if Obama can continue to take the high road in this campaign. I think this is where Hillary went wrong (besides voting to authorize Bush's Iraqi fiasco.) When her campaign miscalculated its strategy they fell back on the tried and true ways of attack defame and belittle. Surprisingly this backfired - just barely. This is where my hope comes from.

50.1% of Democratic voters (I totally made up this statistic – but I'd bet it's not only in the ballpark it's sitting like a rosin sack on the pitcher's mound) said they were sick of the divisive and spiteful temperament of the last administration. This gives one a smidgeon of a reason to be hopeful. Will it be enough to carry the general election, will this approach hold up against the Rovian attack apparatus that is gearing up like some steam punk demolition machine, or has this ideal already been irreparably damaged by the primary contests? We'll see.

I hope things don't degenerate too quickly even though the talking heads are already stirring the pot this morning shouting over top of each other.

I hope this candidacy gives the kids I work with at Charles Lake Elementary something to aspire to other than a career in pro basketball or gangsta rap.

I hope civility is taken down from the curio cabinet of the passé.

We'll see. We'll see.

Haiku - Gesundheit

After wowwing the delegation from Kirgizstan I spent the next three days teaching haiku and public speaking skills to the sixth graders at at Bay Village Middle School with my partner in rhyme Sara Holbrook. We hiked around the environs near the school, across soccer fields, peering onto groundskeeper’s sheds trudging through woods (I swear that’s not poison ivy) and plotting against the other groups being led by Sara.

We were just a part of an outdoor experience week that the sixth grade class was participating in as part of their year ending program. They also had classes in orienteering, hiking, ecology, recycling, etc. We ended our part of the conglomeration with a Head to Head Haiku Single Elimination Sudden Death Match. The contest was devised by a friend of ours from Chicago – that bastion of poetry competition – Dan Ferri. It's based on a sumo wrestling format and taken seriously over the top by the person MC’ing the event, which of course was me. Sara manned the gong. This was the first time I have tried this event with middle schoolers and I have to admit – it went great and will now be a permanent part of my repertoire.

I am finding more and more that exercises and activities I use in creative writing classes really have no age boundaries. If it works with a third grader it works with an MFA creative writing candidate - in fact the two groups actually share the same peer pressure spawned neurosis.

The basic principles of good writing transcend age, ego and book assignments based on academic affiliated back scratching. The main difference I see is once we get past middle school we wring all the fun out of creative writing trying to turn it into some secret reserved for the more serious.

Meanwhile, all our most successful writers and poets (i.e. those that make a living off of writing outside of the hallowed halls of terminally degreed tenure tracks – you know, those whose books actually SELL) brandish a bit of whimsy and humor with their craft. Of course – if the work is in the least bit accessible or worse yet, popular in any fashion it is derided by the aforementioned cannibalistic and cabalistic cliques.

This is one reason I have gravitated to working with younger folks even though doing so may at times lower the status my work may hold with that other bunch. This reminds me of a favorite quote by young adult author friend of mine, Jane Yolen – she of hundreds of books lining library shelves. When asked by folks does she ever think she’ll graduate to writing for adults she answers the query deadpan with a question – “Would you ever ask a pediatrician if they plan on graduation and treating adults?”


Okay, I’ve meandered a bit here. Bottom line… The kids had a blast – they were excited – they were clapping – they were cheering each other on – all over their own writing which they were presenting on stage. I wonder who will be their first educator to tell them to quit making so much noise?