Neva @ Taco Beach (7/26/07)

 

Last night Genie and I went to see Neva play at Taco Beach in Long Beach. Neva is one of those life long friends of Genie, and because of that I’ve been fortunate enough to call her a friend of mine as well.

When you first meet Neva you are first impressed with how friendly she is. The first time I met her earlier this year at The Lighthouse in Hermosa, she smiled and gave me a hug like we had been friends our whole life. She’s got a great personality, and it became clear to me as to why Genie thinks so highly of her.

Neva’s music is awesome. Normally when somebody plays their original songs, it may take quite a few listens before you actually start to like it. The first time I heard Neva’s original music, I was blown away. Her guitar playing, the lyrics, everything just comes together so well. When you leave her shows, you are still quietly singing the songs to yourself a couple days afterwards because it sticks with you so well.

So we get to Taco Beach around 9:15p and Neva’s eyes light up when she sees “Euge” and she gives me that friendly hug, talks to us for a couple minutes and starts playing her music. She plays many of her originals, and also some great stand out covers including an awesome rendition of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”. That’s something we have to get on CD or something, because I wanted to hear it again as soon as she was done with it. Other great covers included a couple songs by Johnny Cash, Sublime, as well as some current hits.

Neva’s show happened to fall on the 2nd Annual Wet T Shirt Contest at Taco Beach, so she appropriately renamed her Tip Jar to Tit Jar. She said if she reached $100 in tips then she would show her “Poops”. I thought her referencing her chest as “Poops” was hilarious, I suppose I had never heard them named that. If I were to guess, I’d say she raked in about $200, but unfortunately Genie and I left right after her set and didn’t see anybody’s “Poops”, so I’m not sure if she actually went through with it or not.

It was another great show, and I had a great time and look forward to seeing her again real soon. If you would like to hear some of Neva’s music and see when she is playing, check out myspace.com/nevamusic.

It’s Just a Game, Right?

Lagwagon Softball Club Update

So last night might have been the worst night of my softball career, and it’s fitting because this has been the worst season I can remember. People say we just play for fun, and that’s true, but how much fun can you possibly have by losing every game? The truth is you have to win at least occasionally in order to have fun.

Last night we faced the Predators. They are the best team in our division and have something like an 8-2 record. Every single person on their team could hit and throw. Their worst player could have been the best player on some teams I’ve seen. The point is, they were good. As much as I hate to lose, I am a bit envious on how their team played the game. You could tell they all cared about how well they did on the field, because hey, we pay about $50 to play softball once a week for 10 weeks, that should be motivation enough to try hard. To make a long story short we lost by about 15-20 runs, I lost count, and the game got called after 5 innings due to the mercy rule.

Now I’ll be the first to say that I completely stunk up the field last night. I think I had about 4 errors on routine ground balls and went 1 for 3 at the plate. There were two really good things that happened last night. Heather, who is such a good example on how you should approach the games, got a nice base hit up the middle. Her progress from Day 1 has been great, and it’s because she has such a good attitude and really tries to learn the game. The other bright spot was our pitcher, Justin. He only gave up about 2 walks and pitched an awesome game. Unfortunately our defense didn’t back him up.

It all started to go downhill after Josh got hosed on a call at the plate. I forget who was up, hmm, maybe it was Heather, anyways, the ball went up the middle and Josh rounded third. The throw beat him, but he slid and the catcher basically fell onto Josh and tagged him up near the shoulder. The umpire wound up, danced a jig, and called Josh out. It was by far one of the worst calls I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s so hard to make any kind of comeback when all the umpire is doing is trying to move the game along and not calling a good game. A good umpire doesn’t just call you out because the ball beat you on the play, a good umpire would have seen that Josh clearly got under the tag. And you know what? We have to pay for these umps to call the game, so it should be called right. Otherwise we should just save the $24 a game and call our own games like we did in Little League when the ump didn’t show up.

The season started out fun and everyone was into it, but here we are two months later and it’s like we are crawling to the finish line. For next season we have a couple new girls joining the team which should help create a more positive atmosphere on the team. It’ll also be nice to hit the cages as a team and have practice once in a while. I’m hoping those two things make a big difference.

After 10 games if you have people on your team who don’t even know how many outs there are in an inning, or who talk on their cell phone in the outfield, or who show up to 1 out of every 4 games, then perhaps they shouldn’t have even signed up in the first place.

It doesn’t matter whether you are playing in the pros or little league, or even if it’s a once a week league that we play in now. You always want to be the best at what you do, and in this case all we want to do is to be competitive with our peers.

9:11

Do you ever find yourself glancing at the clock at the same time every morning or evening? Well, for the last few years I find myself glancing at the clock at exactly 9:11. Now, I’m not saying this happens every single day, but it happens a few times a week (it happened just now).

I wonder if we subconsciously see the time and it triggers something within us to look at it, ya know?

This might sound like gibberish, but hopefully you get my drift.

Summer of Failure?

Before the summer started I was amped about so many things, in particular, I was excited to pour my heart into my school work. I was going to end this never ending college career and ace my statistics course that would propel me out of El Camino College and into a University. Then, it would only be a short 2 years at the University until I obtained my long awaited Bachelor’s Degree. Well, once again I’ve tried, and once again I’ve failed. Now, I don’t mean “fail” in the sense that I got an “F”, I mean fail in the sense that I’ve completely lost interest, and for the first time in the 9 years I’ve been in college, I just want to give up.

I’m sure there are people out there like myself who have spent so many years in college, changing career paths, dropping classes, etc, etc. And I really don’t believe anybody is more motivated than I am to get my degree, but being motivated doesn’t always transfer over into effort. I will be the first to admit that my shortcomings in college are my own fault. If I were dedicated to the books and put forth the effort needed to succeed, I wouldn’t have these let downs every year. But I did let myself down, and to be honest, the whole situation kills me inside.

What bothers me the most is the time wasted. The time I’ve left my wife and daughter at night to be in class, only to have that class hold zero value on my transcript. Time after time it’s a hollow promise that I’m off to class to better our lives, and halfway through every semester I have to break the news that I’m dropping my classes. When I think of how many hours I’ve missed out with my family because of my failed attempts at school, I become filled with guilt. So many nights Genie could of used my help with Bella, so many nights that I could have been with the family. It’s one thing to be gone and to have earned something in return, but I’ve earned nothing. I haven’t made any progress in my education in the last 5 years, and that is just plain sad.

So what does this mean? Am I going to give up my dream of being a teacher and working with kids, coaching a high school baseball team, etc? Am I just going to throw in the towel and work at State Farm the rest of my life because it’s convenient? No, not by a long shot. I promised my Grandma before she passed last year that I would finish college. I want my family to see that being persistent about something you care about can pay off. I want to prove that the cliche statement that you can achieve any dream by working hard is in fact true. I want to set a good example for Bella, and just as important, I need to do this for myself.

My plan is to just let the stress of all this go for a year and reassess everything next Fall. I have to come up with a game plan I can stick to. In the meantime I need to work on becoming a stronger person. I need to obtain the mentality that I will succeed and I will do everything possible to get the job done. I don’t have that right now, I’m too used to failing. I’ve got to find a way to turn that corner. So, for the next 12 months, this is something I will be working on. Another reason for the one year layoff is to see what it’s like to live a normal life. I want to wake up, go to work, and know that once I’m done with work, that’s it. I can go to the beach, go play with Bella, go out to dinner with my wife, just live life without that one restriction I’ve had this whole time. I’ve never been able to live a life without thinking about assignments I have to do or exams I have to study for. It’s time to experience that.

Some people may wonder why I post this stuff. Why do I beat myself up about my faults and then write about it so everybody can read. Am I looking for somebody to feel sorry for me? The answer is no. I publish my thoughts for 2 reasons. One reason is that I’ve come to believe we all live lives similar to one another’s. I think there is somebody feeling close to what I’m feeling right now. Feeling like they will never accomplish their goals, and to be honest, feeling like a loser. If that person was to somehow read what I’m going through, they will see they are not alone, see that it’s okay to take a step back to think,  and perhaps continue along their journey towards their dreams. The other reason I write this stuff is because it’s my therapy. Some people drink, some people get violent, I just write. Plain and simple. When I write, such as I am now, I can feel the negativity being released. When I finish writing and have said what I needed to say, I feel like I can move on.

The Process of a Dream

I had I guess what you would call a nightmare last night. And it’s one of those that I know I will remember forever because it was so vivid. Anyways, it went like this:

There was a knock at my door and I open it up to see two Redondo Beach workers (they were wearing the orange city shirts). They said, “We need to get in”. They were wearing what looked to be hazmat head gear. Basically something the covered up their face and neck. I became suspicious though because the preventative head gear looked like it was made out of a plastic bag. They tried to force their way in, but I refused and closed the door. I went to the kitchen and then to go check on Bella and she was gone! Bella had been kidnapped. I look outside the kitchen window and there are those two guys taking off with Bella in their arms. I get out of the house and get up behind both of them. They didn’t hear me or sense I was behind them and as soon as they were about to get into their truck I threw a shoulder into the guy who had Bella and they fell to the ground. I picked up my baby girl and back into the house we went. But everytime I tried to call 9-1-1, it connected me to some spanish service. Well, the guy took off. A few days later I bump into a neighbor and tell him about what happened. He said, “Where they wearing orange shirts”, and I said yes. He went on to explain the same thing happened to him!”

At that point I woke up. It was one of those dreams where you feel every bit of emotion. You feel the sadness, anger, and rage, that I imagine a parent would feel when they realize somebody has taken their child. Thank the good lord that it was just a dream.

However, this got me thinking about dreams. I mean, this whole story had a beginning, middle, and end. The whole event had to follow a distinct timeline in order for it to make sense. It was like somebody wrote out a script: Scene 1 – 2 guys show up at the door, Scene 2 – Joe realizes Bella is gone, Scene 3 – Joe chases down guys, Scene 4 – Joe gets Bella and goes back into house, etc. To me, it’s just amazing to think that we have these pre-made stories just sitting in our brains waiting to be played in a dream.