casual ultimate » west coast

I’ve been listening to Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA a lot since Natties. I think I’m slowly letting myself out of the box, and it feels really good. I remember in high school all I listened to was Floyd, Zeppelin, and usually darker stuff. I liked old Black Sabbath. I liked Rush. I hadn’t discovered a lot of the Hip-Hop and electronic music that would take a hold in the college years. Anyway, I think the music that resonates with me has a lot to do with what state I find myself in. If I’m unhappy, I will probably want to listen to The Wall on repeat for weeks while I read 1984 Junior year in HS for example. At Natties, and this season in general, I think I learned very little about how to play Ultimate, but I learned a lot about how to have fun and how to play in general. Sometimes there’s no crisis, and I can let myself just “Go play.”

I was fortunate enough to play on Brown Chicken Brown Cow. I wrote the team about why I think BCBC is an important team in the Ultimate landscape. Here’s what I said:

BCBC is a team that treats each one of its players as an important and integral part of the team. Even more than that, BCBC takes it upon itself to make each one of its players feel loved. That’s totally exceptional and hard to do. I think it was for the most part successful this season. We also play fair Ultimate. Always. We don’t cheat to win ever that I’ve seen. We love each other and the sport, and we show it. Bravo, BCBC.

I also want to say that I really respect and learned a lot from Marie, Bree, Finney, and Emily from the Skirts, Adam, Jake, and Bacon from SLO, and the rest of the crew. I feel like the really young folks on our team somehow were exactly what I needed personally. I needed to reconnect with fun and love of the game and each other. It got complicated for me. Ultimate is beautiful and simple. Keep it simple.

One thing I need to own is that this year I really didn’t want to compete. I had a hard time in all of the big moments with this team, particularly as the season progressed and we got deeper into the series. I’ve never particularly loved competition. I think I have too much anxiety in my body as it is, and competition brings up more. It feels like it will take me down at times. I guess that one day that will be lifted from me, and I’ll be happy, joyous, and free.

About being happy, joyous, and free, I feel pretty lucky to have been able to party with “the cougars”, a group of some of the coolest women on zG (and Allen from Jam). I forget how to let go or why it’s even important until I’m around people like that who just show me. No answers. No analysis. The spirit of Homebrood lives on.

I’ll be an uncle in a couple weeks I think, and it’s gonna be cool. This kid is gonna be a baller. I can’t wait to meet him. The age of Wolf is about to begin. Get ready to be wowed.

This weekend is SW Regionals in Phoenix (which is also called “Scottsdale” and “Tempe” and “a bad place to live”). I’m heading down with BCBC, a team that has grown to mean a lot to me. Not as much as Revolver or Brass, but certainly more than Machine (HOOOOOOO zing!) I’m not getting much better as a player, although being in somewhat of a leadership role without being a huge dickhead is a new one. On Briefcase, I was definitely a bit of a dickhead, and on Northwestern I was completely gone off the deep end. I may owe an amends to those teams at some point, but we’ll see…

We have a shot at Nationals out of the Southwest Region which seems silly coming from the Northwest where teams like CTR never go and where Furious, the World Champs just months earlier, did not qualify last year. We’re a non-practicing team with lots of college kids (who are pretty good, by the way) and a few savvy vets. Something I’m noticing is my continued desire to demonize my rivals/opponents. I hated Michigan in college, even in the face of some blossoming friendships. I tried to hate CLX back in the Central Region, but good luck with that; they are just good. I try to hate Jam unsuccessfully, and I really try to hate Mischief. These are all my past rivals that come to mind, and I have great friends on many of them. This season I really want to hate Metro, the other LA coed team with Nationals potential, but again, they’re good folks. It’s a game; some of the stuff they do is great; some isn’t, but the same could be said of most teams made up of 20+ competitive individuals.

I am proud of the way BCBC plays. I am proud of these kids for playing with so much heart. It’s very inspiring.

I think the thing that I am REALLY getting in spades from BCBC is an invitation to have fun. Party, goof around, get back to that attitude we all had back in college of “why not?” There’s no need to be cautious all the time. Laughter and dancing are medicine. Love is something that can be freely given and received. There is no shortage. We all need to give it and receive it. A loss of control is progress. I belly laugh that topples me over is the right outcome.

What do I want out of this weekend?

I want to play great Ultimate this weekend. I want to beat good teams. I want my fiddle to change the game. I want to take great care of myself. I want to show up in an honest way with a powerfully compassionate heart. I want to remember that I’m not in control. I want to let go of worry, fear, and control the same way I let go of the disc.

I told a friend of mine (on Metro of all teams) that I think I was meant to play Ultimate and that when I am playing the way I feel I was meant to play, it’s unique to me. That’s not particularly important: that my style be unique. However, my style is unique, and I can best serve my purpose by letting go and playing the way I was meant to play, with no fear and no hesitation, with no anger and no malice. I love playing. I love my teammates. I love my opponents. The sport is glorified along with my higher power when I play that way. “My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable…”

Good luck, Revolver, zG, Fury,…………………………….Mischief, and Jam.

SF Peeps, come see me play the bottom of the hill next Thursday 10/8 at 9:30, $8

I’m playing for a coed team out of LA. It’s a really special team with a great spirit and a commitment to using our women. My kind of coed team.

So I started thinking about what I want to get out of this season with this team. I want to bring a generous, heartfelt approach to this team, much the way I did with Revolver and Brass. It’s a little different with this team for me because I’m a big fish on this team whereas on Revolver and Brass I was not.

The challenge for me is to stay humble and not sour during the course of competition. We played a tournament called Revolution down at Stanford a couple of weeks ago, and the team did really well as did I. I noticed that I definitely was arrogant and contentious at times. I was also a prima donna, showing up late both days and taking certain other liberties. I don’t think there is anything that I need to apologize for, but I didn’t like it. It’s not how I want to be anymore. The standard is higher.

It reminds me a great deal of the challenge I had with Northwestern when I was there. I was a big fish there too, and I very easily got into an “I know best” attitude about everything, and I was able to manipulate folks to get my way pretty much all the time. I had nothing keeping me in check. No superior to tell me to just shut up and play. To work hard. To let my play do the talking.

So what are my intentions for this team and this season?

1) To remember that it is an honor to be on the field.
2) To remember that my biggest asset is the team-mate that I am.
3) To respect my opponent and always try to play fair.
4) To learn from all of my team-mates, particularly the ones I am inclined to overlook.
5) To trust my team-mates and let them know that I trust them.
6) To play with Intensity, Humility, and Discipline.
7) To do what the disc wants, including high-release flicks.

Sidenote: It was great to see my Northwestern brothers at Sandblast. I wish I were closer to Chicago so that I could be a part of that program.

As I think back, this is a big opportunity for me. I don’t know that I’ve ever played on a team where I was one of the best players and stayed gracious and grateful all the way through. I’m on board for that.

I posted this on my personal blog and got such a huge response from frisbee players, I figured I’d better put it up on Casual Ultimate with a much better picture courtesy of Whit. Enjoy:

I went to a Frisbee tournament called Potlatch in Redmond, WA this weekend. I camped at the tournament site, I drank Friday and Saturday night with a bunch of Frisbee players (not to the point of being drunk either time), and I felt an incredible loneliness. It is not a new feeling.

Do you ever feel alone in a crowd?

I felt exactly like that many times before, particularly growing up, but the one time that I remember vividly and which I think was even worse was at another tournament in Ohio called Poultry Days in ’07. I was on a great team with a lot of people that I really like, and I had a pretty bad time there. I flew a red eye in Thursday night, drank beers most of the day Friday, and then was exhausted all weekend, again camping at the site. When I’m exhausted several things happen. I play a little worse; I still say some really funny and exceedingly deadpan things; I am there in body doing things with people I like; and I feel half-dead. I am a little like a zombie walking around in slow-motion and feeling nothing. I can hear you and respond to you. I can laugh and interact even. I am not fully alive though. It’s like in Fight Club when he says everything is a copy of a copy of a copy. Yeah, Potlatch this year was a little bit of a copy of a copy of Potlatch.

I relearned the lesson that I need to have really good self-care to enjoy a tournament. I need to not try to be someone else. I need to acknowledge my needs and get them met. If I’m tired, I need to rest and not pretend like I don’t need rest. If I’m hungry, I need to eat and not pretend I’m not hungry. If I’m lonely, I need to find connection with someone in person or on the phone. If I need time alone, I need to make time for myself to recharge and not just proceed from one event to the next as my friends tell me what we are doing and I continue to run on fumes.

I regret not showing up fully for my team. I don’t regret it for them because I think they were all very happy to have me around as I was. I regret it for myself. I wish I could do it again, get more rest, be fully present for all the wonderful, beautiful, magical, hysterical things that were happening around me. I might have really enjoyed them, and I might not have had a knot in my stomach all weekend knowing that I was just in crisis-management mode. I was supposed to be there having fun, but I was acting as if I were in a war-zone trying to escape with my life.

Do you find that sometimes the best way get your needs met is not to have any?

Contrast that with playing Huck it Long Beach, another tournament down in SoCal, last weekend in which I had my own place to stay and got ample rest and alone time and didn’t drink a drop of alcohol. I played like a warrior poet on Sunday, celebrated my team-mates, the game, the music, this life. I was there, living my life to its fullest. It was absolutely wonderful, and the quality of my opponents, the tournament, and my closeness to my team-mates were all much less. Regardless, I was the man and the player that I want to be at that tournament. I love that. I love it when I take good care of myself. It’s the only way I can have fun anymore.

I played Potlatch with a bunch of people that played on the two teams that ended my seasons in ’06 and ’07 on Brass Monkey, those teams being Shazam and Slow White. I had a story in my head that we were good enough to beat those teams or that we were better than those teams. Maybe we weren’t though. They beat us in semis, both of them. Teddy and Hammer I just thought were sort of fortunate players. They were good, but their big plays were just sort of fortunate outcomes for them. Maybe fortunate is the wrong word for what I thought of Hammer as an opponent (but I’ll keep it clean for the kids). I played with them both this weekend though, and they are really good. Really good. Schwind and Charlie from Shazam are both really good too. I had a story that they were a step below us. I don’t think that was actually the case. That was probably just me lashing out below the surface at two teams that hurt a team I love very much, Brass.

I’ve seen my mom do that many times before. When people have wronged my dad or my family, my mom is basically done with those people forever. They are awful people who are never to be trusted again. It’s a little black-and-white, but I get it in that case. If people really are mean and intentionally hurt you in some way, they probably had best not be trusted. Whether or not I harbor a resentment towards them is another issue.

In the case of Slow and Shazam (dumbest name ever), these are just fantastic people and players who happen to play on a different team from me, and in my head I occasionally allow them to be cast as enemies of me and the people I love. It doesn’t really hold up in this case. It’s just a slip into an old pattern of thinking. It was good to be reminded once again that my enemies on the field and even people who hold different views and philosophies than mine are not my enemies in life. They are people, and all people when I get down to it are good. All of them. Even me. Even Jam.

I was playing out at Ocean Beach this weekend in a relatively weak beach game, and I noticed two things. 1) I was being sort of arrogant out there as I am prone to do in games where I am the best or one of the best players, and 2) I didn’t get nearly as negative as I have in the past. I was goofing around as opposed to being a dick. That’s progress for me.

I admire guys like Nick H from Revolver who give 110% seemingly regardless of the situation. I’ve gotta say though; I’m not him. I don’t play like him, and I like the way I DO play. I’m a lot more creative and fluid than he is. I think my body knows what it needs to do, and when I’m at my best, I’m just letting it do it. After all, frisbee’s a game. Payne told me a couple of years ago that he thinks I see the field differently than most players. I think Nate from Brass told me that too. I know what they mean. I don’t always make the best decisions, but I see ways to attack the field that a lot of people don’t. Sometimes I throw a goal that seems like the obvious choice to me, and my team-mates will say “woooow” because they just didn’t see it, let alone have a throw or a fake to execute on it. It wasn’t an I/O break or a throw to the outside shoulder of an in-cut on the open side.

I have done a lot of work on my Ultimate game that has not involved a disc or any exercise. One thing I’ve noticed is that I need to be willing to let go of control to play well. I need to be willing to let go of the outcome of the point and the game. I need to let go of my image and reputation. I need to trust that the best outcome is not the one that I would choose. When I have let go, one of the ways I know it is by my hucks. When I am not in control, my hucks come off crisp and fly far. I am not trying to make my forehand into Schulzy’s or Halverson’s forehands. I’m not trying to throw my backhand like Safdie or Taylor. When I’m not invested in an outcome for my throw, the point, or the game, I can tell because the throw is easy and the disc goes where instinct sent it.

I pray on the line a lot, particularly when there’s fear in my body. I pray for my higher power’s will to take over this point. Your will not mine. Take away my fear and direct me toward your will. 3….2….1….Pull!

Maybe my biggest gift as an Ultimate player is not what I do between the lines. Hector wrote a blog post called “Invisible Fence” a few weeks ago criticizing teammates that don’t move up and down the sideline to follow the team and help their teammates from the sideline during a point. I think that’s a fantastic point that is often overlooked. Last year on Revolver, that got emphasized plenty by Jit, the human megaphone, an awesome sideline voice and an enforcer for the rest of us to be sideline voices too. (Side Question: How loud is pillow talk with Jit? Any current or former girlfriends care to comment?)

I was thinking about what I do well in Ultimate this week and over the past many months really. I think I have some skill with the disc, good hands, good size, and some quickness downfield that makes me tough to handle. I think I also see offensive space in a unique way and know how to attack it in a non-traditional way at times. Anyway, I started to really get a handle on where I add the most value last year while playing with Revolver. I had arthroscopic surgery and never really hit my stride at any point of the season, so it was sort of natural to look closely at sideline presence, etc. I’m not particularly loud, but I can be very positive. I can celebrate with my team, bring a smile to a teammate’s face, and point out the value that is at stake in a given moment for our team and its players. For example, when things are going badly, I can remind a teammate that these are the most important times to practice “contrary action” by celebrating a good effort and consoling someone on a missed opportunity or blunder.

That’s all really interesting, and one thing I said at Nationals in a team meeting that I really believe is that on a team of 20+ players, the greatest chance that most of us have to impact the result of the game is by being a good teammate. It’s not usually by being a good player. When I’m a good player, I affect the game only when I’m on the field and maybe only during certain points that I’m on the field. When I am being a good teammate, I can literally bring up anywhere from 1 to all 25 other guys with me. I can make everyone else slightly better, and if the entire roster gets a little better by something I’m doing, then my impact could be 5-6 points through the course of a game, whereas realistically if I have the game of my life at Nationals, I can probably only change the score by 2-3 points when it’s all said and done (and that’s harder to measure anyway since guys like T Mac, Kobe, and A.I. can score 40 in a loss just about every night).

What else do I contribute to a team?

I’m just stepping into maybe my biggest and most important contribution to a team. It’s really not about the game. It’s really more spiritual and mental. I have some ability to reach my teammates on a deep and personal level, speak to the values that we all hold in common, and inspire them to live that value and do it for the whole team and not just themselves. I can contribute to the vision that makes a team like Revolver truly special and great. We literally don’t want individual accolades. We literally don’t care what people think of us. Robbie Cahill literally does have a square head. (Ok, sorry that just sort of slipped in there.)

I pulled my name off the roster for Revolver this week. It’s disappointing. It’s the right decision. I know this, but it’s disappointing. It’s exciting though in the sense that I get to define my contribution to Revolver this season (or another team), and it could be as much or as little as I want it to be. I can go coach a coed team, I can be a spiritual advisor to several teams, I can do workshops and visualization stuff for teams, I can continue on as “Social Chaplain” of Revolver ’09, or I can do nothing at all and just be a fan.

Whatever it is, I proved to myself last year that I can play Open, and that I can reach all kinds of people on a deep level, even if they went to Stanford. That’s what makes it really special….Stanford.

A few months ago, my mom and I talked about an issue that has been tough for me my whole life. Isn’t it arrogant to be a really out there, expressed, loud, flashy star with your talents? Do you need to be quiet to be humble? Is being quiet actually the opposite of what you’re supposed to do with your talents? Am I confusing being repressed with being humble?

When I was younger, and still today at times, I felt like being exceptional was arrogant (look at Jay-Z, using his God-given talent but also calling himself “hov” as in jehovah; what an idiot….and also I listen to everything he makes). I am learning, with my mom’s help, that being exceptional is not arrogant and that we all have talents that give us the potential to be exceptional. Here’s what my mom had to say on it, reproduced with her consent.

There are two different factors we face in relationship to others. One is humility and assuming we are all equal. That is a spiritual truth, and on that level we are all created equal. The second is being aware of the many different talents and gifts that we each bring to the game and there we are definitely NOT equal. These are the luck of the draw so to speak and we need not, or actually MUST not be ashamed or boastful about these things. We did nothing to “deserve” them. They are simply given to us by God. But it is our responsibility to use our gifts to the best of our ability and that is not a small thing. It takes awhile to realize all that we have to offer and who we really are. I think lots of people never look at that in depth and just struggle or stumble through life aimlessly and with little or no sense of what they’re all about. When we are especially blessed there is even more need for us to use what we’ve been given. You are a man with many gifts and the burden on you is great to do good things and you are well on your way as is obvious to many. You are much loved and admired and your mark on your world will only get greater, especially as you continue to realize who you are and what you have to give. This is not a negative thing at all because God wants us to be happy and gives us what we need to do His work. So long as you live with that as your goal, to do what you were intended to do, your life will be worthwhile. Your awareness of your Higher Power in your life says you are living that way already. Emmett Fox wrote: “I am part of the self-expression of God; I am the Presence of God at the point where I am”. [one of] my favorite affirmations. Enjoy being you: God is loving it!

Sorry, this didn’t get posted last week when I wrote it, so it’s a little out of order. Still worth a read. -Chuckles

I thought a post would be a good thing, so here goes. It’s a beautiful day in San Francisco. It’s been a little chilly and windy but sunny these past few days, and I just love it. Great weather to be out exercising. You barely sweat and the air feels great. There’s not too much to report.

This weekend is Fools Fest, and I’ll be playing with the Bruisers for our second campaign. Fools West seems to break along demographics for some reason. The teams that come to mind are Matza Balls (Jews), Downtown Brown (not white), and a couple of years ago it was Catholic School Girls and Public School Girls or something like that on the women’s side. In any event, McManus felt that our demographic (bruisers) was not being represented, and so the team was born last year. We talk a lot about our BMI’s (mine is around 28), never contest fouls, and never call fouls, and we wear black and blue. We do allow some purple and yellow as well, obviously. Oh, I left out another important demographic: Condors. While every other club team branches out and plays with new people and creates something interesting, the Condors simply show up and talk to just themselves. Nice job, guys.

What else is going on? Not a whole lot I guess. I am working 3 days a week, giving my time and energy to causes that seem worthwhile, and I’m really enjoying it. I haven’t been playing much music, but I do have a show this Friday with Erin Brazill who I played my sister’s wedding with. It should be good fun. She’s a fantastic performer and person. We’ll be at Dolores Park Cafe (18th St and Dolores) at 7:30 PM sharp if you’re in SF (nevermind, this already happened, and we’ll be back at DPC on June 5th).

In other news, Revolver is getting underway. We were supposed to have our first closed tryout/practice a couple of weekends ago, but it got rained out (thank you, rain). It looks to be a pretty exciting year for Revolver. Lots of good folks on board, great captains and debuting a coach. Our coach is actually just a cardboard cutout of Shooter McGavin saying “Choke on that one, baby!” Has it been too long to quote Happy Gilmore anymore?

I’ve been coming to grips with getting older lately, and it has not so much to do with the body slowing down as it has with the pop culture references sliding away. The kids today wonder why I talk about “laying by the bay and making things out of clay” and what a “32-belly option” is. Luckily there is an Arrested Development movie supposedly coming out which will put me back on top. Long live Arrested.

On a spiritual tip, I’m working towards acceptance of my defects of character. One of these defects is my propensity to numb out, not necessarily with the aid of any outside body (like drink or smoke or food or video game or music). It’s just a defense mechanism that kicks in sometimes without my choosing and occasionally one that I go to by choice. I can simply stop feeling anything. I can unplug and in doing so, I avoid being vulnerable. It looks like “I don’t care” about whatever is going on around me, but I do care. I just have chosen to bury it, and I feel dead inside as a result when I do that. In my experience, I can turn off one uncomfortable feeling, but in so doing, I turn off all the other feelings as well. In other words, if I ignore my sadness, I lose my happiness as well.

Why do I do it? You can’t lose what you don’t put in the middle of the table. That goes for pride and my heart as well as poker chips. So the task is then to decide whether I want to continue to protect myself from heartache, loss, and ego hits and keep my world small - or - be vulnerable, be huge, put my heart into the things that I am doing and the relationships that I am pursuing - into my work, my romantic interests, my music, my family - and risk massive emotional pain, hurt, and sadness in the name of becoming who I really am. Self-actualization Maslow calls it, I think. I get to become fully expressed. I get to go anywhere and do anything and be myself while I’m doing it. It sounds pretty good. The pros outweigh the cons. Green light.

I am at work at midnight. It’s awesome. I think a lot of my creativity gets stifled by the daytime and the expectations that I put on myself and that society seems to have for people between the hours of 9 and 5.

I played Fools West this past weekend, and I got the distinct pleasure of being beat by Hensley and Vijay. God, those guys can ball. I remember when Vijay was just sort of popping onto the scene in Chicago as Bill Finn’s right-hand man at CUSL. He was obnoxiously good and just had nonstop energy. For a guy like me who has an inertia that I like to exert on the entire field while I’m out there, it was very impressive to see a guy moving at a completely different speed, with a tireless spirit, and really sharp facial features. Does Vijay look like he was drawn by an artist or something? It doesn’t make sense that his face would belong to a real human.

Anyway.

Downtown Brown played so great in Semis and Finals. They made play after play and deserved to win and assuredly did. I played on the Bruisers which is a bunch of big guys who know how to use their size or just tackle people. The team is founded on a few principles: 1) no fouls called, 2) no fouls contested, 3) no strategy. Unfortunately Seth was on our team, so 1) suffered at times, but on the whole, the philosophy prevailed. It was a pretty great group of guys, and I looked off Beau while he in turn hucked a goal to me. In other words 3) was in full force.

The 2009 Season: Hmmmmmm. Revolver looks awesome this year. The table is set as far as I’m concerned; we’ve got everybody back except for handler (who was really dead weight), and we’ve got the perfect combo of captains and coach. I feel great. I feel so ready to have a great year. However, my knee keeps steadily reminding me that I’m playing on borrowed time. I saw my grandma at my sister’s wedding last fall, and unlike most everyone else, she is at an age where she doesn’t pull punches. She said, “You’re gonna stop playing.” She may well be right. I have cartilage damage in my right knee, and it doesn’t feel good on Monday and Tuesday after I play on it. I don’t want to bury my head and pretend it’s not happening. That’s not good enough anymore. I want to live in reality. Some reality is that I have played for 8 years now out of shape. I’m still a little out of shape. I’m getting closer to a good playing shape, but to be honest, I’m not there. I’ve been the heaviest guy on every single team I’ve been on, I think (except One Degrees of course). I’ve always been able to play well despite my size, but that’s not good enough anymore either.

You may well see me play the season this year and live in denial. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d done that. It wouldn’t be the first time an Ultimate player pretended that feeling like a late-career NFL quarterback on Monday morning is ok. Dudes icing their knees, taking ibuprofen like it’s a vitamin, drinking before/during/after, holding their bodies together with braces and tape so that they can chase the disc for another year, another day, another point.

I’ve got a buddy at work who teases me because I say I’m playing the best Ultimate of my life and that I’m in the prime of my career, and here I am icing my knee at work and taking Ibu. “I’m in my prime,” he says with a big shit-eating grin on his face, mimicking an old man who can barely get up to go to bed after he finishes his crossword puzzles. Foreshadowing?

Gratitude is not just a concept; it’s a tool. It can change my attitude towards the world and my life. I’ve got some friends that swear by gratitude as a tool – particularly gratitude lists. What is that? Well, it’s a list of things you’re grateful for and why. A list of 5 things I’m grateful for are:

1) Jessica, my sister, because she is very generous and loves me more than anyone in the world. I love her.
2) High-release flicks because they fly so pretty, make me feel so good, and the disc wants it sometimes.
3) CarBomb (the beach ulty team) because they remind me of the idea that unapologetically having as much fun as possible is an option.
4) Sunshine because something about feeling it on my skin makes me feel calm.
5) Kix/Maddy because they are adorable and warm.
6) Humor because I’m flicking you off in this picture.

I woke up this morning with lots of worrying on my mind - about my career/school, about dating, about money. I couldn’t fall back asleep, so I made an alphabetical gratitude list which is a gratitude list with something beginning with each letter of the alphabet in it. I felt better. It relieved me of the “bondage of self.” Sometimes my world can get so small and focused on just me and my wants. The world is bigger. Gratitude is bigger. I can’t stay small when I have gratitude. It’s like the Kool-Aid man breaking through the wall. OOOHHH YEAAAH!

I was chatting with a couple folks the other day about gratitude lists, and they offered their 5 things they’re grateful for:

Frosty’s 5:

1) My left brake light has been busted for
2 weeks and I haven’t been pulled over yet.
2) I get to play winter league tonight under the lights
3) I’m surrounded by hot LA girls pretty much wherever I go
4) I’m going to tahoe next week with new discounted pata snowboard gear
5) I have the dopest friends I could have ever hoped for

Kirch’s 5:

1) My parents, for encouraging me to go to college wherever I want and study whatever I like, regardless of practical implications.
2) My sister, for her unwavering support.
3) My friends, who’ve seen me at my worst, but still stand by me.
4) My company, for taking a chance on me as a post-grad with no practical skills but a desire to succeed.
5) All the truly talented musicians who have taken the time to play with me as I learn.

Now I’m going to go play some beach ultimate in sunny, 60-degree weather. Life is good.

I’m watching “Riding Giants” which is this great documentary of big wave surfing that came out a few years ago (Thanks, Henrik). I’m not a surfer, but I’m really feeling something they’re talking about in this video a lot. Gratitude. Life was really simple and really good back in the day. These guys, in the 50’s, in Hawaii, were just living their dream. They didn’t have any money, anything to do, any dates. They just were surfing every day and really enjoying each other’s company and the beautiful waves.

I really feel that way about Ultimate. Particularly beach ultimate. God, I just love being on the sand and playing and joking around and laughing and feeling that sand under my feet and getting it all in my hair and my ears and everywhere. I just feel good.

How lucky am I too that I go down to Santa Monica for the weekend, and I get to act like some celebrity? I played in the final, and I actually had fans. Who am I? I don’t deserve this. It’s so good though. It’s such a treat, and the community that I get to be a part of just because I love this sport so much is amazing. I get to not just go get exercise, but I get to play my fiddle, I get to meet dozens of people every tournament, I get to laugh really hard, I get to share the trials of competition with a bunch of different people, I get to learn how to lose with dignity (except for this weekend), I get to give and receive probably 50 hugs over a weekend, and I get to just feel loved by the land, the people, the sport. Life is so good. I mee t a lot of folks that are not Ultimate players, and they have good lives, but in many cases their lives are SOO small in comparison. There’s so much joy and abundance in our community. Thank God for that.

I didn’t have much abundance in my life 4 years ago. I didn’t give myself very much joy. I also didn’t allow myself to get close to people or let people get close to me. I think I owe a lot of who I am becoming to the example of people in the Frisbee community. Thank you.

Thanks for the photos, Shaun.

It’s New Year’s Eve, 2008. I just watched the men’s final from 2007 between Bravo and Sockeye. It was good. Made me want to keep playing Ultimate. Nice final for Hector. It was fun watching Seth on another team too. I *think* Seth fouled Chicken on the mark on game point which caused him to throw a lazy high release backhand which didn’t get to the receiver and led to a quick transition goal for the win. Maybe I’m just projecting what I know about Seth onto that point though

Revolver had our end of year party a couple of weeks ago, and it was sooooo Revolver. It was somewhere between a Coed and an Ivy league College party. Lots of board games, poker, and awkward interactions. (Someone on Jam is reading this and smiling.) It’s funny to compare that to my experience with Monkey over the past few years. I always felt like such a TOTAL fit with Monkey as far as personality, and I think a pretty good fit on the field as well. Now that I think of it, Monkey was better in both regards than Revolver for me. I think the mix of dirty humor tempered by the feminine presence in coed was just right for me. I remember hearing a story that Pat H liked coed better than Open because of “the way he was” in the Coed division as opposed to “the way he was” in the open division. Makes sense to me. I need women to keep me in line sometimes, but I will say that having the presence of Stanford culture was similar with such wholesome, smiling folks as Handler, Wiseman, TJ, and Herbert. Actually, let’s leave Herbert off that list. He’s a little more Hole-some than he is wholesome.

Shout out to Jonny Rem who apparently had a really good final this year for Jam. I can’t wait to see footage because this guy is one of my favorite players on the planet. Mikey Z pointed him out to me when I first moved to town, and it’s been fun to watch a guy without a chip on his shoulder or a swollen ego just consistently win his match-ups. He’s really fun to watch downfield: unbelievable timing, sure hands, nice throws, and those pearly whites.

In other news, I went home for Xmas two weeks before Xmas actually happened because that’s how we do it in my family. It was a pretty good trip. Not an easy trip for me: not having my own room, having to face the past with the present, having to try to pry open a heart that was absolutely hammered shut for a few years there. It’s hard work but fruitful.

It’s interesting because at my sister’s wedding, it was a lot easier for me. The focus was squarely on her which somehow made it easier for me. Also, I love her to bits and was really honored to get to show up as big as I could for that event. I think the fact that it didn’t have the hype of the holidays and that the spotlight was away from me made it a lot more manageable. That being said, what a difference a year makes. I felt much more at ease this year than last, and Jess and I are back to wearing matching Sweatshirts again! Check out the evolution of Northwestern Ultimate Team sweatshirts over the past 3 seasons or so.

Now that I’m back in SF after being home, I’m kind of blue like Miles Davis. I get that sadness: that good, reflective, restorative, purifying sadness every year after I go home. That may be coloring it too positive because sometimes it’s downright torture. This year though, it feels ok. Some of my friends call it the emotional hangover of the holidays. Makes sense to me. So much hype both from our culture and from our families that when it’s over, there’s a natural recoil to get back to equilibrium.

I had a great conversation with Henrik yesterday about what friendship is. We recalled our lives’ lessons in that department. I got my introduction to what “friends” were from two places: Sarah and Machine. When I got cut from Machine, I found out quickly who my friends were on that team. There weren’t nearly as many as I thought. The ones that were my friends are still with me today, and I’m really glad to have them in my life. Bjorn and Mercedog come to mind. Love you guys. The Titcombs come to mind too. Here’s X on the way back from Solstice/Potlatch in ‘05.

Sweet, sweet, sweet. Sarah’s contribution was a little different. I took a look at Sarah’s friends, and I was amazed. She just straight up didn’t talk to people who tried to manipulate her or who weren’t nice to her. Even if it was just one time, she turned away from that person. She didn’t do it in a mean way; it was just a matter of fact - she didn’t hang out with people who weren’t nice. As a result, her friends were sweet and committed to her. They were also, every one of them, just great people. Holy cow; they were amazing! The first people I met when I moved out here were Arlie and Matty, Sarah’s good friends who put me up until I could find a place. Talk about two of the sweetest people out there; it’s an honor just to know them. Congrats to both of them on bringing their style and grace to U S Women’s Ultimate.

One last note, I mentioned to a couple captains on Revolver the idea of being a “team chaplain” or “spiritual/musical advisor” for the team next year. For some reason, that is really calling to me as something I want to do. My contribution just has to include that aspect in order for me to really be doing my higher power’s work. We’ll see what that looks like. More will be revealed.

Happy Healthy New Year’s to All y’all.

Chuck
“Best Hair” award winner on Revolver 2008

I think Saturday night at Natties has been one of my favorite nights each of the past two years. Both years, my team ended it’s quest for the title that day, and the team dinner, toasts, and partying ensued. It’s kind of sad that both years I got really drunk. I didn’t get as drunk last year as I did this year though. I don’t know if Ultimate is committed to the idea that drinking is good and that binge drinking is great. It seems like it at times though. In any event, I get caught up in the idea that one drink = fun and so two drinks = more fun and so on. I was having an awesome time with my team, even though we were the last game to finish on Saturday after being knocked out of quarters by like 10:30 (that sucked so much to play two more long tedious games and never get to hang out with anyone on Saturday).

Anyway, we went to dinner at this little family-owned italian restaurant named after a woman named _______ (I don’t remember her name, but James seemed to know her, and she gave a good hug.) During dinner there was a series of toasts that were funny and touching, and we were a table of 28 in the middle of a not particularly large restaurant, so Darryl (who is rich from investing one dollar on his 18th birthday) paid for all the other people’s dinners in the restaurant, and if that weren’t enough, I serenaded each table with the fiddle with any song that they wanted to hear. I laughed more at that dinner than I remember laughing before. It was so fun. It was sooo fun. Holy shit, things were funny at that dinner. I toasted Josh and Margo’s baby on the way (which does not exist), Martin told some fantastic stories from his college days, Sherwood’s parents were reeeeaaallly chill about the off-color jokes that were just flying from my mouth like so much vomit would later.

The point is that this was a night that was a ton of fun. I was where I wanted to be with the people I wanted to be there with, and I felt absolutely fantastic. There’s no feeling quite like completing your season with a team you love, where you play your best, and your team fights to the end. It feels soooo goood. So filling. Like a catharsis with a twist of straight up magnanimity. It’s a cathardinimity. So why did I feel the need to drink so much? I thought about that. I had a copy of “the big book” with me (Alcoholics Anonymous, the text, pictured above). I’m not in AA, but it’s the basis for all twelve-step recovery, and it’s an absolutely amazing book. So good. Seeing that book on my bedside table the morning after was pretty cool. A message from my higher power. Message received. One explanation is that I’m an alcoholic. Another explanation is that I get caught up in the moment sometimes. Another is that I seem to think that I need alcohol to have fun when I’m out and it’s beer-thirty.

It’s been cool this past month since nationals, during which I haven’t had anything to drink, to see that sobriety is really nice. It makes my body feel good. It makes my mind feel good. I have a lot of fun, and I really enjoy the people I’m with. It turns out that I love people and that when I am hanging out with people I like, I really don’t need a drink to have fun.

I think a big piece of the puzzle is: I get anxious when I am trying to meet other people’s expectations and ignore my own needs and drinking helps me to get over that. The solution is very simple. I take care of my own needs, always. Here are two tools that work:

1) when I take care of myself, everyone else gets taken care of automatically, everytime.
2) what other people think of me is none of my business.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

I was riding back from Nationals on a couple of planes next to a couple of strangers, and I had an amazing post swimming around in my head. All I needed was a laptop, and it would’ve been epic. I didn’t have a laptop though, so here’s what I remember of that amazing post.

Natties was good. Revolver played very well. We had our least spirited game, 1st game against Machine, but it was a good game. We came back and beat those pansies on double-game-point, but let’s be clear: the play of the game goes to Hensley who appeared to make a ridiculous lay-out callahan on an up the line dump cut by our best player. Robbie insisted he had possession and that Hensley stripped it, but even if he’s right, that shit was insane.

That was the first of three come-from-behind double-game-point wins on the weekend. We stung Truck Stop later that day after Stout bitched us for the first three quarters. 11-14 to 15-14 on the backs of some Last of the Mohican fiddle and the spirit of Revolver. What an amazing spirit.

Sidenote: Nate M from Brass was playing with Truck Stop, and he played well. It was good to see him out there and to be in a game with the two people that I think I respect the most in the game: Nate M (Truckstop) and Nick H (Revolver). They each have a way of carrying themselves with self-respect and imposing that on the team. The players respect themselves, each other, and the team. Everyone is heard. Everyone is an equal. I think it starts with rigorous honesty and looking people in the eye. After that, I’m not sure what sets these guys apart, but ask anyone who’s played with them.

On a personal note, I was not 100% after knee surgery and felt I played great. As well as I could’ve played although I wish I had come up with a couple improbable high discs during the course of the weekend. Our team carried 28 guys at Nationals and everyone was healthy and there, so that was pretty impressive. I also played on an O line that relied heavily on Stanford chemistry to carry us through, so I knew from the get-go that I needed to play high-percentage disc and just sort of do what I could do be a net-positive for the team.

The fiddle. My God, what a tool. I never really discovered what a powerful force it can be in Ultimate. We rallied behind music several times during the weekend and made comebacks that I thought were impossible. They were ridiculous. The comeback against Bravo on Friday was totally stupid. We ran off the last 3 or 4 to win after being down the whole game, and I don’t think it’s vain to say the fiddle had a tangible impact on play and the general energy of our team.

We had team meetings each night of Nationals, and I said during one of those meetings some things that were really on my heart about Revolver, so I’ll try to reproduce some of it. I think Revolver is an important team. Not because we throw or cut differently or have better playmakers than any other elite team. This team is humble. We have guys who can hang with anyone, but I think the fact that those guys in particular (Robbie, Handler, Wiseman) are all incredibly humble and want the team to succeed before themselves gives the team a character that I really appreciate. It’s like being on a coed team except I’m not very good.

Anyway, I thought I’d check in with you all. I’ll be in Chicago from December 7th to December 10th. 1-800-HOLLER

I’ve been listening to Dre’s Chronic again at work this week, and it’s so good. Sidenote: got a part-time job doing data work. It’s actually really good. Flexible. Mindless. Listening to a lot of really good music and speakers. Feeding my manic obsession with Alt-Tab and Alt-Shift-Tab. Oh yeah, and making money while wearing sandals and occasionally being mistaken for the Geico Caveman.

The Wayside State, pictured at the Make-Out Room in SF, is getting treacherously close to getting our first album done, and Continuum (for those who remember the hip-hop project I was a part of in Chicago) is about to release our second album finally after 3 years of life happening to all of us. Fittingly, that album will be called Goosechase.

Hey, do me a favor and friend my band on Myspace (www.myspace.com/thewaysidestate). We don’t send out announcements, and we need to hit 1000 fans to get booked at a few clubs out here. Thanks in advance.

To get current, Tracy and I broke up a few months ago, I had arthroscopic surgery on my right knee for some cartilege damage, I’m planning to start school this winter to get a master’s in counseling psychology (big shout out to Curry G for some help with that), and I think I’m building up an army of some of the coolest ex-girlfriends in history. Pretty respectable pick-ups for any Poultry Team as well (T-Riles, Dr. Rah, and Canned Ass). Mine against yours, any day of the week.

Labor Day Champies are this weekend down in Santa Cruz, and the men’s division is totally obscene. It’s Nationals, and I’m bringing my bike and a fiddle I think because that’s how it is these days. I just realized that at the last two tournaments I played at the UCSC fields, my team was in the finals (Bruisers at Fools with Bjorn and Revolver at Cal States). Those fields are a little slice of heaven, and I haven’t checked but Subzero’s Andrew B might be playing too. What could be better than watching him break marks at those fields? Nothing.

I’ll be around next Thursday (9/4) if there’s any beach ulty to be played, and my bandmate Erin will be coming out to play the wedding with me, so you all can hit on her if you like. I’ll also be chilling Thursday and Monday during the days I believe, so let’s get coffee or go to a 12-step meeting or something.

It’s Thursday afternoon, and I am two days out of arthroscopic surgery on my right knee. You know what they say about arthroscopic surgery…so I won’t bother to repeat it.

I was in Colorado this past weekend for Colorado Cup in Boulder, CO. It was a pretty good time although I was not playing. Revolver took 14 healthy guys to the 100-degree heat and altitude of Pleasant View Soccer Complex this weekend and played great. I couldn’t believe how hard those guys were pushing despite the less-than-ideal conditions. We had 4 double-game-points out of 7 games. In all 4, we were coming from behind (10-12), and in all four we were pulling at 12-12. We won 3 of the 4 which is just amazing. Besides the one that we did lose was to Jam, and that’s no big deal since they’re just our rivals and since many of us have been cut by Jam. Nope, no big deal that I can see.

Anyway, the altitude disc was kind of cool. I was trying to see what the difference was, and I think that it’s similar to playing indoors. A lot of throws that normally wouldn’t work, do work. Also, all of your throws tend to tail off to the I/O side instead of the O/I side. If you don’t know what that means, you are too casual, even for this blog, or you are old and are still talking about putting more “heiser” on your “sidearm”. The pulls tended to hurry up at the end of their flight instead of slowing down, and it was very difficult to make a big O/I pull that didn’t fall off at the end to the I/O side or just blade into the ground. The folks that figured that one out on the weekend were able to put their pulls on the back line with a lot of air under them very easily. Pretty exciting to watch.

I’d say that the surprise of the tourney in the Elite division was Truckstop. After our double-game-point loss to Jam, we were thinking we would take out our frustrations on Truckstop, and not only did we not do that, we got humiliated by them something like 6-13. It was sort of an ugly game at times with 40 mile-per-hour gusts and sawdust from the local construction sites occasionally blinding players, but still, these guys punished us and did the same to several of the other teams this weekend. I think they finished 4-3 like everyone else in the tournament except Voodoo and Bravo, but in my opinion, they deserved to be in the final against Bravo and proved that with a 1 point loss to the home team.

God, I hate reporting about Ultimate.

So I spent Thursday in Denver, and I had a really good time. It was scorching hot and dry, and I walked up to a coffee shop, met some folks, one of whom was named Benjie and reminded me a LOT of Becky. It was spooky to listen to her talk. Anyway, she and her mom gave me a ride over to this swanky neighborhood called the Highlands where I had a good burger (which is nice coming from San Francisco where there is no such thing) and read for a little while.

Friday was Boulder time, and I took the fiddle out to Pearl St., bought a Scottish Highlands Fiddle book and learned some new songs. I sort of chickened out on playing in the street, but I did play in a parking lot and for a bunch of Zeitgeist girls and children on Saturday during the showcase game. There’s something magical about playing. It took me from a sort of “standing on the sideline” mentality to a “participating” mentality. It was nice. The day finished with me meeting my two best-looking teammates, Eric and Nick, in Boulder and then getting dinner randomly with some familiar faces: Sally, Candice, and Ness at Mountain Sun Brewery. Awesome beers. Awesome times.

One comment about Denver and Boulder: people are really fit there. Also, I was gawking at some of the women this weekend. It was 100 degrees and they were beautiful and wearing really pretty summer dresses and skirts and shorts and legs and legs and legs. My god, I didn’t realize what living in San Francisco can do to a guy (other than make him feel confident in his homosexuality). I didn’t realize how long it had been since I had seen a woman’s legs, but with the fog bombarding the city and the highs in the 50’s and occasionally the 60’s, all I ever see is the occasional biker girl cankle out here. Makes a brother want to move to Colorado.

Also, I have a type. I met three women (non-frizzer women that is), and they were all between the ages of 31 and 34, all beautiful and athletic, and all in relationships.

Dear 20-somethings,

I feel old talking to you. Please leave your home phone number and the date that you turn 31, and I will be in touch then. It would be helpful if you were already married or at least in a relationship at that time.

Best Regards,
Chuckles McChazzerston

I am on the cusp of something really good in my life. It’s exciting. I can feel a shift happening toward more happiness, more openness, more serenity. I suspect some of that may be the narcotics I am currently taking, but some of it is not. Sometimes an alphabetical gratitude list can be a useful tool. I am grateful for Asking questions, Baked goods, Candice, DVD’s, Emergen-C, Fiddle, Great Lakes, Highlands, Inside-out backhands, Jokes with Jess (I love you, Jess.), Kindred spirits, Learning, Meagles, Narcotics, Outdoors, People, Quiet, Riffing, Swear words, Total Recall, Ultimate, Vacations, West Coast, Xtehn (I love ya, buddy.), Yaz (a band, and now a drug), Zahlen (respect). Holler back.

It’s all good, other writers. I’ll cover the entire month of May with this post. By the way, it’s no fun writing posts when you don’t have a job. Job = wanting to write posts. I guess I’ll check in though.

I must admit that I just don’t get tired of the disc out here. It is SOOOO good. Even the winter leagues out here are killer. There are 20 teams or something, and every single one of them has a roster that makes me think they are going to win…except mine, and we made quarters, so what’s up now? You want some? Get in line, son.

I just finished 14 months of try-outs. I say that because I think that in order to make a men’s team out here, you need to try-out with them at least twice. Oh yeah, or just be one of those guys who makes it their first time out. (I would recommend this approach by the way.) The point is, you not only have to be good enough, you have to PLAY good enough, you have to have what the team needs, and in my experience, you have to come back next year. When I moved out here, I was arguably a worse player than I am now, but I remember pretty much catching everything that was thrown to me and winning all the discs in the air for awhile during try-outs, and the fact is, if you are an unknown, that’s probably not good enough.

Anyway, I will find out this week if I am on Revolver. I like this team a great deal. I like the captains. I like the heart. I like the way these guys bring each other up. There’s so little ego directed inward at team-mates, that it makes it a real pleasure to go out and make plays. This is the first men’s team I’ve been around like that, particularly in the elite category. They’ve done a good job of getting some guys out with height and toughness this year. Depending on who they take, they could put out some pretty big lines for the first time and develop a more dynamic deep game. Oh yeah, and by the way, they can still break the mark and take 100% shots until the cows come home. Not a bad combo. Kinda like the #4 at Wendy’s.

What else is new? I am not working. My band is playing a good amount and close to cutting an album. We are The Wayside State, and we’re on Myspace. www.myspace.com/thewaysidestate

I have a beautiful girlfriend, and my sister is getting married. Give him the stick; don’t give him the stick!!! I watched the fensler gi joe PSA’s again yesterday for the first time in a couple of years. My god, what a comedy goldmine.

It was nice seeing a bunch of you last month in Chicago. No Sandblast or Poultry for me this year. Over the past year, I aged 5 and realized that sitting around and getting enough sleep - and not vomiting in 90 degree heat until I almost lost consciousness - is nice.

Luego

Some people do “strength training” to “build up a base” for “the next season” of “extreme Ultimate flippy-disc”. I, on the other hand, have been keeping busy….I joined a new gym….that’s just one thing.

I had a physical assessment when I joined the gym, and the lady took me around the gym to see what I could do. Number of times I’ve been on the bench since college: 20 times in 4 years or so. We put on plates and gave it a go. 10, no problem except that it wasn’t that easy. We added some 35’s. One….two…thrrr….yup. Two. We took off the 35’s and added 10’s and 5’s or something like that. One…two…three..four…fffff…yup. Four. Nice job, big guy.

So with my “One Degrees 2008: Year of the Sideboob” body condition, I think it’s safe to say that I can bench about 1/2 of my body weight or another way to think about it, which I think is the metric system (not sure what the metric system actually is): I can bench at least the amount of food that I eat in a week if you could somehow turn it into a bar that I could lift while lying on my back.

Another thought about this exercise: you really should be sitting up if you want to digest your lunch properly, so I would say don’t eat RIGHT BEFORE YOU WORKOUT. That’s a late breaking fitness story from the West Coast. You heard it here first on casualobesity.fat.

Next, they did a body-fat test to see what percentage of my body is actually undigested milkshakes. It’s 27% with an 8% margin of error. My confidence level is high that I am above the “suggested level for a guy your age” of “ideally 10% but no more than 15%”. C’mon. Really? What year is it? 2000 BC? Am I (a) hunting for my food every day or (b) talking to some former D1 soccer player who did both her knees and is now a trainer in the Financial District of a major city in the fattest nation in the world? Darken in the oval by the letter B on your scorecard completely.

I found somebody with 10% body fat in my journeys, and I found another person with a body-type similar to mine as well. They are both small and fit on your lap. Here they are side-by-side.

Kindest Regards,

Chucktown: Population Fat

I’ve gotta say. It’s really not that bad. There’s pretty much no one here. I’m wearing jeans. I’m listening to music. I’ve already masturbated twice. Ok, that last one’s not true. Still though, not bad.

I started listening to Pandora.com on a friend’s recommendation and I’m kinda digging it. It’s streaming music that is similar to Thievery Corporation right now. I just typed in Theivery Corporation, and it makes rocket go. Also not bad.

I’m dating this exquisite creature that the earthlings call “Tracy.” She is like a cross between seafoam icing and freedom. Not bad.

I guess the work that I’m supposed to be doing should be taking priority right now, but I can’t say that I’m too fired up to get it done. I’m happy to say that I’m not too opposed to getting it done either though. Man, peanut butter sounds good right now. Does that mean that I’m pregnant?

I heard some rumors about Ultimate next year. I’ll put them in order of confidence:

1) Everyone will wear helmets next year through Regionals. Nationals: same rules as always, no helmets.
2) All three captains of Revolver are gone for next season (2 retirees and 1 traveler). I sort of had it tucked in the back of my head to play with them this year, but now I’m not so sure. We’ll see.
3) Jam is way more talented than Revolver and has less character.
4) Wendy Chan has a several photo spread of a layout D she got on game point against Shazam in semis against a dude (Jon Ladd to be exact). It’s in the UPA Newsletter I think. Check it out.

Yeah, those last three may/may not be true, but the first one is certain. I suggest Gaia chinstraps by the way. Very comfortable, but order them now if you want them to get across the border by the Fall Series.

I’ve been thinking about the old body and about some of the “greats” of frisbee past lately. There are many that played at the top for however long or not even at the top for however long, and now their bodies are wrecked. It’s a little concerning. I don’t want to have all kinds of junky joints and handicaps as I raise my kids. When we’re playing in the Townhouse Backyard, I want to be able to run around and bend and jump and do all those sort of things with my kids. Basically, I NEVER want to lose in a game of 1-on-1 basketball against my child. The reason I play Ultimate today is to be in shape for when that day rolls around and my kid is up 9-8 in a game to 10 in the backyard. I will beat him. I will rise to that challenge. I will foul him flagrantly if he comes into the lane. This is my house. Ya betta know dat, son!

I think Ultimate is doing a fine job of preparing me mentally but perhaps not physically for that challenge. What if I get really hurt and ruin my whole “knee area” or my whole “face area” (those are medical terms)? Hell, my room-mate had surgery on his eye after playing one game of winter league. I’m not sure this is the best sport for people who want to not be broken old people.

And on that note, Merry Christmas to all of you in the US. If you are not in the US, rot. Cho, I’m looking at you…although I can’t see you because you are very small and at a great distance. If you are reading this, feel my cyber-gaze.

Oh, and Jews. Hope that festival went well. That’s a pretty cute little holiday you guys have. Awesome. Jews.

It’s Christmas time in Townville. We are all gathered in Pompano Beach, FL to annualize our love for each other. How do I love thee? Let me count the years that I have come to this same place in the month of December.

This year, we tried something new: not playing tennis. Here’s some pictures of the tennis we didn’t play.

(footage not found)

I’d just like to make positive mentions or “Pos Mens” of two gifts in particular. Mama Town has a tradition of giving Jess and I a particular gift every year. For Jess, it’s an angel. For me, it’s a nutcracker. However, this year, she took it to the next level and created a nutcracker of me at Nationals in all my Brass Monkey gear. For Jess, she created this bike-riding angel. I think the symbolism is quite powerful. I have powerful jaws that can be controlled from my lower back in real-life, and Jess is a messenger from God in real-life. That’s why it makes sense.

Here are the pictures:

“The Pilgrims ventured into a new land bonded by a common past. On this Thanksgiving Vinnie and I have chosen to make an equally bold journey together into adulthood…or eachother. Whatever.”
-Doogie Howser’s Journal Entry from Thanksgiving ‘92

“You know, I was thinking the other day.”
-Kevin Nealon

“There’s only one b-tch in the world. One b-tch with many faces.”
-Jay in Chasing Amy

I guess I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone in Chicago and elsewhere. I grew up with you guys. R.T., I lost my virginity to your daughter, for crying out loud! Rob, you were there.

I guess you could say that nothing I’m saying is original. You could. You could also get a good look at a T-bone steak by sticking your head up a bull’s ass, but wouldn’t you rather take the butcher’s word for it?

I’m just sitting at work right now at 5:30 on Black Wednesday listening to Sarah-McLachlan. Sunday I was sitting in a tea shop in Piedmont listening to Sarah-Welsh. Next week, maybe I’ll be starting Sarah-P (read that name with a lisp). That would be nice; having someone who just listens. Why don’t you just sit the next couple of plays out, Champ? Stop talking for awhile.

Do you ever worry about nothing really at all? Low-level anxiety, I’ve heard it called. I have that. It’s like a knot in my stomach. Every single outcome is ok with me, but I’m still stuck in a worried state. The Wayside State.

I’m on the brink of being happier than I’ve ever been in my entire life. More available, more plugged in, more serene, less bullshit, less worry, less judgment. I don’t know exactly what it will look like. I think it’ll come though.

I’m thankful for:

Linda S.
Mama Town
Papa Town
Anger
Jessica
Frisbee
Idris
electric fans
Becky
Gunder
Jonny Rem
Grandma Rose
my house
my life
Stephen
Will
Pat
ankle sprains
gum
fiddle
bass
my childhood
discgolf
Frodo
Mader

Let’s eat until our hearts stop.

There were a lot of great things that happened this weekend at Nationals. I talked to Becky about life. I said what-up to Vijay after he sent me a benediction last week. I saw that Mischief is a really great group of people who care about each other immensely. I saw Tim Murray as a pretty respectable, mature individual who loves the game (that was really over the course of the season and not just this weekend). I saw the Ring/Backhoe social circles in motion. I saw how nothing really changes in that regard and how the lowest common denominator: drinking, mocking, hooking up, and other pretty dumb things seem to shine through in most cases. I felt the tug towards romance, and resisted it. I struggled not to judge myself and my team-mates at times. By Sunday, some of my better friends on the team had become so irritating to me that it was almost too much to be in a room with them.

Mischief lost in Quarters. Shazam showed up and played hard in all their games. They are good folks. I saw my humor turn towards ridicule and mockery this weekend instead of just light-hearted observation. I saw stress and anxiety bring out the best in some people (our late innings come-back against Shazam really made me happy to be on Brass Monkey). I saw one of the sickest D’s I’ve ever seen AGAIN from Wendy Chan on game-point against Shazam against a guy (Ladd). It was just unbelievable. Better, I think, than the one last year in semis that Wendy had. I saw Nate, the guy I would lie down in traffic for, one of the greatest team-mates and players I’ve ever seen grace a field, not win a title this year.

The sacrifices that people make to be at Nationals and to play at Nationals are unreal. I think maybe the best moments of the weekend were Saturday night after games were over, seasons were over, and dinner was over. Monkey sat around one of our condo units and told stories and gave speeches and just really enjoyed each other. I laughed more on Saturday night than I have since the last session of One Degrees in Tempe. What a soulful, filling experience it is to just laugh with each other.

I got to introduce Nate and Becky on Saturday night. It was like introducing someone to my family. I got to just say, “Look, Becky. This is the guy that I’ve told you about. This is why I love playing for him.” They talked for 10 seconds and Nate drove the conversation as he does the huddle, and it was just pure and simple. She looked at me after Nate had left, and I could just see that she understood. In 10 seconds, she just understood why I like him.

The first time I went to Nationals was in 2004, and I had been diagnosed with mono on Monday and was not able to play at all. My team, Machine, went 0-7, my new girlfriend at the time, Sarah, had way cooler friends than mine (Brood et al), and way cooler ex-boyfriends than me (Michael Jamkung, formerly Namkung). I had a knot in my stomach that weekend as big as a fist and I didn’t play a single point. I do believe the antibiotics that I had taken gave me a skin reaction that made me look like I had frickin pink polka dots all over my body too. I was so terribly unhappy. I was so hurt and hopeless.

My second trip to Nationals was in 2006 with Brass, and I had not played a point of Ultimate (other than the weekend prior) since the end of August due to a horrible ankle sprain. I wasn’t sure that I would be able to play at all. I prayed that my higher power’s will be done and that I could just be present and do his will. I played and played great. I really brought joy to my team, and in our big semifinal loss, I played one point, and I didn’t feel, at any time, like I was being cheated. I wasn’t hurt or hopeless. I was proud and honored to be on this team. My team had a lot wrong with it that year, but it had a lot right with it too. We have a rookie this year named Mike that reminds me of me last year. He’s just happy and proud to be with this group, and that’s a really awesome way to approach Ultimate, I think. On Saturday night last year, I left the team dinner to be with a good friend in a hard moment and grew closer to a few people. I wasn’t the life of the party that night. I wasn’t making some hot girl. I wasn’t doing anything but being me and doing what I thought was right. That was awesome.

This year, I went to Nationals healthy for the first time, again with Brass Monkey. This year, we had something that we didn’t have last year: the ability to pull together and play big in big moments. Our hearts weren’t fragmented and in close games, we were able to play up. I wish that we could have given ourselves a chance against Shazam instead of dropping down to a 7 point deficit and not getting our engine started until 12-5 or whenever it was. We played them to 11-14 and were really close to a couple blocks on that final point. It’s a little too much to ask to score 5 in a row against a great team like Shazam with the season on the line. I wouldn’t have put it past us though, the way we were playing.

On a personal note, I don’t think I’ve ever pulled as well as I did this weekend. They were huge airy bombs and they were all in bounds until the Shazam game. I would kind of like to just go up to Seattle or somewhere and scrimmage Shazam for 4 or 5 hours with Brass. I just like playing against them. I want to play a lot of points against them. It’s really fun. I don’t have very much fun at all against Mischief, and I’m not entirely sure why. I guess I can’t really think of anyone on that squad I like to guard for some reason. With Tyler, I’m usually backing him. With Kyle Smith, I’m usually busy nearly biting my tongue off while he elbows me in the face. With Shazam, it’s just a battle though. I love it. They are good, they are fast, the throws are on the mark, and for whatever reason, I like playing them. I like playing d and beating them and mashing their faces into a fine paste and then dousing their faces in kerosine and lighting them on fire and then breaking their mark, zipping down field for a wide-open 15 yd under and throwing a buttery goal to Nate up the line, while a faceless Shazamer runs after me with his burnt eyes trying to figure out what happened and why he will always be hideous for the rest of his life and never have children or friends. Whoa, sorry about that. What I mean to say is: Ultimate is fun.

This week’s episode of the Chris Farley show:

Chris Farley: Hey, Steve Finn. ‘member when you were on Sockeye?

Steve Finn: Well, yeah Chris, I do.

CF: Man, you guys were awesome…

SF: Why thank you, Chris.

CF: ………God, I’m so STUPID. I’m such an IDIOT.

SF: No, no, Chris, you’re doing fine…

CF: Really?…Oh, man…..You remember when you were on Brass Monkey?

SF: Yeah, yeah I remember, we won it in 2005.

CF: Man, you guys were soooo good….

SF: Thanks, Chris.

CF: …..God, I don’t know what I’m DOING on this interview. I’m such a FAILure….

SF: You’re doing fine, Chris. Really.

CF: You’re just saying that.

SF: No, really, Chris.

CF: Well…remember when you won your third consecutive Masters title at age 47?

SF: Chris, I’m not sure that’s happened yet although I’m sure it will.

CF: Oh….why did I SAY that?! I’m such a MORON!

SF: No, Chris. You’re really giving a good interview.

CF: No, I’m not. I’m making all kinds of mistakes all the time.

SF: Well, Chris. You know I’ve learned over the years that it’s not about whether you do things perfectly or not. Everyone makes mistakes. It has more to do with whether your mistakes ever result in something other than a National Championship. I think that’s where I’ve had a lot of success in my life. I only make mistakes that somehow lead to me being a National Champion.

CF: ….

I saw Ray Parrish’s teeth from about 500 yards away, and a few minutes later, I could see that the rest of him was also there as he continued to walk towards me. That guy was so huge for me at Sandblast when I had heatstroke and couldn’t take care of myself. I would marry him if I were some girl with really huge fake breasts, the way he likes. Sidenote: Can I just say that the reason Starsky and Hutch is a masterpiece is because it makes fun of homophobia? Can I just say that right now? I have made a living on that kind of humor (or no money at all as I look a little closer), and guys acting like they have no emotions and like they don’t care about their friends or anything for that matter is just not human. I care about my friends.

Thank you to Bil Elsinger for all the great photos and write-ups of the Mixed Division this year, which is a real division with uniforms and everything.

Dragon foot, ball of yarn, bamboo pole, Chinese boy…Prune Candy.

When’s Tempe?

Cheers

So my team does cheers after games sometimes. Not really all that often these days as my room-mate, Henrik (the mastermind behind all of the cheers), is no longer an active player on the team, but we still do some crazily elaborate cover-cheers when he makes it out. Last year the big hit was Gin and Juice (the Gourds - folky version) “mind on my monkey and my monkey on my mind” kinda thing. It was a solid jam with me laying some heavy fiddle on it and Lauren Casey filling it out with some mando. We never did get around to doing a cover version of Devil Went Down to Georgia, although on the train in to work the other day, a homeless guy sitting near my feet asked me if I had a viola in the case, and I said “Naw, it’s a fiddle”, and he immediately launched into the first few verses of that Charlie Daniels classic on a crowded commuter train. Awesome. Thank you so much for doing that. Without grassroots support from people like you, this day would never have been made possible (the words of Aaron W, my former room-mate from Paulina).

Back to the lecture at hand. This year, I have some work to do to cover a really tricky riff from some Chili Peppers song called “Hey-o” maybe and an awesome bassline from a Beck tune. If you are going to Nationals and are in our pool, that’s good news for you. If not, maybe get elinimated before us and then check out some of the post-game magic.

Why do I like the cheers? It really brings this great energy to the team. It is something that is very Brass Monkey, and without it, it just doesn’t feel like the team for some reason. We F around a lot and have a good time regardless, but cheers bring it to another level. It’s also indicative of the idea that Brass plays great Ultimate because we’re having fun and enjoying each other. Last year, in my opinion, we didn’t enjoy each other as much. There was some chemistry that was a little off, and there was a general lack of ease that isn’t there this year that kept us from playing great when we needed to. That is not to say that we will go any further or even as far as we did last year, but I think the soul of the team is intact this season. It feels good and loving. Sidenote: maybe one of the things that I don’t completely like about Open is that this loving piece is pretty much missing. At least it doesn’t show up in the same way as it does in coed. Nothing says loving like spiking on each other in practice and kicking a water bottle. What Open gives up on the positivity scale, it may make up for on the humor scale though. Ladies, I love you, but guys are just WAY funnier. I met this guy once. Oh man. So funny.

Flying, Magic

So Regionals briefly: it was cold, windy, and rainy. Needless to say, I excelled in that environment coming from the Midwest and practicing on the shores of Lake Michigan for 3 years in college. We had a relatively easy road to finals with arguably the easiest pool (Bozos, Night Train, and Denial) and Golden Spike upsetting Mischief to face us in semis. Golden Spike, by the way, is a phenomenal team, and deserves to be at Nationals. However, since they have a couple of guys on their team that are COMPLETE pricks, no one is too sorry to hear that they lost 3, count them, 3 games to go to finish 5th. Our game against Shazam was VERY upwind-downwind, and each team had 2 breaks I believe. 12-11 was the final with both teams essentially holding serve. These guys play really well. I like playing against them because they don’t cheat, they don’t really get chippy, and they play good Ultimate, even though they have one of the stupidest names I’ve ever heard. By the way, there is an awesome story about Shazam in this month’s issue of Poof magazine. With Shazam, everything is so dramatic and flamboyant; it makes me just want to set myself on fire!

Ok, enough. Love from the Left.

My team-mate Coco likes to say that the most meaningless stat in sports is the halftime score. The second most meaningless stat is who won Northern California Mixed Sectionals (unless you count last year when that team went on to win Nationals). I’ve lost my point.

Reset button.

Brass played great. The sun shone. The children laughed and danced. That one kid shouted angrily and just gritted his teeth for 8 bars when I gave him one of my solos. There was singing and laughing and guitar-playing and fiddling. There were beers to be drank and teams to be heckled. There was a full beer can to be thrown at my chest by a girl named Molly who thought that would be funny. You’re not funny, Molly. Go away and give me back any beer that you have on your person.

Mischief was missing Tyler and it was windy. Both of those things played to our strenths. I am still very happy about a decisive win over Mischief. Of course, Sectionals means nothing, and the score is officially 0-0 again. Nothing that happened counted. The Flycoons are really frickin good (even with Tim Murray on the roster), Mischief is really frickin good (’06 champs), Shazam is really frickin good (’04 champs reloaded with 1 loss on the season), and then there’s Family Style (SC studs with awesome women), CTR (deep and good), Horde (formerly Whore$hack), Golden Spike (punked us at Labor Day on Sunday morning), and at least two more teams that could play big at any time and beat damn near anyone. I hate our region sometimes. Other times I really love it. Regionals should be fun. If we get out of our region, then there’s a bunch more teams, not the least of which is Slow White who is the only team that has beaten us at Nationals since 2004 (2005 in pool play, 2006 in semis). My captain, Nate, always responds to news of really good teams or great players being picked up by our rivals/opponents with “Great, I wouldn’t want to win any other way.” Or something like that. I like that attitude. I want to beat all these teams at their best. I want us to be our best and to just be better than their best. That would be fun.

Oh, details? Yeah, I don’t know many details really. Our deep game was clicking against Mischief, even in the high winds, and we took half by a lot and never let them back in. Final score: 15-8? Not really sure. This was not Mischief’s best effort by any stretch.

I somehow missed Revolver beating Jam at Sectionals. That is pretty cool. Idris blogged that Revolver would pretty much have to be the 2 seed at NW Regionals with Furious as a 4 seed or else there would be some flawed logic. Idris is always right.

Dudes and female-dudes, it’s time for some of that hot nasty Frizbone action. Brass Monkey is going to compete until you can’t feel anything but pure ecstasy. We are going to swing your dumps and pump it deep to our streaking strikers. We are going to have intercourse on your team, bigtime. Here’s a picture of me intercoursing two people.

Yeah, the series starts this weekend, and as Zaz would say, “I’m getting old and I like math.”

We get to play Mischief this weekend who is missing (I presume) Tyler Grant who is “the straw stirring the drink” for that team with a pretty bad ankle sprain. They’re pretty damn good without him though. A win against them would be big because they have a couple of girls that are faster and taller than me or so, and their offense is REALLY hard to deal with because they throw to people that aren’t open and oftentimes do that without putting any air under the disc. It’s like playing Ball State or something where you have your guy so covered that you just assume the throw won’t go up and then the guy catches it behind your head and you bitch at your team-mates for not making “up” calls because you’re still blaming your parents for your shortcomings as a man. Actually, that wasn’t really as much of a hypothetical as it was a snapshot from my past.

We, Brass Monkey, played Shazam twice a couple of weeks ago on home court at Labor Day and split games with them. They have Steve Finn on their team, who is extremely old and also plays boardgames with people on my team when he comes to town. I still don’t understand the boardgame thing. Tony, Carlo: I don’t get it. They were boring when I was a kid, and they’re still boring. You guys should hang out with Steve Finn. Anyway, other than that one loss, Shazam has had their way with everybody they’ve played this year, including the final of that tourney in decisive fashion over Brass. Mischief has had a couple of close ones with Shazam, including once being up 7-2 or something in pool play at ECC and then losing on double-game I think. Shazam is still clearly the team to beat in the coed division, but luckily, I love beating the team to beat. There’s nothing more gratifying than playing big and upsetting a 1-seed and then taking all their girls out for a nice seafood dinner and then never calling them again.

There’s literally nothing better. I challenge you to find something better than that…………..Dorothy Mantooth is a saint.

Time to take Glucosamine, Chondroitin, and MSM combo pills. Is everybody ok after the meningitis outbreak? That’s a serious disease from what I understand.

Here are some pictures (poached from Bea’s blog) of Wyatt Riot’s show last Friday. It was at Pier 23 which is a bar that they named an entire pier after - talk about unoriginal - and it happens to be next to the bay which is where we play and make things out of clay. It was a damn good time and the alcohol tasted like a giant glass of “freedom” (which is a concept and now also a taste). Damien showed up and convinced the barstaff to concoct a long island iced tea in a bucket because who wants to get a bunch of glasses dirty? He then proceeded to allegedly tell the girl I was chatting with that on a scale of 3 to 13, she was a 7. Thanks, buddy. Glad I didn’t even invite you so that you could show up, drink my bonus and insult the girl I am hitting on. Good looking out.

In other news, the Labor Day Ultimate Champies are this weekend with coed up in SF and Open/Women down in Santa Cruz. It should be a pretty solid tournament as usual and if nothing else changes this weekend, I will be living in a place called the Pink Palace when it’s over. Nothing gay about that. Let’s a do a quick recap of my life as a straight male since last spring:

In the beginning, I am in a long-term relationship with a woman (Dr. Welsh) in the heartland.

Then….

1) I move to San Francisco, gay mecca, to “explore something new”.
2) My relationship quickly falls apart.
3) I move to the city to “explore something new.”
4) I begin biking a lot and drinking cocktails when I go out.
5) I move to a bright pink house.
6) I put some of my hanging clothes in the closet.
7) I come out of the closet.

So anyway, I live in a pink house in the Sunset and I love Extreme Frisbee. As Joe Ferrari would say, sweet. (Here’s a picture of me hanging out with my guy friends in San Francisco. That guy in the shades is definitely checking me out.)

“Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he’s carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he’s carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you’re drunk.” -Jack Handey

So at ECC this weekend, the Buzz Bullets descended on the US. They won worlds in Perth, AUS last November, and everybody kind of wrote that win off since a lot of the top men’s teams didn’t make it down to Worlds. They came to ECC this weekend though and really frustrated teams. I saw some of their semifinal against Jam and most of their final against Sockeye (which they lost on double-game-point after being up the whole game).

On D, they run a transition zone-man-zone that my friend Stephen was trying to describe to me, having played against them before in international competitions. They apparently come down in zone, flip to man, and then they go BACK into zone or something like that. It’s pretty confusing, and I’m no strategist, so you’ll have to read more about it from the “thinkers” out there. One other thing they do is bid huuuuge. They are springy and explode on their lay-outs.

On O, they force throws through traffic and jam it up the line and throw outside-in hucks that don’t hang in the air and just are faster than their opponents a lot of the time. A couple of throws went up in the final that just looked like poor choices really, but BB read them well and were really effective even against the big guys. In the rain, they all had these really cool gloves too. I’ve gotta look into these gloves because the catches they were making in traffic were pretty fantastic.

They are sponsored by a “shutter company” (not sure if it’s camera shutters or window shutters), and most of them work there. They’re all really tight and play and work together, and they all have all the skills. That was a really noticeable difference: they’re not specialized like US teams. (Note to self: move to Japan for that reason alone.) On Sockeye, you’ve got Chase and Nord dominating in the air, Ben Wiggins and Jeremy Cram exclusively behind the disc, and a bunch of other highly specialized O and D players. The Buzz Bullets all have great skills, all play both sides of the disc well, and are all EXTREMELY FAST and hyper-intelligent…and hairless.

Nord got skyed twice this weekend by guys that were about a foot shorter than him on the Buzz Bullets. Pretty sick springy bids by these guys. All in all, they really won over the crowd and everybody was rooting for them and at times booing certain members of Sockeye. It seems like BB is on to something that the rest of the world may need to get wise to or be overtaken, like in so many other areas other than sex, by the Japanese.

I guess the only other comment I wanted to make was that this game was played really cleanly. There were no cheap calls that I could see, and Sockeye did not make any calls to give themselves the edge. There were a couple of times that I expected a foul-call when the Buzz Bullets made a physical play on a high disc and in Sockeye’s defense, they did not stop play and just hustled back on D. I thought this was awesome. It inspired me to play cleaner Ultimate and really take it on myself to win the damn disc, no matter what.

In the coed division, Brass played pretty poorly. We are ironing out some things and were not short on players by any stretch (with 20 or so). We lost to Flaming Moe, Shazam, Slow White, and Mischief. We beat Horde (Whoreshack) and Flycoons (they are really good this year having picked up Tim Murray and what’s-her-face). There was a great moment where I called a foul on an accidental collision Basically, I started coming under after a deep cut and then Greenough ripped a bomb to the back of the endzone and so I turned back around and ran into my defender who was trailing by about 10 yards and didn’t see the disc go up. Timmy yelled from the sideline, “No one from Northwestern could’ve gotten that disc.” Luckily, one of his other team-mates standing close to me said I had a play on it. Nice spirit, guy.

Shazam handled everyone except Mischief who gave them the game after being up 7-2 only to lose on double-game-point. I think the rematch in the final went to Shazam as well and it was not a 1-point win. I don’t know the score though. They beat us in a rainy, zone-y, game in which we took half and then lost 11-15. Their trap zone looked pretty good, and they were trapping on both sidelines.

That’s all I have to report from ECC. I saw Becky and met her boyfriend, Pat. I approve.

Good Morning, United States.

Now I will begin vomiting all over this blog, much in the same way I vomited all over the finals of Sandblasty except instead of red gatorade, it will be metaphors. Also, I *think* I can use capitalization and punctuation because my sister is no longer able to stop me. If this sentence and the title of the post aren’t followed by a bunch of commas, then I am wrong. , , , , , ,,,, , ,, , , ,, , , ,,, ,

I’d update you on the West Coast, but what is there to say really? It’s way better than everywhere else, people are open-minded, the straight-male-to-straight-female ratio is 1:10 in San Francisco, and the straight-male-to-gay-male ratio is also 1:10 in San Francisco. In other words: I’m kind of a big deal out here. I’ve been walking around the city, whipping my hair wildly in the summer (50 degree summer) breeze and occasionally turning abruptly to freeze a whole block of Market St. with a little “blue steel”. I usually arch my back when I do that…like a dragon.

Enough about casual though, what about Ultimate? Well, here’s the deal. July out here is for the most part everyone’s break for the season. Players enjoy kayaking, hiking, camping, surfing, and making sweet love on their wives. What have I been doing? Oh, the usual: almost dying at Sandblast, writing profiles for the Brass website (http://brassmonkeyultimate.googlepages.com), and not hating my parents anymore. Yeah, you read that right. I sort of stopped doing that a few weeks ago and by communicating that across the internet, I am making it even more real.

The team I took to Sandblast was called Dago Tea (pronounced “day go tee”) and was dedicated to my mom, Mary Jane, aka Mama Town. We celebrated our Italian heritage and family, and I think that was part of a shift that really took place the following weekend at this thing called the Landmark Forum. Now, Landmark is a little weird, but it sort of gave me permission to make some changes in my life that I really like, and it talks a lot about keeping your past behind you, living a life of possibility, and creating whatever meaning you want, instead of letting your past dictate the meanings of things in your life.

One of the possibilities I created was being responsible for loving my Mom and Dad, exactly as they are and with all of our history. I always have the choice to resent them and in doing so avoid responsibility in my own life. “If my parents hadn’t raised me the way they did, I wouldn’t be such a moody bastard right now.” It’s a fun game with big payoffs and even bigger costs. The costs are that I am not present in my life a lot of the time, and I don’t take responsibility at times for my work, my play on the field, and for my relationships.

…

I feel a little bit like Ron Burgundy after he says, “And that, of course, was our newest reporter, Veronica, Corningstone. She’s really great. I’d also like to share with you that we are currently dating and that she is quite a handful in the bedroom.” Maybe I shouldn’t have broadcast all that to the world, but what can I say. I love my parents, and I wanted to sing it from on top of a mountain, but I didn’t have a mountain, I had a blog and new priveleges from my sister…

So back to disc, Brass starts practices up again next week, ECC (or Spawnfest for the coed division) is in 3 weeks up near Seattle, and the coed division is crushingly good this year. Mischief is returning its all-star cast (including Tyler Grant who played Dago Tea at Sandblast), Shazaam Returns is a Seattle powerhouse team that went out to Boston and dominated for the most part and boasts one of the all-time greats in Steve Finn (Let’s recap his last 3 years of Ultimate, shall we? ‘06 Masters National Champion with Throwback catching a callahan on championship point, ‘05 Mixed National Champion with Brass Monkey, ‘04 Open National Champion with Sockeye), and Slow White is making the trip out from Boston after losing in Finals of Nationals last year to Mischief and beating Brass in semis. It should be a good time, and I hear that they have decided to have Open and Women compete this year as well. How fun for them.

I just joined a new band out here called The Wayside State which you can check out here: http://www.myspace.com/thewaysidestate. They have really good, original songs, and all they want me to do is solo on the fiddle. Perfect.

I’m the CTown Hustler; you stay classy, planet earth.

Hi, everyone. Mr. Town here, Miss Casual’s brother. Check out our new site:

www.casualtown.com
: ist das Community Browsergame FORREALZ-ischlagen!

Let’s catch up real quick: How are you doing in Chicago? Nice. Yeah, good to hear; I was going to ask you about that, so it all worked out then? Oh, it didn’t. Sorry to hear that. Well she wasn’t right for you anyway. Oh she was, and it was your fault? Yeah, well I mean, I guess life goes on. It doesn’t? Listen, I didn’t want to get into a whole discussion here, but seriously, we used to be friends and I remember that.

I’m doing fine out here in SF. I live in the city now, and let me tell you something: dudes love some dudes out here. I mean, I think it goes deeper than friendship in a lot of ways, especially one way. It’s not affecting me though. I’m straight as an arrow, and nothing will change that. I don’t even give awkwardly long hugs to guys more than once a week or so. That’s a fact.

Anyway, here’s a day in the life so that you can get an idea of what my life is like these days (Midwest translation is in brackets so you can follow what I’m saying): I get up at 7:30 (9:30 CST) and take a shower. I hop on my normal bike for losers (fixed-gear bike) and hit the road. I’m hella tired (tired), but I hop on the downhill slope (like the Midwest but kinda slanted) and just coast for a while. I realize that I forgot to shave, and then notice a few girls (lesbians) riding bikes alongside of me who also forgot to shave…their faces. It’s cool though. I breeze by a couple Carl’s Jr’s (Hardees) and swerve to avoid hitting an old Asian women (black guy). I work for 8 hours (10 hours), and then I marvel at the beauty of the Bay Area on my way to watching the Warriors (Bulls) go down 1-3 to the Jazz (Pistons). I then go to sleep in an 800 sq. ft. 3 BR apartment (3500 sq. ft. 4 BR) while my openly gay room-mate (…errr…) watches South Park.

Here’s your pre-season scouting report for Ultimate out here in the Yay Area:

COED:

Brass Monkey: Sweethearts, great leadership, returning their core for one last go of it. Expect a good year from them. I may roster up with them again since it was such a great experience last year, and they have a spot at representing the US in VanCouver in ‘08 if they finish at the top this year.

Mischief: Defending National Champs in the coed division. They have one guy that wins all their games for them: Tyler Grant. He is back again. They will win again.

WOMEN:

Fury: They picked up five really good players, and they just happen to have an amazingly good coach: Matty Tsang. He’s the reason they will win again when it counts.

New Team: This other women’s team that is a mixture of Homebrood (RIP) and Skyline. They have no identity and fragmented leadership (a la Justice League last year). They will probably have a tough year.

MEN:

Jam: Idris is captaining again this year, and Hollywood and the Body (aka Greg Husak and Brandon Steets) are coming up from the Condors to join an already stacked team. These guys don’t seem to play with a lot of heart, but this team has the players to win a title if it all comes together. They’re also no longer pretending not to be Jam. I’ve been trying out with these dudes, and it’s a lot of fun.

Revolver: Lot of ex-Stanford on this team. They play small ball, breaking the mark, taking high-percentage passes, and really grinding with teams. There’s some great chemistry on this team, and they are looking to add some height (possibly me) to their roster. We’ll see if it’s a fit. Nick Handler is something else. I’ve never been impressed with dump cuts before or seen a guy who is 5′7″ go deep as well as he does. Rivaled maybe only by Josh Wiseman (same team, same height, almost solely a deep).

I guess that’s all there is to say. I will be at Poultry Days with USDA, getting there early on Friday and staying Sunday night if you wanna hang. I’ll be at Sandblast (Thu-Tues) with Dago Tea, a really fun crew mostly from the Bay. Let me know your plans for those two. Unless you’re Jacob Dee. Then just sit tight and wait for your spanking.

Chuck

Good evening, because whatever time it is in Cali, it’s always 11 PM in Chicago due to time change.