I Go to Bury My Father-in-Law

Will be away for over a week as we travel south to put my wife's dad to his final rest.

Back in time for the Super Bowl!

AFC Championship

The New England Patriots beat the San Diego Chargers 21-12 to win the AFC Championship. It was a cold game, around 20 deg. I believe in Foxboro. There was a wind, and it seemed to affect the ball a fair amount when it was kicked or thrown.

New England won the game, but for three quarters the offense looked lifeless. They appeared to be mailing it in while the Chargers looked like they were playing with heart. New England's defense must be credited with allowing the Chargers only four field goals throughout the entire game.

I am assuming that Brady and Co. will show more life in Glendale, Arizona in two weeks. If they don't, they might just lose the Super Bowl.

But then again, they didn't lose the AFC Championship.

Two Nights of Idol and

I find myself bored.

I feel like I've wasted 4 hours of my week.

Oh, there are nice stories, good singers, hot babes, trainwrecks, crying, freaky people and the regular fare. I've lost interest in it though. I find that what I really want to see is Hollywood and beyond.

At least that's what I think right now. Maybe that will bore me too.

This show needs a good, strong rocker.

No more JT wannabes.

OK?

Get it done.

Aspiring Novelists, Take Heart!

I have read blogs and personal accounts from writers discussing their writing habits. It would seem that most of them have already knocked out about 100,000 words first thing in the morning before coffee - and that they do this every day of the week.

I don't know about you, but I find 2000 words a day difficult to do.

At this point in my writing experiment, my first novel has ground to a standstill at 43,000 words after a little over a year. It really stopped last April and hasn't resumed yet.

I've been writing, putting together more materials for two more books, short stories and poetry. But the big project has been bugging me from the back shelf I put it on last year.

However, I have found some information that gives me hope.

Joseph Heller started writing Catch-22 in 1953.

He didn't finish it until 1961.

That's 8 years.

Mark Twain started Huckleberry Finn in 1876.

He turned it all over to the typesetter in 1884.

That's 8 years.

What I'm writing has nothing near the scope of the two works I mentioned. And it won't be as good either, ha! But I think that I may actually be able to get it done before 8 years have passed.

Keep writing!

I Don't Know if This is True....

But I found it as funny as all get out!

A post on the Amazon message boards:

by W. R. Laney
How can you say that Emily Dickinson penned 'some of the finest poetry ever?' I thought the iambic pentameter got a little redundant but all of Emily's poetry can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." Every one of them. It drives me crazy!

Good stuff there W.R. Great wit.

And They're Off...

Last night, at the midway point of the coldest month of the year, American Idol made it's 2008 debut. Now in its 7th season, the juggernaut show stands to benefit from the ongoing writers' strike. Already, there are numerous news articles about the show, how it's in decline, what needs to happen to refreshen it and yada yada yada.

I will probably write about it again this year - it's more interesting than the presidential primaries!

Quick hits: Katherine McPhee, Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard have all been released from their recording contracts due to poor sales. Last year's winner, Jordin Sparks, hasn't exactly lit up the airwaves with her album release, though I believe she did debut at number 10 on the chart. And we haven't heard anything really, about any of the other contestants from season six.

Hopefully, there'll be no Clay Aiken appearance this year!

A Considerable Speck

This is a humorous poem by Robert Frost. It decries much of what was passing for poetry in his day.

A Considerable Speck
(Microscopic)

A speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper sheet so white
Set off across what I had written there.
And I had idly poised my pen in air
To stop it with a period of ink
When something strange about it made me think,
This was no dust speck by my breathing blown,
But unmistakably a living mite
With inclinations it could call its own.
It paused as with suspicion of my pen,
And then came racing wildly on again
To where my manuscript was not yet dry;
Then paused again and either drank or smelt--
With loathing, for again it turned to fly.
Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.
It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,
Yet must have had a set of them complete
To express how much it didn't want to die.
It ran with terror and with cunning crept.
It faltered: I could see it hesitate;
Then in the middle of the open sheet
Cower down in desperation to accept
Whatever I accorded it of fate.
I have none of the tenderer-than-thou
Collectivistic regimenting love
With which the modern world is being swept.
But this poor microscopic item now!
Since it was nothing I knew evil of
I let it lie there till I hope it slept.

I have a mind myself and recognize
Mind when I meet with it in any guise
No one can know how glad I am to find
On any sheet the least display of mind.

The Clemens Cliche

Roger Clemens went before the country in an interview with Mike Wallace on 60 minutes. The day after, there are a lot of articles about the interview - most of them not particularly supportive of Clemens. Now it's being reported that Clemens has filed a defamation lawsuit against McNamee.

There are many reasons to believe that McNamee was most likely telling the truth to the Mitchell investigation. And those reasons are covered in print. I have nothing to add to any of that, at least nothing substantial or worthwhile.

However, I note the following quote from Clemens during the interview:

"And that's our country, isn't it?" Clemens asked Wallace. "Guilty before innocent. That's the way our country works now."

Besides the fact that Roger the Dodger... oops, I mean BlueJayYankeeAstroYankee (I left out the Sox intentionally as his alleged steroid usage ostensibly took place after leaving Boston), misquoted the cliche - guilty until proven innocent - he

1. makes a good point
2. makes a lousy point

Yes, the presumption of guilt from accusation alone is endemic in this country. Look at the Duke lacrosse players. And sometimes, even a trial by peers doesn't get it right (re: Charles Allen Chatman).

But if the steroid use was an isolated incident taking place infrequently and limited to just a few players, I think his woebegone comment would hold more water.

The fact is this... Roger Clemens was a rookie in 1984 (23 years ago). That is a looooonngg time to be a player in the major leagues - especially a starting pitcher. Especially a starting pitcher. After 13 seasons with the Boston Red Sox where he won 3 Cy Young awards and had 169 wins under his belt, GM Dan Duquette said Roger was in the twilight of his career.

For all intents and purposes, his stats reflected that as well. I use the following as evidence:

SEASON   TEAM              W L   ERA 
1984      Boston Red Sox   9   4   4.32
1985      Boston Red Sox   7   5   3.29
1986      Boston Red Sox   24  4   2.48
1987      Boston Red Sox   20  9   2.97
1988      Boston Red Sox   18   12   2.93
1989      Boston Red Sox   17   11   3.13
1990      Boston Red Sox   21   6   1.93
1991      Boston Red Sox   18   10   2.62
1992      Boston Red Sox   18   11   2.41
1993      Boston Red Sox   11   14   4.46
1994      Boston Red Sox   9   7   2.85
1995      Boston Red Sox   10   5   4.18
1996      Boston Red Sox   10   13   3.63
1997      Toronto Blue Jays   21   7   2.05
1998      Toronto Blue Jays   20   6   2.65
1999      New York Yankees   14   10   4.60
2000      New York Yankees   13   8   3.70
2001      New York Yankees   20   3   3.51
2002      New York Yankees   13   6   4.35
2003      New York Yankees   17   9   3.91
2004      Houston Astros   18   4   2.98
2005      Houston Astros   13   8   1.87
2006      Houston Astros   7   6   2.30
2007      New York Yankees   6   6   4.18

From 1993 - 1996, Roger Clemens fell from the stratosphere to become a fairly ordinary pitcher for the Red Sox. The next year, 1997, he shot back up to dominance, going on to win 4 more Cy Young Awards and take his win record to over 350.

Can a change of scenery cause that sort of sea change? It's possible. Steroids certainly can as well.

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence to support McNamee's claims. And given the performance-enhancing drug culture that existed in Major League Baseball, it would not be surprising to find the Rocket's post Sox numbers dripping with juice.

It fills all kind of logical holes that would otherwise be clamoring for satisfactory answers.

So when Roger blames the country for its rush to judgment, he comes across as disingenuous.

And for what it's worth - I think he's guilty.

Happy New Year

I am not staying up til midnight to blog - I've better things to do :-) So you'll have to accept this new year's greeting from me at 7:15 PM on Monday, December 31, 2007.

Like all the years seem to do as you age, this one flew by with barely a blink and a nod. A lot happened this year, and I think that's what contributes to time passing so quickly.

A few things that happened:

1. We bought land in Virginia.
2. My good friend Micah left for a job at a different company. (We'd worked together for over 6 years).
3. My good friend Aubrey left for Seattle to get married and pregnant. (Actually his wife got pregnant, but it's faster to say it the way I did)
4. I published my second book.
5. My short story, The Train, was accepted into Amazon Shorts.
6. My father-in-law looked for a while as if he might die.
7. My wife and kids left for three weeks to take care of her dad.

and so on. I can think of many more things to add to this list, but you get the idea. Time keeps marching on and events constantly change our world around us, whether we like it or not.

There is one thing I hope to accomplish in 2008. That would be finishing the novel I started in 2006. I haven't touched it since April of 07, but it's about 2/3 finished. I have several other aspirations as well; that's the biggest though.

Here's to the New Year, and let's hope it's a good 'un!

Cheers, Jeff

What Exactly are the Rules of Poetry?

Poetry is like pornography in this respect - no one seems able to define it, but they know it when they see it. Poetry is an elusive concept for many. They think that if something is written in four-line verses, then it must be poetry. Or if it is written in short-line, truncated sentences, then that qualifies as well. Some seem to think that anything written about love or sex or flowers is poetry, while others think that making a list of single words will suffice. If you can make your political views about how you hate the President rhyme, then you must be a poet laureate! There are many readers out there who would certainly applaud you for it.

So are there rules regarding the writing of poetry? Yes.

And no.

If you are writing a Shakespearean sonnet, for instance, you would construct them with three four-line stanzas (called quatrains) and a final couplet composed in iambic pentameter, with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.

Iambic pentameter means a line with 5 iambic feet. Since each iamb is two syllables, that means each line should have ten syllables. Yet if you read enough sonnets, you will see that writers will break the "ten-syllable rule" at times.

Does this make it less of a sonnet? Of course not.

Let's take a look at punctuation.

I've run into some readers who will ding a writer left and right if they don't use punctuation. While I generally do use punctuation, there are times when what I write seems to defy its use. I will acquiesce to the demands of the piece and let it work on its own merit, and I'm OK with that. E.E. Cummings (sorry for the uppercase letters e.e. lol) either used punctuation in traditional and nontraditional ways or left it out altogether. He was about flaunting an anti-establishment approach to his work.

Would e.e. cummings be criticized for this experimental and bold approach? He probably was in his day, but he is now accepted for what he was - a groundbreaking poet.

So what about the rules of poetry?

Perhaps they are more like guidelines than rules, for they seem to be somewhat flexible.
However, they should not necessarily be tossed out with the bathwater.

There is at least one rule I can think of that is very pertinent to poetry.

That is this...

DON'T BORE THE READER.

Epiphany

When the world gives you snow, make snowballs.

Finally Figured It Out

Earlier in the season, when the Patriots were defeating opponents by 20, 30 or more points, they were roundly accused by many of running up the score. Most speculated that it was Belichick's way of thumbing his nose at the league after the now infamous videogate episode with the Jets.

It's taken most of the season, but I now think I know what was going on. After winning three Super Bowls, what was left for Belichick, Brady and crew to accomplish? Another Super Bowl Championship would be nice, but, frankly, they've been there, done that.

What remains is this: to establish a legacy and ensure Hall of Fame status by setting new records, both as a team and individuals. I believe Belichick and the front office went into the season with these goals in mind. Why else would they stack the team with a gazillion receivers, including Wes Welker and Randy Moss if not to give Tom Brady a good shot at unseating Manning as all-time leading TD thrower?

I believe they also had an undefeated season in mind as well - the first team in history to do it with 16 games, unlike the Dolphins who did it when the league only played 14 games.

Think of all the other potential records - most passes received, passing yards, and so on. The Patriots' early dominance in the season put them in a position to be able to chase after all those numbers. And I believe that has been their intent the whole time.