Endings

The house was still standing. A little ways down the street there was nothing but ashes waiting for families to come claim them. It was a week after the storm that destroyed everything on the island. It's usually water that puts out a fire, but the water mixed with electricity and helped start these fires. Some houses remained, but they could not be saved. The ocean had seen to that. Today only a few lonely spirits drift through the wreckage. The old neighborhood is a ghost town.

I am one of the ghosts returning to haunt this place. The door does not want to open. The floors and carpets are swollen with flood water resisting any intrusion into the property it had claimed. Inside is stale and musty. The walls wear a black moldy band about four feet up like a black armband worn in mourning. Once a thriving life filled these rooms, but now the house is a bloated, rotting corpse.

The living room is covered with warped photo albums as if the house tried to take one last look back. Wrinkled, bent, and smeared, the faces smiled out of those photos, and the past, never knowing what lay in store for them. They stick together while everything else falls apart.

The china cabinet built in the garage during those early months of marriage, lay in ruins in the dining room. The fine dining ware it housed, and we never used, was smashed. I flipped it over and found it gutted. The drawers ripped from its belly leaving a gaping emptiness where the silver had been. The scavengers had been here.

These houses are carrion to the scavengers of the city who feel no remorse taking advantage of broken lives. They come in and steal just when we are struggling to find things to help put the old life back together. It is hard to decide whether it would be better if the house had been lost to the sea instead of being drowned and left on the beach to be picked apart.

Out the window, I can see a family from years ago playing in the sand and splashing in the waves. The water that lulled them in with its beauty. The ocean that hides its true face behind the smiling white caps. Salty water that will suck a person down in an instant or slowly eat away at the foundations of a home. Water is a fundamental need for survival, but that water outside the windows is unfit to drink. There is only death in that water, no matter how it tries to hide it.

The door to the basement squeals in protest as it is pulled open to reveal whatever dark secret it hides. The bottom four stairs lie hidden under three feet of dirty water. My wife cleaned the blood and sweat of life out of our clothes in that basement and now this murky water had returned as a physical manifestation of the dirty past I thought had been washed away long ago. I tell myself the stench of basement rot is what brings tears to my eyes as I stare into the dark abyss.

I return to the front room and kick around the wet piles of furniture. Particle board garbage that seemed strong enough, but turned to mush when hit with a real crisis. This is my life now, stuck to the bottom of an old rubber boot.

I test the stairs. They seem strong enough, but I still walk lightly on the sides where I hope there is more support. All I've got left is my health--that's what they say anyway--so I don't want to go risking that too.

Upstairs, everything is gone. Beds. Dressers. Even the linens. Everything the scavengers put value on is gone, but they left the real treasures: the smiling faces in the photos. The bedrooms are now rooms in a museum, existing only to showcase what is on the walls. Those pictures remind me of bugs trapped in amber. They look so alive except for the yellow hue that reveals the truth.

The window in the master bedroom is open. A breeze brings in the clean fresh air off the ocean. I close my eyes. There is no mildew, mold, or rot while standing in front of this window. For a moment, I forget myself and smile just a bit. This is why Doris would never leave this place.

It's time to find the door and get outside. This is no longer home and it won't be good to be here when Doris returns with whatever rat she is with now. I grab our last picture with Tommy and walk through the door. That life is gone and those people don't live here anymore. Outside the air is rancid with the decaying remains of this neighborhood and the ocean behind it.

Fail Blog

I know I said I was going to start writing once a week on this blog. I know I failed miserably at this since it has been over a month since I wrote last.

The reason I haven't posted anything for awhile is because I've been having a hard time putting a positive post together. Nobody needs another grump on the interwebs. It has been very frustrating for me personally because I try to write things and when I get into them, they feel very negative. It's something I battle with constantly.

That's kinda why I began writing that first post. I wanted to remind myself that the world is actually good because I often lose sight of that. Well, I don't really, but it can seem that way to the outside world when I'm harping on bad things. Needless to say, even that post went south. It wasn't nearly the flowers and puppies type of wonderful I had hoped it would be.

Where do I go now? I've spent a month just grinding my own gears and actually feeling pretty guilty about it even though there's nobody holding my feet to a fire. Except myself, of course. I'm a bit anal. This process has really highlighted that fact for me.

I'm trying to fix that. At least, I'm going to start trying to fix it. If I don't let go a little bit, I'll never write anything. And I do want to write. I'm sure it doesn't seem like it to any of you who may actually be reading this stuff, but it is actually a new goal of mine to write and publish a book.

Yes, I said a new goal. In fact, it's probably my only finite goal right now. I'm not a big goal-setting type of guy. My most feared question whenever it comes up is "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

What? Hey man, let's get through the next five hours and then we can start to talk about the five after that, but five years is a little out of my league.

Every successful person in the world just shook their collective head and sighed. It is one of the most basic of principles and yet, I've never been able to grasp it.

I'm thinking it is that anal, perfectionist, guilt streak I have running through me that is killing me. If I set myself a goal, I have to get there or I will drive myself crazy.

Case in point: I decided I was going to become a high school English teacher when I was a senior in high school. That was 1994. 10 years later, I was finally making that goal happen. I spent 2½ years being stupid,  4 years in the army, and 3½ years in college but I was always moving towards completing that goal.

Then I realized I didn't want to be a teacher. I don't like teachers (no offense; sorry) or the school system so it was probably never a good idea. Anyway, I was faced with the actuality of making this my career and I decided to go in another direction. No big deal, right? It's all worked out.

Wrong. It still nags at me that I didn't become a teacher. Even though it would have been the wrong thing for me to become a teacher, I am still guilty that I didn't complete the goal. Save the advice, please. I know it's a stupid way to think about it, but humans are stupid creatures. We're all doing things we shouldn't be doing even though we are fully aware of the stupidity of it.

So here we go. For the first time in a long time, I have a goal. It's a scary prospect, but as I said, I'm working on becoming a better me rather than sitting around feeling guilty that I didn't write something on my blog. Now I'm going to sit around feeling guilty that I haven't written a book yet.

It's not an improvement per se, but I did write another blog post, right? Maybe I'll actually write a book too.

I'll keep you posted.

P.S. I'm going to try and write on Cottonspew more often. I'm going to toss out any sort of theme and just write whatever I can. That being said, I've always been better writing things when prompted, so if you have anything you would like me to write, let me know and I'll see if I can crank something out on that topic.

The World is Good

Let me start this version of my blog with a nice, happy thought: The world is good.

It may be odd to start with that, but I'm afraid many people just don't see this fact. If this blog is about anything, it's about seeing things we aren't seeing and trying to take advantage of new viewpoints. So, before I get into discussing some of the lesser things in this world, I want to go on record that the world is good.

So why doesn't it seem like the world is good? Why do I even have to state this as if it isn't well known? It's because of the way we interact, the media, and fear. For some reason, in this country, we seem to want everything to be bad. We are wallowing in our own despair instead of seeing the good all around us.

People tend to talk much more about the horrible things that happen to them rather than tell the good stories. When is the last time somebody came into work in the morning talking about how good their commute was? Instead, people walk in and immediately say, "Traffic was so bad today because some jerk was changing his tire on the side of the road, ruining it for everyone." Invariably somebody agrees with you and tells their story of woe and the perceived horror of the commute is propagated again helping to reinforce the idea that commutes are horrible.

I'm not saying that the commute is the best part of the day, but think about all the good things the commute represents. You have an operational vehicle, which I think is an excellent thing. The guy with the flat wishes he had your car. Maybe your slower commute let you hear some more good music or you laughed a few extra times because of the people on the radio. This may not be enough to make you happy about your commute, but it could be worse, right?

The second part of this scenario is the response of others. You might be the only person that had a bad commute into work, but when you walk in and start talking about it, it reminds others of bad commutes too. Now they are becoming a bit more agitated because their good feelings have just been infringed upon by past bad feelings. That person then shares their horrible story, which must be worse than your or why would they want to share it. Now there are at least two people who are annoyed by bad commutes, and one of those is also annoyed because his/her story was just topped by that other jerk who had to belittle the bad commute experience. More than likely, others are bothered by these exchanges as well. So now, one person's bad experience, which probably wasn't all that bad, is being shared by everyone who was within earshot of the initial griping.

Your mother told you if you can't say anything good, don't say anything at all. It's good advice, but our mothers never really explained why it was better to say nothing. I hope this little example makes it a little more clear how saying bad things breeds those bad feelings that everyone begins to share. If you just don't say anything about the bad commute, which probably wasn't that bad (cancer, anyone?) in the grand scheme of things. Instead, tell someone about that funny person on the radio or the good song you heard. Then someone might tell you about something good that happened to them and maybe the office is filled with good feelings first thing in the morning. That would be nice especially if you need help getting rid of that pissed off mood you were in because of your crappy commute. It doesn't take any more effort to cheer something rather than jeer something, but the results can really affect your day.

Another reason many of us are in a perpetual downward spiral of sadness is the media. The news and the opinion shows are killing us mentally and spiritually. A friend of mine used to work for a news program and said their motto was "If it bleeds, it leads," which means that the very first thing they are going to show every broadcast is the story of some tragic event. Plus, it's not enough to just tell us something bad happened, but they will describe it as much as is possible. And, if you live someplace that doesn't have enough bad stuff happening, the news will tell you about a horrible thing that happened somewhere else that really would never affect you except that the local news just decided to remind you that the world is a horrible place.

Each time we hear these things, it hurts whether you realize it or not. It taints our view of humanity. It makes us not like other humans. Do we really need to know every single horrible event that happens in our community? The answer is no. If the event affects us directly, we will already know about it and won't need the news to tell us. If it doesn't affect us directly, or we can't help in any way, I think it would be better to not know. I'm not arguing they need to tell us happy stories instead, though that would be nice, but just don't tell us the terrible stuff so we aren't haunted by the horrors of the world that would not have affected us in any way if we hadn't just seen it on the T.V.

The opinion shows (not that there is any real dividing line anymore) are doing the same thing. This country was not polarized until news media outlets started to take sides and vilify the other side. How are we supposed to feel empathy towards other humans when it has already been instilled in our minds that at least 50% of the population is not just wrong, but actively trying to destroy us? It makes us afraid of people. It makes us afraid to be ourselves in public for fear that someone with a different viewpoint will attack us. It makes us afraid of our government. The reality is that your neighbor, co-worker, or family member has different opinions and they are not bad people. In fact, you may like them a lot. They are not evil creatures. They are good people and we all need to remember that. We are all more complex than a party-line and we should remember that others are too.

Is the news going to stop? No. But we can. We can turn off the news so that they can't infect us with tales of people being bad to people. Turning off the news won't change your life. It won't keep you from hearing about bad things. It will lessen the exposure to the horrors of humanity and that alone may make it just a bit easier to get through the day.

What it all comes down to is fear. Our society is afraid the commute will be bad. We are afraid half the country is against us and is actively working to destroy it. We are afraid the horrible things they show us every single night on the news is going to happen to someone we love. When we are afraid, it is very hard to be happy.

It's hard to not be afraid. It is possible to mitigate that fear. We can start by simply omitting things. We don't have to spread fear by sharing that fear mongering Facebook post, which may or may not even be true. We don't have to tell every bad thing that happens to me to other people. We don't have to watch the news, or talk shows, or reality T.V. We don't have to do these things, so maybe we shouldn't. We can be a little less afraid because we're not surrounding ourselves with horrible reminders that it is a scary world.  We can't completely hide from all the bad in the world, nor should we, but if we aren't as afraid, maybe we will notice some more of the wonderful things that are out there.

Once we start to notice the wonderful things, maybe those will be the things we start to share with others. Maybe others will start to share their beauty with us. The world is good. Don't let it hide from you.

Creating Memories We Never Really Had

“I don't have to tell you that the one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has been erased like a blackboard, only to be rebuilt and then erased again. But baseball has marked time while America has rolled by like a procession of steamrollers. It is the same game that Moonlight Graham played in 1905. It is a living part of history, like calico dresses, stone crockery, and threshing crews eating at outdoor tables. It continually reminds us of what once was, like an Indian-head penny in a handful of new coins.” --W.P. Kinsella Shoeless Joe

Many of you just read that quote and immediately heard James Earl Jones from Field of Dreams in your head. Maybe some of you read the quote and thought: “Wait, that doesn't seem quite right. Who the hell is W.P. Kinsella? What is Shoeless Joe?” What you read didn't quite match what you remembered.

The rest of you didn't make the connection to Field of Dreams at all, and could care less who said it, who wrote it, or where it came from.

Regardless of whether you had memories of the movie, the book, or you are reading it for the first time, we are all sharing this memory of baseball even though we all experienced it differently and at different times. This is Wrigley Field.

We all have the memories of a pristine Wrigley Field even though all of us visited a different Wrigley Field than those before us. It's true that the Friendly Confines has resisted modernization, but the Wrigley Field of our fathers' childhood in the '60s is much different than the one we visited in the '80s and the current one our children will profess love for when they are adults. Each generation bemoaned the fate of the old ballpark whether they were adding lights in '88 or a Toyota sign in 2010. There have been changes, but so far, it hasn't destroyed the feel of Wrigley Field. It still feels like a piece of history, even though we all know it was better when we were kids.

That history is the greatest asset the Cubs have in regards to marketing their brand and their field. Much has been made of needing advertising, but Cubs fans are up in arms against it because they don't want to go to their beautiful hundred-year-old ballpark and see a garish red Toyota sign. They aren't revolting against advertising as much as they are arguing for keeping the old-timey experience. The Ricketts can use this to their advantage. I think they can sell tons of advertising all over Wrigley Field, create things for kids to enjoy, and not alienate Cubs fans.

If I owned the Cubs (we've all said that before), I would do a complete Disney-fication of Wrigley Field. Disney World doesn't make money because they have the best rides; they make money because they have the best atmosphere. Every ride has a theme and that theme is carried out from the start of the line to the exit tunnel into the gift shop. It is a full experience and the nostalgia of time gone by, embodied in the walls of Wrigley Field, is what should be marketed from start to finish at Wrigley Field.

It would start when the fans arrive to a newly restored Wrigley Field. It will look just like we imagined it did back when it was still a new field. They will look up at the red marquee with a temporary board announcing the team, month, and dates of the current homestand just like it was back before digital technology. While the fans wait to be admitted, Chicago blues music will float down from the rooftop bar above. Fans will then be admitted by ticket takers dressed in period clothing from the '20s.

Just inside, paperboys will be selling programs that are made to look like newspapers (at least the outside will look like a newspaper with the inside being very modern with glossy ads and pictures of players). More programs, and souvenirs, will be available at the NEWSTAND near the entrance.

About 30 seconds after grabbing a paper, it will be time to hit the speakeasy for a bottle of the good stuff. A guy dressed like a shady character or a woman in a cigarette girl outfit will sell the fan a beer and a dog from the food-stand or food-window that “secretly” has beer too. Now the fans head for their seats.

As they walk along, all the latest and greatest products are displayed in advertising everywhere. The ads all look like old Coca-Cola advertising. Many of them have a Norman Rockwell painting style; a boy dressed in his ball uniform playing catch with dad in the front yard with a 2013 Toyota Prius parked in the driveway. The golden age advertising makes the fans feel like they are headed into a post-WWII when baseball was king.

The ushers dressed in period uniforms of the '30s or '40s await the fans at the different sections of seating. When the fans sit down, they look out on Wrigley Field, ivy walls, and the old hand-operated scoreboard that their fathers' watched when they were boys. All along the top of the bleachers is more advertising like they saw as they walked up. Huge billboards showing a golden age of America even though they are selling new products.

By the second inning, the kids want to go wandering. At Wrigley Field they can go out onto the concourse and find the 5-piece brass band playing tunes every half-hour. The kids can see the musicians play their instruments and dance to the music. Then they can go over to see the organ. Wrigley Field has a beautiful, large organ that anybody can go by and watch while the organist performs the soundtrack to the game being played on the field. Behind the bleachers, young men with buckets, a fan favorite, are drumming away on the five gallon. Up on the rooftop patio, a blues guitarist is playing a Chicago Blues show every half-hour. The kids love seeing the different parts of the old ballpark and hearing the different types of music in each area.

The Cubs win and the game is over. The fans sing to the only song heard in the stadium that is not organ music. “Go Cubs Go” finishes and the fans head for the exit. They stop and buy souvenirs of their day in another time at Wrigley Field and then step back out into the bustling city of Chicago circa 2013 and beyond.

When they go home, the fans tell their friends about how going to the game was like stepping back into a different era. They talk about how everything at Wrigley Field was completely different than any other field they have visited. Their friends will be amazed that there was no jumbotron. The kids will talk about the music they heard that they'd never heard before.

Instead of being just another field with the latest pop song blaring between innings, fake races being run on the jumbotron, and mascots being pushed around by drunk jerks who think teddy bear beatings are funny, Wrigley Field will become that Indian-head penny in a handful of new coins. It will be the place people want to go to see what baseball was like before teams decided they needed to distract fans from the game with every electronic gizmo around. The team will be allowed to put up advertising and even bad Cubs years will still be good Wrigley years because people will come for the experience. The experience of watching baseball like they think their parents and grandparents did and sharing that with their children.

“It reminds us of all that once was good, and it could be again. Oh, people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.”--James Earl Jones Field of Dreams

Screaming into the Wind

I haven't written for awhile. I have never really had a good feel for what this blog should be about, plus, I'm lazy. I'm hoping to change that now.

I've written a few, very few, personal things on this blog. Most of the stuff I've written is Onion-style fake news stories. Last year, I was even going to try and write about the Cubs, but it was a little disheartening trying to describe how they lost 101 different ways.

So, now I'm going for the new iteration. I will be writing something every Saturday. It may be a bit eclectic, but I think the main focus is my opinion on how to change the world. Okay, not the WHOLE world all at once. Just certain things that pop into my head that seem like common sense to me, but for some reason are not practiced or aren't seen by others.

It's my way of screaming into the wind. It won't make any real difference and most people probably won't be able to hear it, but I'm going to do it anyway. Maybe I'll feel better at least. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not just going to be whining and bitching. I'm going to be writing about solutions. Anybody can bitch about things, CottonSpew is spewing answers.

So jump on and listen up, maybe you'll learn something. Or maybe you'll teach me something after I completely miss on my answers. Either way, let's see what happens.


Michael