Monday, August 17, 2009

Here's To A New Chapter - Fruity Drink Style

Well the time has come for this 20-something ex so-and-so to move on to a different chapter in his life. For followers of my writing - yes, you and you - this is the new, and hopefully improved Scobes with the flair of the Left coast. Like Conan I'm taking my act West; for a girl, for me, for my future, for my kids.

I'd like to think the cynicism is now completely gone from my being, but my aura still stings of a life spent cheering for the Royals'. A curse that's been emotional, intellectual, but hopefully not any day soon, literal. And for the one's that like the snarky, snippy, old guy I used to be, I'm sure we can find a few things to be annoyed about:

So you're telling me the Royals' traded for a guy that was regarded as the worst everyday player in baseball, told us everyone was wrong and that a change of scenery would be the cure to what ails his crappy-ness, and he's proceeded to be EVEN WORSE than he was before? What's worse than the worst? We need a phrase, or a word, or some way of describing this awfulness. He's Hades? He's crap on a stick? He's Nicholas Cage?

Artificial echoing in musical acts is dumb.

Dwayne Bowe is running with the second team. Glenn Dorsey may or may not have two knees. Tyson Jackson just signed for $30M to "take on blocks." JaMarcus Russell is 300 pounds and hasn't learned that the guys wearing the other uniforms or the bad guys. Just goes to show you a bunch of athletes can run around and win games, doesn't mean they can play football. Oh, and Les Miles is a terrible coach.

And I think I just had to pay royalties cause I typed "football." You notice how broadcasters never referring to someone in the NFL - I'm sorry, the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE - as merely "players?" They're "football players." Just like: "football game" "football play" "football pass" "football run"

I'll pretend remorse if you're going to pay me $1.5M. Not a problem.

I like the little moments in between songs at concerts the lead singer somberly, and rasperly, speaks about where he was when he wrote the next song. It makes me feel like he's talking to me.

Do veneers on actors freak anyone else out?

Can golf etiquette include people over 60 not being allowed to tee off after 8 a.m.? I'm just saying. They're up at 4, this shouldn't be a problem. And they're out of the normal folks way by mid-morning.

Mexican people aren't nearly as annoying once you're around them a lot. I just pretend they're ducks, or birds, flocking around a park. You don't understand the sounds they're making, sometimes you try and mimick those sounds, and sometimes, they're cute.

Til' next time.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

It's nights like these...

It's nights like these that kill the most. The nights when my hands get so cold out of nervousness I can barely write. The shaking, the chest pounding, the sweaty palms, the fear that my mind will race off the deep end in thought, all because of how scared I can be around you.

It shouldn't be this way you know. I'm supposed to be a man; men are supposed to have strength beyond reproach and be able to sepearate those things that make him feel less so. That's what they'll all have you believe. Or want you to believe. Or want you to feel. Or at the very least, the way they all want you to comform because that's just how it's supposed to be.

But its nights like these, when the conversation flows with ease, the jokes come with the stroke of a Neil Simon play, and the thoughts come racing back. I'm supposed to be a man so these things shouldn't consume me; but they do.

The mistakes of a past not soon forgotten have led me to this place, this time, this state. The ever evolving regret washes from one side to the other like water in a oblong bowl. Anger and contempt for you subsides to overwhelming hatred I have for myself over things gone wrong and time wasted; and back again. The internal struggle of a shattered mind and withering heart can't contain the measure of my sorrow for the pain I've inflicted. Or the pain I've felt.

It's nights like these that cloud the mind. The foggying nature of my thoughts make it unclear to even myself what needs to be done. The heart knows. But as is the case of a lifetime spent rethinking something - everything - my mind shouts down the better angels in my soul. Foolish mind.

Men would be good to think with their hearts. For one moment in a lifetime it could mean the difference between a few heartbeats of true happiness, and all of them. For one moment the heart could cease those opportunities we don't often get the chance to grab ahold of. For one moment, all things that were done wrong, could be set right again.

It's nights like these that hurt the most. When the lights are off, the music stops playing, and only the thoughts are to keep me company. It's nights like these those better angels of who I want to be, are being shouted down by the demons in my head. A fight too often lost by the good guys. By me. Just once I'd like to be able to take control of what I know is right, pull it alongside me, and use it as the driving force to finish this puzzle that has yet to be finished.

It's nights like these when I realize among the whispering silences, I can't go back to the things been done. Mistakes have been made, words have been spoken, and tears have been shed. I can't go back to the things been done. The angels weep to hold their strength, but the regret consumes them as well. They long to fight another day to save what once was, but they know they can't do enough. The demons have won with their choices, their actions.

It's nights like these, I realize the finishing piece to the puzzle, is gone.

Til' next time.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

As The Day Turns Into, Well, Another

Baseball is finally back in our lives and boy-howdy how we've missed it. Okay maybe not "we" as a collective so much are excited as the "we" in terms of just myself.



Incidentally isn't it strange how people can be referred to in a plural setting, when they are actually in a singular setting? "Aren't we happy today." "She's good people." I mean really, what's that about? Isn't language fun and altogether confusing? Good luck youth of America, you have no hope. The next step is to be a true journalist and just start making up words. Cause, well, why not?



The first spring training games were played today surrounded by much anticipation by Royals' fans. "Hey we'll be good this year!"



Congrats on your 12-7 loss.



"Rats."



It's okay though because Alex Rodriguez hit a home run, refused to comment on the steroids issue again, walked out of the clubhouse with his cousin whom he threw under the bus - which quickly thereafter cousins' wife tried to pull out from under - and switched countries to the Dominican Republic. Let me be the first: hey Alex, bite me. Er, us. The United States. Ah screw it, here's the "ol' number one."

As one of those people that's always liked A-Rod for what he is, the greatest player I've ever seen live (of course next to my man crush on, one, Carlos Beltran. It was from my early years. You never forget your first love...) it crushes me to see the game soiled like it has.

Ha. Almost kept a straight face. The whole thing borders on the ridiculous considering I'm completely under the impression that most every MLBer was on steroids at one time or another. Which I suppose is the indictment of the entire system - and one that so laughably was defended by Commish Selig a few weeks ago - that nobody believes anything anymore.

Disgust breeds apathy. Right, wrong, or whatever, that's the current state of baseball. Do I care A-Rod took steroids? Nope. Why not? I stopped caring. The game has become irrelevant to the masses, and was so before the Steroid Era, and then it just started to piss people off.

Good work MLB PR department.

Crack...crowd roars while voice-over exclaims..."Hey MLB fans! All mad the NFL is over and you don't have their superior product to watch? Are you so angry over the overspending of owners that turn around and complain about the economic unfairness in our game, you know, the one they created? Are you so sure we're handing out PEDs at the gates you're positive you'll have a mood swing before you take your seat? Then are you gonna love us this year"...

Major League Baseball, swinging back into action in a town near you!

Til' next time.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Reflections Of A Scattered Mind

No matter how smart or capable you may wish you could see yourself as being, there are still those moments in the still of night when all is silent that your thoughts become muddled amidst the doubt and regret over the past. The only comfort one can have in those nights, I'm thinking - I'm hoping - is that it is that way for most everyone.

We've been given these incredible gifts as humans of thought, and compassion, and conscience, and personal choice, that it could almost be a hindrance to the "normal" everyday life. Whatever that means. The curse of being someone of intelligence is the curse of never being able to shut it off. It goes, and goes, and goes.

Where is the end? Where is the moment of clarity? Does it ever happen?

People of faith say that all our questions will be answered upon our deaths. Talk about a defeatist attitude. And I'm sorry if I choose not to buy into the notion that I'm supposed to cloak myself in a shroud of doubt and worry, on the mere chance that faith will somehow save me in the end. Where's my relief now?

Is it selfish? Possibly. Maybe. A little shortsighted to think that this "life" is all there is to the existence of man. But couldn't it be naive to think that upon death is when life really occurs? How are people that live tough lives supposed to justify to themselves in good faith that somehow, this will all turn around, when they're no longer here to remember or do anything about it?

Maybe that's it. The "toughness" of some cannot compare to the struggles of many.

But the paralysis of thought is damning. The paralysis of looking back is debilitating. The paralysis of self-disappointment is crushing.

And all we can have is faith - in ourselves - that the light will come on.