Innovation

A friend of mine - Brian - recently told me a story about his childhood trips to the neighborhood Dairy Queen. In addition to the ice cream, Brian and his brother looked forward to the "Spy Hunter" arcade game (right) stored just inside the D.Q. They enjoyed it so much that the younger, dumber 8-year-old versions of themselves devised a scheme to punch a hole through a quarter, tie fishing wire around it, feed it into the arcade long enough to trigger the game to start and then yank the quarter back out of the machine by pulling the fishing wire.

The plan didn't work for a lot of reasons, the least of which was the cashier's 10-foot proximity to the "Spy Hunter" machine. Even if the ploy worked, Brian and his brother would never have gotten away with playing an afternoon of unlimited spy hunting.

What's worse: they wasted a good quarter, which by 8-year-old conversion rates, was about 20 bucks.

But my friend's attempt at innovation is noble, and worth noting as the prologue to my tale.
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When I was seven, I wanted to be an inventor. I spent my childhood imagining all the fanciful ways I could fortify my world with safety and originality. I marveled at Ferris Bueller's ability to trick his family into thinking he was sick in bed while he made the city of Chicago his own amusement park. I aped, as best I could, the wildly playful practical qualities of Pee-Wee Herman's friends and furniture. Although I never successfully conjured up a floating wizard head or a chair that hugged me, I made my room colorful (and messed up) in the process of trying. I watched in awe of "The Goonies" character Data and his ability to have something pop out of his jacket for every occasion.

It was Data that had the largest impact on my childhood desire to innovate. You'll notice I used the word "desire" and not "skill." Make no mistake, I had no innovative skill as a child. I wasted dozens of rolls of masking tape, toilet tissue and pajama pants trying to recreate Hollywood special effects.

The pajama pants were more of a comfort thing, while I used the other materials to create and build. To my recollection, I never actually used pajama pants as building materials.

Almost every "invention" I copied turned out failed and stupid, but at the time I seemed awesome to myself.

My most triumphant innovation might also be the one for which I got in the most trouble.

I wanted Data's utility jacket just like the one pictured to the right. Like Data's jacket, my jacket had to come equipped with every imaginable solution to every imaginable problem, including the spring-loaded boxing glove that shoots out of the inner lining to pummel evil pirates.

I was a child with my sights set high, but I was just a child. I had to start small. I found a windbreaker jacket that my Mom ordered special from Land's End or something. It was bright red, not gray like I wanted, and it had my name on it, which was very much in keeping with the original spirit of what would become my greatest achievement.

The way Pee-Wee Herman felt about his bike was how I intended to feel about this jacket.
It was a simple windbreaker made from synthetic nylon. It had two pockets of which I intended to take full advantage. At first I cut slits in the back of the windbreaker with the intention of storing my entire marble collection inside it. I'm not sure what I imagined would happen with these marbles.

Did I ever really believe that people slipped and fell to the ground upon contact with stray marbles? I guess I did because that was my plan. My original design was simple: 1. cut a hole in the lining 2. hide marbles in between the two layers of my windbreaker 3. wing marbles at assorted pirates.

It didn't really work. After I put all the marbles in the lining of my jacket, I had all this sudden weight that caused me to move slow and I didn't have any way to deploy the marbles quickly.

I dug the three dozen marbles out of the jacket's lining and devised a way to directly disperse the marbles onto the floor at a moments notice. I cut the bottom out of one the jacket pockets, sliced a swatch of jacket lining from the inside of my windbreaker and masking-taped it around the cut open pocket. I attached the lining swatch to a piece of string that I pulled, thus releasing the marbles as if from a trapdoor.

Why didn't I just hold a dozen marbles in my hand and throw them at the hypothetical pirates? Why did I insist on having them shower from my jacket like heaven's rain? Why did I fixate on the marbles in the first place?

These are all good questions. Had I asked any of them, I'm sure I would have skipped this project altogether and played with my Legos or something.

But I didn't ask those questions. Instead I dropped every last marble into my precariously sutchered pocket and gingerly waddled into the living room where my mother was peacefully doing something. When I was young and my mother was peacefully doing anything, it always worked out that it was I who broke that peacefulness.

Also, how could I have sprinted at top speeds from pirates, when I couldn't even move into the living room at a normal pace? I had to creep into the living room for fear of my pocket bursting before I could pull the string to showcase my invention to my mother?

I waddled into the living room and proudly announced that I invented a jacket just like Data in "The Goonies," a character from a movie I'm sure she still has never seen. I excitedly yanked the string, the flap exposed my open pocket and a hail of marbles clanged all over the hardwood floor on which I was standing.

Imagine my look of utter triumph; like a mason stepping back to take in his first view of the mansion he'd just completed. Each wall built sturdy enough to shelter the next five generations of his family. My jacket too was ingenious enough to shelter my loved ones from the storm of pirates.

I was an industrial titan. A boy-genius at the precipice of his future greatness.

My mom looked at me as if I had just removed a 12-foot tapeworm from my rectum. She had an incredulous look of someone with feelings of anger hot on the heels of her feelings of confusion. As if she were about to take her first bite into an apple only to have a stranger slap it from her hand and walk away laughing.

My memory recalls that my arms were out in a "ta-da" pose after dropping all my marbles, but I could be wrong. I hope I'm wrong, because my mom was pissed and perhaps worried that instead of dropping my marbles, that had fucking lost them. I would imagine that a "ta-da" pose would do nothing to make her think otherwise.

The same way it never occurred to me not to design something other than a marble spilling jacket, so did it elude me that my mom might get kinda peeved if her first born idiot walked into the room with a sliced up windbreaker dripping marbles all over her living room floor.

I'd like to say that my genius continued after that point. It did, but not in the manner I intended as a boy. My "genius" was in my ability to identify what a foolish child I was and to stop cutting up all my jackets.

The Freedom to Fail

NO JAVELIN ZONE: Leryn Franco might not have displayed much talent in Beijing,
but perhaps she displayed something of more abstract importance.

With the 2008 Beijing Olympics 3/4 finished, it seems only appropriate that I write something about the global event. And because this is me we're talking about, it shouldn't surprise you that it will have little to do with the athleticism or glory of the Games.

But that's okay because the subject of my Olympic affections also has little to do with athleticism or glory.

Leryn Franco, a javeliner from Paraguay, caught my attention about a week ago when, for my job, I was researching some of the lesser known Olympic events. Two things need mentioning about Franco right off:

1) Franco is an attractive woman and for that reason alone, she caught my attention.
2) Franco failed to qualify in the javelin event in which she was scheduled to compete.

So why, in an Olympic season with Michael Phelps, Shawn Johnson and Usain Bolt, would I bother writing about this chick? Why not just post a few pictures and move on? Well, like I said, this hasn't much to do with athletics at all and Lord knows I don't have anything to say about those Olympic champions that hasn't already been said thousands of times.* Contrarily, Leryn Franco doesn't represent greatness. She doesn't even represent competitiveness and therefore, most will lump her in with other hot athletic duds such as Anna Kournikova, Andy Roddick and Michelle Wie. Franco came in the bottom two in both of her qualifiers (51st and 25th). For all intents and purposes, she really didn't seem to have any business being at the Olympics and could not have done much worse. Your skepticism will most certainly increase when I tell you that back home, Ms. Franco is both a runner-up in the 2006 Ms. Paraguay pageant and full-time model. Her modeling, in fact, is how she pays the bills while pretending to be an Olympian.

At this point, I can almost hear your eyes rolling around in their sockets. If I were interested in this woman only because she were attractive, I'd expect this reaction, perhaps even demand it. But she's different enough from athletes like Kournikova, the Russian tennis player, who started the tennis circuit as a promising prodigy, lost most of her competitive skill and became fetishized as a symbolic female athlete instead of an actual one. Kournikova is really no longer an athlete and therefore is nothing more than a famous personality. But Franco is not that, because Franco does not get paid to throw a javelin. She gets paid to be attractive, a job for which she is clearly well-suited. She then takes that money and spends it (perhaps "wastes it" is more appropriate) on training for the Olympics, where she embarrasses herself two Olympics in a row (at 22, she tossed a javelin in the Athens Games and came in 42nd place).

Why would anyone do this?

People became annoyed with America's last tennis hope Andy Roddick because they felt he stopped caring about his sport. Teenage golfer Michelle Wie was seen as someone too wrapped up in her own hype to effectively compete anymore. Franco flies under that radar and in fact, seems only to enjoy the process of throwing a javelin, perhaps too, she enjoys the process of representing her country without having to wear a bikini to do it. Either way you slice it, Leryn Franco represents something that us Americans claim we hold dear: passion and spirit.

There's a tacit sprytness present in someone who would fashion a career in modeling so she can finance her frivolous grand-scale hobby. Musician Jack Johnson woke up on the beach one day, decided he wanted to stop being a professional surfer and start making crappy mellow music and he's generally well-liked for it. I see the same preciousness in Franco.

There was never a point in which Franco could have thought she would qualify for the final javelin competition. During the Beijing qualifiers she threw the spear 12 meters shorter than her 2007 personal best. Had she matched her personal best at the Beijing trials, she still would have only been ranked 37th, 29 slots out of qualifying. No chance.

Varieties of beautiful people are represented in these games. U.S. Softball pitcher Jennie Finch represent everything perfect about humanity (talent, beauty and dedication)**, U.S. hurdler Lolo Jones represents everything real about humanity (skill, drive, missed opportunity) and Leryn Franco represents a lighter, freer, humbler quality of humanity (the personal desire to compete and the freedom to fail).

Leryn Franco is, at best, a tiny footnote of these grand Games, but in a way, that tinniness is why it's worth noting. It's quirky. Paraguay is a quirky country, javelin is a quirky sport and her involvement in these games was a quirky failure. Most importantly however, the spoils of javelin chucking are enough to compel her to embark on that failure.

This free desire has been grossly underrepresented.

Click on photo for extra large dose of beauty... and talent?

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* Except maybe that Shawn Johnson has two different sized eyebrows. Has anyone else noticed this? In every picture and every video clip, it looks as if she's raising one eyebrow. It makes her look cocky and perhaps a bit smarmy and if she doesn't make the Wheaties box like Mary Lou, you'll know why.

** Ironically, less than 12 hours after I wrote this, the U.S. Softball team lost their first game since September 21, 2000. The loss can only be looked at as a massive upset and proof that even Jennie Finch is flawed.

Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily...

I think it’s important to tip cab drivers a little extra if I happen to leave puddles of water on the backseat. The cab driver is almost certainly going to get an earful from the eventual wetbottom who gets in the cab next. I just want to make that moment a little more palatable for the driver, so I left a 30 percent tip and dragged my soaked 60-pound bluejeans (and the legs inside them) out of the taxi.

Had I known getting in to the taxi what I came to understand upon getting out, I'm sure I would have done a few things differently.

If nothing else, when my girlfriend Emily asked me if I wanted to kayak up the Chicago River toward Lake Michigan to watch Saturday night's fireworks, I would have isolated two very important words: kayak and river. Looking back, I really should have weighed more closely the probable effects of any activity involving these two words. This is automatic for many people, but not me.

I told Emily yes and absentmindedly finished my taco or whatever.

Most people would show up to a kayaking expedition with swim shorts and flip-flops... y'know, as if they were prepared to get wet. For some reason I let myself act as if the cover of night and the promise of fireworks would shield me from a billion gallons of lake water.

Emily and I arrived at the kayak launch site, signed in with our tour guide and chose a life jacket. My tour guide looked at my blue jeans, sneakers and plaid shirt and asked if I had any other clothes I wanted to change in to. In my head I'm imagining all the clothes I wanted to change in to, but all those clothes were tucked away in my house. So instead, I laughed and told my tour guide that I didn't have more appropriate clothes to change into and jokingly acknowledged that I was screwed.

In a situation like this, after I've just acknowledged what a bonehead I am, all I'm looking for is a little reassurance; a "there, there;" an "I've seen worse" or a "you'll be fine, pal." Instead, my tour guide smiled, nodded and agreed that, yeah, I'm pretty screwed.

Somewhere in this story I should mention that Emily and I were not alone. There were about 14 people in our group including some friends of Emily's, so it wasn't like we were by ourselves, but for the bulk of the trip we might as well have been. Our tour guide urged us to use dual kayaks. Along with the assumption that I would somehow not get wet, I also assumed I'd be in my own boat.

I mean, what's the difference between a two-person kayak and a canoe?

I've found in my life as a not single person that my definition of "togetherness" is quite different from that of my female counterparts.

tew-GETH-er-niss n.
male definition: being in the same general area while sharing similar, but not exact experiences.
female definition: being in close proximity as much as possible therefore sharing the exact same memories and experiences.

You'll notice that my definition would most likely lend itself to being fine with my own kayak. You'll also notice that Emily (and her female friend) were more than excited to share a boat with their respective male mates. I'm sure they referred to the partnership as cute or fabulous or some damn thing. Turns out that sharing a kayak is neither cute nor fabulous because sharing a kayak is hard. Along with the syncopation, unless the woman you are with happens to be an Olympian, she ain't making up for her weight with the energy she's expending. So if the two of us are going to get to the fireworks on time, that energy has to come from someone.

Guess who?

In all honesty, I don't mind putting in grunt work. There's something noble about doing so. How bad can a little paddling be? A little paddling probably wouldn't have been bad, but the voyage Emily and I tandemly set out upon was quite a bit more than a little paddling.

Two-and-a-half miles there. Two-and-a-half miles back.

Fun on a Saturday night is seeing a movie, watching the game in a bar, perhaps playing checkers in my jammies, something along those lines. Grunting up the Chicago River, drenched and exhausted is somewhere further down that list.

I should confess that I have a pre-existing bias against kayaks and really, all row boats. A little over two years ago, I attended Maine's annual Lobster Fest and entered its blindfolded boat race with my friend Priti. I rowed while wearing a blindfold and Priti directed me with verbal cues. I'll not go into detail of that horrendous race, but I will say it went poorly and I didn't say much to Priti for a good hour after we climbed from the boat. I guess I just don't do well with tandem things.

The row up the Chicago River was both painful and frustrating. It took us about an hour to get to where we stopped and viewed the fireworks. Emily, God bless her, could sense my frustration and thought that telling me how this experience would make a good blog would be the silver lining I needed. Good blog material doesn't make everything better, okay? Blog material isn't like mommy kisses or unicorn laughter.

Sometimes the stories I get to tell aren't worth the hell of going through them.

Besides, I had already planned on writing a blog about this before she said anything. Up until I sat in the taxi, I was planning on starting with that unicorn laughter line.

Admittedly, the fireworks were kinda kickass and they provided twofold services. The first being a calm in between two storms of rowing and the second being our tour guide's insights as to what will happen to Chicago if the city wins the bid to host the Olympics in 2016. I won't go into detail, but I'm pretty sure it will create a disruption ten times larger than the Cubs beating the White Sox in the World Series.

It'll be enough of a disturbance that I will realistically move to another part of the country.

After the fireworks, the sky returned to darkness and we returned to our paddles. Sitting inertly for 40 minutes almost made me forget how wet I was and how much I hated rowing. My hands were pruned and soft, which made it all the easier for layer after layer of skin to peel away, leaving one slightly more tender layers as my only protectant between the paddle and open nerve endings. Our trip down the river went better than our trip up the river. Part of this was because we had learned from previous mistakes, but most of it was because we were now swimming with the river's current.

It felt so good to glide in a straight line. In the fleeting moments where she and I miraculously found a rhythm, I could almost understand the appeal of it all. We were moving, slicing, still grunting, but with more purpose now. We were going to make it, we were going to get there faster, faster than we could have imagined.

We flew on the wings of Icarus.

I heard wind and water, followed by voices of our friends in the distance. I could not make out the words, but the tone sounded urgent. I disconnected myself from the freedom of movement long enough to decipher what they were saying to us.

"Get over!"

It didn't take me long to understand what they meant by this. My focus shifted from my friends behind me to an approaching force 200 yards in front of me. I wasn't sure if this impending phantom was the night sky or my imagination, but it was hulking and silent.

It was a miniature barge that blew its gutteral horn as if to signal that it was not a figment of my imagination. Emily let out a shriek. How could something so massive slink through the water so quietly? How could something so opressive remain unnoticed by two people rowing directly at it? Both Emily and I shared a moment of surreal panic. Was this boat bigger than it appeared and farther away or smaller and a mere matter of feet away?

I refocused and joined in the chorus of our friends by yelling at Emily to get over. I then added "Left!"

For the uninitiated, if you want your kayak to go left, you must paddle on the right side of your boat. If you want to go left, paddle on the right side. On our ride upstream to the fireworks Emily and I had experimented with these physics to a large degree. When I said left, she'd paddle on the left side of the kayak.

It's funny what escapes your mind when you're in a state of panic.

My yelling "Left! Left!" had no effect on Emily, who lifted her paddle over her head for reasons I may never understand.

With the barge making no effort to avoid us, I drag my paddle deep into the river and started moving us. Soon after we gained momentum, Emily came to her senses and paddled with me. We got out of the way and met our friends who were laughing (much harder than I was) and just as clueless how we all missed the barge until it was almost too late.

We exited our kayaks and returned to the small area in which our group had left their belongings.

Soaked and dripping, I felt dumpy; heavy like I had grown a tail. Like all my leg hair grew out an extra foot. It was about 11 p.m. and the set of doors through which we entered were locked and there was no clear alternative exit. We were next to an ultrahip, lively restaurant and lounge called Japonais in the complex in which we were trapped. We approached the bouncer of the club who told us to cut through the smokers patio and exit on the opposite side of the club's exterior.

This club: think a mid-western "Laguna Beach." Think of tiny cocktail dresses and perfect hair, bored eyes and hair gel. This club: think 95 percent yuppies listening to 95 percent hip-hop. Think: social smoking, not addiction smoking. Pitt and Jolie were there last year (pictured right). Got it? It's upscale.

The highlight of my entire night was walking through this maximum capacity club dripping like a newly washed car, brushing past people who spent longer in front of the mirror that evening than I had in the entire month. I'm still tickled by the idea that some girl with a cosmo in one hand got dowsed with a shirt full of lake water on the other when I brushed past.

That must've been confusing.

It must also have been confusing for whomever entered that taxi right after me. You gotta figure, that next person felt some moisture and ran through all the possible liquids the backseat of a city cab could host. I'm not sure what the driver told this person, but I bet everyone assumed it was worse than lake water.

As far as I'm concerned, nothing could be worse than lake water.

Literally Paying for Your Mistakes

What is it about obcene amounts of money that makes people act like shameless shitheads?

I'm surfing the Interweb trying to quench my thirst for Miley Cyrus news when I get bombarded with details about record-breaking weekend profits. Gaudy numbers like $46.7 million and $45.4 million were involved.

The weekend grosses for "Dark Knight" and "Tropic Thunder" you ask? No. Good guess, but definately wrong.

Turns out crappy musician Phil Collins felt that two failed marriages weren't reasons enough to remain a bachelor, so he decided to get married a third time.

Just in case.

"For good measure," Phil thought. "I had better marry someone 22 years younger than me. 'Cause what could go wrong?"

I don't know how much money he has, but he's got $46.7 million less than he did a month ago. Before, Phil Collins' held the record as the only musician with the ability to out-crap Peter Gabriel, now Collins has a new record: most expensive divorce settlement in British history.

Paul McCartney thanks you Phil, for getting him off the hook.

Believe it or not, my anger isn't pointed at Phil Collins, but Phil Collins' wife and perhaps the divorce lawyers involved in the settlement. Why is it automatic that when a star gets divorced, he (and it's almost always he isn't it?) takes a financial bath? Who do these wives think they are?

I know, I know. These wives think they're mothers and it costs money to raise kids. That's always the excuse. Ten generations of my family won't need $47 million, but Phil Collins' kids can't make due without. The whole motherhood defense is a rickity bridge in a violent wind, if you ask me. Right now, if someone offered you $23 millions to have a kid and raise it for 18 years, would you take it?

Most of you would. I would too. Right now.

One kid. $23 million. $47 for two kids, I'm on board with that too.

How must Collins' wife (or any wife who gets a large percentage of their husband's net worth) justify this? I don't mean justify in the context of the law, I'm mean justify to themselves? What did Orienne Cevey do to earn $46.7 million dollars (besides pretend to like Genesis, a feat worth $13.5 million tops)?

I'm hip, okay? I've heard Kanye West warn us about gold diggers. I remember that before she was America's nouveau Marilyn Monroe, Anna Nicole Smith was among the most blatant settlement whores. I know all about Donald Trump. None of this is news, but as the settlements grow exponentially and the women reaping the benefits seem to do less and less, my rage also expands.

Are feminists mad about this growing trend? Are men protecting themselves more before they marry?

And dear God, does this mean that Phil Collins is going to put out more records in hopes of earning some of that money back? 'Cause whatever Cevey stole from Collins under the guise of "mental pain and suffering," it ain't nothing compared to what she'd owe millions of people across the world if that man decides he needs to continue making music.

Superstar Hangups

Imagine your favorite movie star or musician. Imagine they call you on the phone. Don't get all caught up in why they're calling you or what in your life has suddenly led up to being called by Madonna or Johnny Depp or whomever, just trust that someone you totally worship is calling you at home, you pick up and you start chatting like two high schoolers.

The phone conversation starts mildly enough.

There's a sale at Linens 'N Things... No, not the one in the valley, the one on Rodeo Drive... I didn't know Rodeo Drive had a Linens 'N Things either but they do, and there's a sale... What's your schedule like tomorrow?

Stuff like that.

Suddenly, your mega-ultra supercool celebrity starts taking the conversation to an uncomfortable place. The conversation gets naughty, kinda odd and depending on who your celebrity crush is, somewhat surprising; I mean can you imagine Bryant Gumbel suddenly discussing masturbation frequency with you? Probably not.

The conversation keeps going in this awkward direction. If this were your boss, an acquaintance or some prank caller, assuming you have any self-esteem, you'd most certainly barf up a few expletives and hang up the phone.

I doubt any of us would do the same while talking to our most treasured celebrity. We might try to laugh it off, attempt to redirect the conversation or politely communicate our discomfort, but we wouldn't hang up.

But why wouldn't we?

Nightmares are Dreamscapes

Imagine that what I am about to propose isn't just something I experienced which you are reading, but that it happened or will soon happen to you as well.

For only the time it takes to read this entry, stop yourself from dismissing my ideas as singular to me and imagine it were you.

What if you could remain dreaming forever? Your reality would be completely designed using the blueprints of your emotional desires.

You can live as a carefree six-year-old wrapped in the warm embrace of your long-dead grandmother's arms for the rest of your life. You can live among every friend you've ever accumulated at the pinnacle of each of those realtionships. You can combine the best qualities of every lover you've ever had into one remarkably impossible person and live every moment throughout eternity with them. You can fly or transform or travel great distances instantaneously without any consequence or debt owed. Your reality will often defy our current idea of logic and will blur the line of the impossible all in the name of never appearing different from the existence you have chosen for yourself.

The only exception is that you are aware that none of it is real. You are wholly cognizant of why everything is the way it appears to be. There is no mystery. Your dreamscape proves both that you are God and that God does not exist.

In your dreamscape, you may feel love, happiness and perseverance. You may also feel pain and sadness if you choose to feel it. If you want to struggle, fail, work hard and eventually succeed gloriously, you may do that. You may even choose a life of disappointment and failure if that is your idea of a Utopian existence. Whatever utopia is to you, you may have it. Whatever reasons you would want to stay on earth and continue living in reality, you can have in your utopia. All of it commingles in your mind and spirit the same way it would if the same feelings affected you in reality today, as it did yesterday and as you imagine it will tomorrow.

Nothing is counterfeit except your knowledge that it is all, in fact, totally false.

Do you choose to live the rest of eternity in the dreamscape or continue living in your current reality?

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Most of us have an idea of reality. Those perceptions shape us for as long as we believe them. Sometimes, those perceptions are revealed to be false in one way or another. What we once believed is then gone. Poof. Or more accurately, it never existed and now we know it. So what remains in us? If how we once saw things is revealed not to be true, what happens to us after this revelation? What is still there in our thoughts and feelings that doesn't switch immediately with these revelations?

What is it?

Is it disbelief? Is it laziness? Is it some unnamed cognitive response?

Why is it that when my reality is greatly altered, am I unable to believe it and yet, would never dream of remaining in a dreamscape I knew to be false?