and then, I disappear

Kickin' it to:



Took in the V-Show at school, got to intro my bro to the coworkers, went to hit baseballs, fell asleep on the phone. Watching one of the last White Sox games of this forgettable season on Saturday, with aforementioned brother and dad. And bye to Ed on Sunday.

Welcome October. Welcome, new Radiohead album (?).

telekinesis

as in, if I stare at these piles of paper on my desk long enough, they'll magically be graded and disappear. I can make it move with my mind.

Kanye's new album? I like all the tracks except the radio cuts. Figures.

3:10 to Yuma is fantastic. I love the mini-resurgence of the Western, because of the theological element and also, cuz it's straight-up manly (insert Brokeback joke, here). Next up: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.



My brother is back in town, before he heads off to school. He begins his first year of theology, after having completed all of his philosophy. It's funny because he's gotten into the habit of posing everything as a rhetorical question. "What is the best way to live a holy life?" "I don't know, Ed. Why don't you tell me?"

Little Sister (TM) Jillupa is coming to watch my sophomores play tomorrow against Barrington. Barrington = one of our fiercest rivals. But, my girls are more excited that Little Sister Jillupa is watching in the stands than actually, you know, playing against our regional rivals. Back to the drawing board.

I still can't hear out of my right ear. Please, doctor, fix it on Wednesday.

plotting out the madness

One of the OCD things I do when I have too many things jumbled in my mind is to make lists. It doesn't even help me organize, it just smooths my nerves. Here goes:

I keep finding mechanical flaws in my setter as she delivers the ball. She's slow with her hands prior to the ball arriving, which means she rushes and ends up "flicking" at the ball instead of making a steady, even push with both. Her feet are off-balance when she sets, also, so that she's often on one foot when she delivers, which throws off the timing. I don't want to overload her mind with too much information, but she needs to make a consistent set about 90% of the time.

Why are the Puritans so dreadful to read about? *I* even fall asleep trying to grasp it. Jonathan Edwards is fun, though. You don't really read anything close to "angry" in public school literature anymore.

On the end of the American Lit pool that I like to wade in is Edgar Allan Poe, and "The Cask of Amontillado," which my frosh get to read this week. Unless they tell me that they've read it before. I tell them, too bad, you haven't read it with me. Muhahaha. Bricks and mortar, anybody?

I can hear my mother grinding vegetables and fruits into the juicer upstairs, which takes me back to a childhood full of mornings with carrot juice, because, well... I don't why. They told me to drink it, so I did. The grinding juicer sound still heebs me out, as does vegetable juice in general, which my V8 drinking coworkers take advantage of.

I'm in a rut with music and movies. The last few purchases have been up and down (Feist? Up. Interpol? Down.), and the impending Kanye/50 sales peeing contest is unappealing. Somebody rescue me. A Place to Bury Strangers? The National? Liars? C'mon guys. Thankfully, two fave actors open this coming week, so... I've got weekend plans. Woo!

phew

One thing I'm excited to find out is how I'm going to maintain a sustainable pace over the school year. The trick seems to lie in either controlling your sense of time (when to be aware or not aware of it) or not letting the time ever get you into a panic. I suppose there's also not letting the wearing effects of no sleep get to you.

I was at the gas station after practice and getting to Mass, and I thought, this is exactly what I'd wished for; teaching English, coaching volleyball, and all in my first full year. All the exhaustion and stress aside, I feel like I've received way more than I had ever hoped to get. I'm grateful for the balance it brings.

Work has been full bore since I got back from the last retreat of the summer in Toronto (happy picture, below)


with volleyball tryouts and practice. My head's been swimming, but it's different than the fear-driven sweating-it-out of last year. Coaching? No problem. Working 6 days a week? No problem. Not getting paid until the 14th? Uhhhh.

I haven't watched any baseball since I came home, my self-imposed White Sox fast notwithstanding. So no baseball, and but I've been closely reading every match result from the English Premier League. As is typical to my life, my team is off to a slow start after an offseason of lavish spending, plus rumblings about the manager getting fired and our best player maybe leaving. Gotta love British media drama. Come to think of it, a sport that plays once a week and that I don't get on my cable package is probably the only one I can follow at this point.

on the runway

Been waiting around for, well, a lot of things. My brother to come home (that was yesterday, and he's all good). My teaching schedule. The last of our summer programs in Toronto (we'll drive up this weekend). The end of the summer, sadly. The beginning of the girls' volleyball season (I'm coaching?!).

But in the midst of the waiting, with a Cow living at our house, we checked out the Simpsons movie, which was still worth the non-stadium-seating, extra cheapo theater rate of $4.50.



Can't wait til Bourne Ultimatum this weekend. Woop!

emptying the notebook

I am stealing this quote from a baseball blog I read (and highly recommend) which stole it from an interview with author Philip Roth. Roth was speaking about the need for the modern reader to read books in some weird, alternative way (I blame the 21st century), as in, "what do these characters' names really MEAN?" Or "what does this tell me about the AUTHOR?" Mr. Roth says:

"It’s like baseball. Suppose you and I went up to the ballpark together and there's a guy next to us with his kid. And (the father) was saying, 'Now, what I want you to do is watch the scoreboard. Stop watching the field. Just watch what happens when the numbers change on the scoreboard. Isn't that great? Now do you see what just happened there? Did you see what happened? Why did that happen?'

"And you say, 'That guy is crazy.' But the kid imbibes it and he goes home and he's asked: 'How was the game?' And he says, 'Great! The scoreboard changed thirty-two times and Daddy said last game it changed only fourteen times and the home team last time changed more times than the other team. It was really great! We had hot dogs and we stood up at one point to stretch and we went home.'

"Is that politicizing the game? Is that theorizing the baseball game? No. It's not having the foggiest idea what baseball is."

True that, dawg.

Ambiguously Masculine Moment (TM): Durty and I, sitting on his couch, watching, laughing, ENJOYING "The Devil Wears Prada" on a slow Sunday night on TV. "This is great. I watched this with my sister. You should see the rest of it," says he. Hmm.

let me sing you a waltz

Just watched the very delightful "Paris Je T'aime." It's not as cheesy or "chick-flick" as one might expect. In my DVD collection, it'd be under "joie de vivre."



One of the taglines for the movie is "18 different stories by 18 of the most celebrated directors." Ok. How is Wes Craven one of those?

durable lefties are NICE

Mark Buehrle re-signs for 4/56mm. Take that, Barry Zito lovers.

The Sox very obviously need an overhaul, so it was a little strange to hear Buehrle's name being bandied about in trade rumors so often. Who do you build around on this roster beside someone like Buehrle?

Teams build around players that are 1) cheap, 2) young and 3) dependable. If you're young, then you're usually cheap. It's the rare treasure that is all three, young superstars like David Wright, Miguel Cabrera, and Brandon Webb. The sustainability of success depends a lot on those cheap, young, good players that keep the winning percentage up and the payroll down. Even big spenders like the Yankees (Robinson Cano, Melky Cabrera) and the Red Sox (Dustin Pedroia, Jonathan Papelbon, Kevin Youkilis) have young players playing at a high level every day, to offset all those high salary guys.

The short list of young and/or cheap is: Danks, Jenks, Fields, Podsednik and Iguchi
The list of dependable is: Buehrle, Garland, Uribe
The last list is guys who are probably too expensive to move: Thome, Konerko, Vazquez

So, with Buehrle back in the fold, the only guys left to deal are the Rotting Corpse of Jose Contreras and the Slightly Less Rotting Corpse of Jermaine Dye, both of whom have a year left on their contracts but may still entice someone into a two month rental for mid-level prospects. Vazquez has suddenly resurrected himself, having his first good year since 2003, so he looks unlikely to move.

The only other thing is to figure out which, if any, of the chumps among Luis Terreo, Andy Gonzalez, and Jerry Owens can play (survey SAYS: no), and see if we can get some more of those cheap, young, good players, because the 2007 Sox are overloaded with old, expensive ones.

Come on, Kenny!

"i'm not leaving without Bumblebee"

Amidst all the hilariously bad dialogue and indifference to things like "scripts," the Transformers movie was a good time, totally worth $10 in the middle of the summer.

"Optimus Prime gets Prostate Cancer"



Top 10 fav Transformers (I mean the old-school ones, not the crappy permutations)

1. Optimus Prime
2. Soundwave
3. Grimlock
4. Devastator
5. Megatron
6. Prowl
7. Sunstreaker
8. Sideswipe
9. Brawn
   
10. Laserbeak

Top 10 cartoons from our childhood that will be made into movies (according to me, Moose, and Young Patrick):

1. He-Man (no, we're forgetting the Dolph Lundgren version ever existed)
2. Robotech
3. JEM (truly outrageous)
4. M.A.S.K. - you forgot about it? Well, it was vehicles that turned into... other vehicles. With guns attached.
   
   
5. Thundercats (obvious)
   
6. She-Ra, if they showed it right after He-Man, like they did in real life. She-Ra's pretty much like the WNBA, the bastardized, more boring counterpart to a more popular product.
   
7. GI Joe. Oh yeah.
8. Centurions - we couldn't remember if this was really a cartoon, or just a toy.
   
9. C.O.P.S. - what's with acronyms that aren't really acronyms?
   
10. Captain Power - only if we get to shoot at the screen with those infrared toy guns.
    

all the stars you need

...and I don't mean the new Stars single, "The Night Starts Here." MLB vote tallies are in, so the hitters are set for the midsummer "classic." Instead of doffing the old hat of picking my own '07 all-stars, I thought, who are the best players of this DECADE? In the future looking back towards the Oughts (albeit an arbitrary but convenient span of time), which players will stick out? We're at a point in time where we can do that, too, being 7 years into it.

So... I picked these out by eyeballing the stats, looking at Win Shares, blabbedy blaZZZZZZZZZ. Ok here's the list.

MLB Team of the 2000-2010 (I know, it's actually 11 years)

C - Jorge Posada, NYY. Hasn't had a down year since the decade started. The NL counterpart would be Mike Piazza, who's only been middling since 2003, but had a spectacular 2000-2002.
Jorge's 2003: 281/405/518, 30 HR 101 RBI

1b - Albert Pujols, StL. The undisputed best. The AL's best for the decade was a little more cryptic, but Carlos Delgado has the slight edge over Jim Thome (injured 2005).
Fat Albert's ridic 2006: 331/431/671, 49 HR 137 RBI (in 143 games)

2b - Jeff Kent, SF/Hou/LAD. Has been very consistent even until this year, in his age 39 season. His AL counterpart is Alfonso Soriano, although his days playing 2b might be over.
Kent in his 2000 MVP season: 334/424/596, 33 HR 125 RBI

3b - Alex Rodriguez, Sea/Tex/NYY. Only because there are no AL 3bs worth a mention. Scott Rolen, Phi/StL is the best from the NL.
ARod's MVP 2005: 321/421/610, 48 HR 130 RBI 21 SB

SS - Derek Jeter, NYY. Over Miguel Tejada. Both have been consistent, but Jeter's good years have been better than Tejada's (according to OPS+). The AL also Carlos Guillen, Nomar when he was good, and ARod, but the NL is a barren wasteland of SS. Edgar Renteria had two Jeter-like years, but that's about it.
Jeter's 2006: 343/417/483, 14 HR 97 RBI 34 SB

OF
Vladimir Guerrero, Mon/LAA - Vladdy's 2000: 345/410/664, 44 HR 123 RBI
Manny Ramirez, Cle/Bos - ManRam's 2000: 351/457/697, 38 HR 122 RBI in 118 games
Steroid Bear, SF - The Bear's 2001: 328/515/863, 73 HR 137 RBI
Honorable mention OFs: Gary Sheffield, Lance Berkman, Magglio Ordonez, Ichiro!

Starting Pitchers
Roy Oswalt, Hou - 2005: 20-12, 2.94 ERA, 184 Ks, 1.20 WHIP
Tim Hudson, Oak/Atl - 2003: 16-7, 2.70 ERA, 162 Ks, 1.08 WHIP
Pedro Martinez, Bos/NYM - 2000 Cy Young: 18-6, 1.74 ERA, 284 Ks, 0.74 WHIP
Johan Santana, Min - 2004 Cy Young: 20-6, 2.61 ERA, 265 Ks, 0.92 WHIP
Roger Clemens, NYY/Hou - Rocket's 2005: 13-8, 1.87 ERA, 185 Ks (at age 42)
Honorable mentions: Roy Halladay, Randy Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Carlos Zambrano.

Relief Pitchers
John Smoltz, Atl - 2003: 45 saves, 1.12 ERA, 0.87 WHIP
Billy Wagner, Hou/Phi/NYM - 2005: 38 saves, 1.51 ERA, 0.84 WHIP
Trevor Hoffman, SD - 2006: 46 saves, 2.14 ERA, 0.97 WHIP
Mariano Rivera, NYY - 2005: 43 saves, 1.38 ERA, 0.87 WHIP
Jason Isringhausen, StL - 2005: 39 saves, 2.14 ERA

duh

Shouldn't I have known that Interpol's new album is coming out in July?



Will it be any good? Who cares! New music! Yay!

excerpt

from Percy Shelley's "Zucca" (1822)

I loved—oh, no, I mean not one of ye,
Or any earthly one, though ye are dear
As human heart to human heart may be;—
I loved, I know not what—but this low sphere
And all that it contains, contains not thee,
Thou, whom, seen nowhere, I feel everywhere.
From Heaven and Earth, and all that in them are,
Veiled art thou, like a ... star.

By Heaven and Earth, from all whose shapes thou flowest,
Neither to be contained, delayed, nor hidden;
Making divine the loftiest and the lowest,
When for a moment thou art not forbidden
To live within the life which thou bestowest;
And leaving noblest things vacant and chidden,
Cold as a corpse after the spirit’s flight
Blank as the sun after the birth of night.

In winds, and trees, and streams, and all things common,
In music and the sweet unconscious tone
Of animals, and voices which are human,
Meant to express some feelings of their own;
In the soft motions and rare smile of woman,
In flowers and leaves, and in the grass fresh-shown,
Or dying in the autumn, I the most
Adore thee present or lament thee lost.

dulcet tones

I am digging my fav Canadian songstress, Feist.



Congrats, Todd and Kate.

seamhead

Sammy Sosa hit #600 (homers, of course), which is only good in that it beat the Cubs, and in showcasing how steroids dilutes the sport. In related news, the once strong US dollar continues to lose value.

Anyways. Speaking of baseball and money, and the All-Star Game not too far away, I found diversion in trying to come up with the best 25-man roster, using the talent pool from each of MLB's divisions (so, the best roster based on the AL Central, NL Central, etc.). By the "best" roster, I mean trying to actually build a roster like a GM should. So this means picking backup middle infielders, having enough lefthanded relievers in the bullpen, and having an players who can actually field their positions (which is not a consideration in fantasy baseball). Some players are shifted around on defense, but not into a position where he would hurt the team (no putting Jim Thome back at 3b where he used to play).

I'll just put the AL Central, since I don't think anyone else cares about the other divisions. 14 position players, 11 pitchers, as most MLB rosters are. Just for kicks, I put in 2007 salaries.

AL Central - best 25 man roster

pos, name, team hitters C - Mauer, Min 1b - Morneau, Min 2b - Polanco, Det 3b - Inge, Det SS - Guillen, Det LF - Sizemore, Cle CF - Hunter, Min RF - Ordonez, Det DH - Sheffield, Det bench C - Martinez, Cle 3b/RF - Blake, Cle 2b/SS - Uribe, Chi OF - Granderson, Det 1b/DH - Thome, Chi pitchers SP - Santana, Min (L) SP - Bonderman, Det SP - Verlander, Det SP - Sabathia, Cle (L) SP - Buehrle, Chi (L) RP - Nathan, Min RP - Jenks, Chi RP - Neshek, Min RP - Peralta, KC RP - Betancourt, Cle RP - Carmona, Cle

salaries (in $ millions) 3,750,000 4,500,000 4,600,000 4,900,000 5,000,000 916,667 12,000,000 13,200,000 10,916,071 3,200,000 3,750,000 4,150,000 410,000 15,666,667 13,000,000 4,500,000 1,030,000 8,750,000 9,500,000 5,250,000 450,000 395,000 400,500 840,000 387,500 total $131,462,405

Notes: 1. Hunter over Sizemore in CF because of the better arm.
2. This division has no decent lefty relievers. For goodness' sake.

The best that the AL Central can offer tops a whopping $131mm, which, even more strangely, would only place it 3rd in all of MLB in payroll, behind the Yankee$ and the Red $ox. The average payroll in MLB is right around $84mm.

Obviously, a great team can cost a lot of money. So, what would a "best" roster culled from the AL Central look like if forced to stay under the $84mm cap? Still a contender?

pos, name, team hitters C - Mauer, Min 1b - Morneau, Min 2b - Barfield, Cle 3b - Inge, Det SS - Peralta, Cle LF - Cuddyer, Min CF - Sizemore, Cle RF - Ordonez, Det DH - Sheffield, Det bench C - Buck, KC 3b/RF - Teahen, KC 2b/SS - Bartlett, Min OF - Granderson, Det 1b/DH - Garko, Cle pitchers SP - Santana, Min (L) SP - Bonderman, Det SP - Verlander, Det SP - Sabathia, Cle (L) SP - Carmona, Cle RP - Nathan, Min RP - Jenks, Chi RP - Neshek, Min RP - Peralta, KC RP - Betancourt, Cle RP - Soria, KC

salaries (in $ millions) 3,750,000 4,500,000 395,800 4,900,000 1,000,000 3,575,000 916,667 13,200,000 10,916,071 440,000 416,000 405,000 410,000 383,100 13,000,000 4,500,000 1,030,000 8,750,000 387,500 5,250,000 450,000 395,000 400,500 840,000 380,000 total $80,590,638

As usual, the cost cuts came in the form of backups and relievers who tended to be cheap, younger players. The bulk of the cost was the starting rotation, and big bats having big years.

I am digging the new White Stripes and the new National. Happy Friday.

cowboys

Nothing quites makes praying feel more efficacious than when someone is dying. You tend to pay more attention to words that you normally gloss over.

Saw the new trailer for "3:10 to Yuma" a cowboy flick with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.



Which looks just as good, if not better, than Crowe's other cowboy movie, the lesser known but surprisingly watchable "The Quick and the Dead" (1995).



My top 10 cowboy movies of all time? Cowboy movies seem to have died off, for the time being.

1. The Magnificent Seven - You can't really lose with Yul Brynner, can you?
2. Tombstone - James hated it when I kept saying every quote every time we watched this.
3. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - with the seminal cowboy soundtrack of all time.
4. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
5. Pale Rider
6. Unforgiven
7. High Plains Drifter
8. The Outlaw Josey Wales - I'm more of a Clint Eastwood guy than a John Wayne guy.
9. Rio Bravo
10. Shane

The last "cowboy" movie of note is "Brokeback Mountain," which I think is indicative of the genre being a little stale. Really hasn't been very many, let alone good, cowboy movies lately. "The Missing?" "Open Range?" "Shanghai Noon?" The nice thing about "3:10" is that it looks like it'll stay within the boundaries of the genre, namely, dudes with funny hats, six shooters, mustaches, horses, whiskey.

prayers for the dying

Go forth, Christian soul, from this world
in the name of God the almighty Father, who created you,
in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for you,
in the name of the Holy Spirit, who was poured out upon you,
May you live in peace this day,
may your home be with God in Zion,
with Mary, the virgin Mother of God,
with Joseph and all the angels and saints.

i miss hawaii

"View from the 9th floor," 4/29/07, Waikiki Beach.

i need something to do

... because Mass and praying the liturgy of the hours, does not take all day. Still waiting on assignments from school as to what I'll be teaching next year, which spells out having a lot of free time on my hands. I'll admit, I've wasted a bit catching up on my crappy baseball team (on which I will not spend any of the money I don't have), going to the library to nap, sleeping in all the rooms of the house again because my room still feels too weird, burning DVDs of the photos we took on the tour (3+ GBs worth), and watching youtube vids of Premier League soccer, which just ended. To those of you who don't know, meet Dimitar Berbatov:



Anyway. I think I need to chew some more on the nubs of the little writing assignments I left off. The Poker story. The Project. Maybe a travelogue of what we did for 4 months, for posterity's sake. Or maybe I'll put it off and go watch the next installment of Sequel Summer, which allegedly has been getting better reviews than some of the previous installments:

oh yeah... blogging

Back home, and back to the slight awkwardness of trying to answer questions like "how was your trip?" Not that I mind the questions, but it's still hard to answer, succinctly. I just went through the photos we took on the trip (more than 3 GBs worth) and over the MAX2007 blog, and it's a lot, but at the same time, it seems like it wasn't all that long ago that we were starting. Time is far more elastic than you think, yah?

Anyways. I think these photos are among my favs:

Missy singing one of her originals to her grandmother. A very human moment of one person sharing with another.

Jun really loves crawfish.

On Jurassic Park, er, Hilo, on the volcano tour.

Most Reverend Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, signing our cross, with all the names of the kids on it. Very personable guy; has the feel of the next door neighbor you like, or a favorite uncle.

Here's a little synopsis that Cow, self-proclaimed youngest and hairiest team member, wrote on our month-long jaunt into Toronto:

In February of this year, a small team of young adults from all across our beloved continent came together in the wilds of Los Angeles, California with the humble hope of taking over the world for Our Lady as soon as possible. And thus was formed the mighty Max007 team, which gets its name from our founding saint (Always a good way to start an organization!) Maximilian Kolbe and of course this year of Our Lord: 2007.

We've spent the last four months on the road, driving all around the United States (including that envy-causing little state made up of the Hawaiian islands) and spending the entire month of May staying here in the mighty metropolis of Toronto and all the towns and areas around it, giving retreats and talks and hanging out with the youth and trying out hardest to make sure every one of them knows the message that Pope Benedict XVI wants to share with them.

First of all we let the message that God is love, be firmly known. The Holy Father asks us youth this year to "Love one another as [Christ] has loved you." God is not a huge angry old man who is just itching to catch you breaking the rules and send you packing into eternal suffering. God really is Love. Christ gave up everything in the hope that we would be able to be loved and love more deeply.

The faith and the whole of being Catholic is about love as well, and to really get anything out of being Catholic, we all have to be willing to join in that love, and really take interest and ownership of our faith. As the Militia Immaculata, we know that the best example of Christianity is that given by Mary, and so we entrust ourselves to her care and her direction to help us follow and suffer with Christ when necessary.

Through our missionary work we were blessed to be able to follow in that sacrifice in our own meager ways, as we gave up jobs, universities, our friends and families, and came here to Canada to help the teens and young adults here. The whole month we stayed wherever we could, in the basements and spare rooms of whoever could help us, and ate when we had food.

As for the events themselves, they all went beautifully. We went to parishes, prayer groups, youth groups, Catholic schools, and met with all kinds of remarkable and holy people, including Archbishop Thomas Collins and Msgr. Robert Nusca, who is both the rector of St. Augustine Seminary and the spiritual director of the MI in Canada.

When the team first arrived here in Toronto, there were less than a dozen adults who were actively involved and interested in the MI…and several of those people were already on the team. As we leave this beautiful city, the number has been bolstered dozens of times over, due mainly to the enthusiasm of the young people. It has been said on occasion that the youth are the Church of the Future.

That is wrong.

The young people are the Church of right now. Youth are the ones on the front lines, the ones who can love the world from the inside out, the ones who know that joy is worthy fighting for. The Max007 team worked hard to minister to the youth. But the youth are the ones who are ministering to us. Thank you all for such a fantastic experience in Canada.

You guys pray for us, and we'll be praying for all the people we got to meet during this month. God bless you!

And now, back to "ordinary" time.

keeping a promise to caroline

...because I said that I would mention the folk artist that I ran into down in Ponchatoula.

Let me back up.

First, a few friends and I had been told about this hermitish folk artist, a painter, who happened to live in the same town we were staying, by someone who caught us admiring some of the art that was hanging up on the wall.

His name is Bill Hemmerling, and he's quite a treat to talk to. He was nice enough to chat with us for about an hour and a half, show us around his studio, talk about God, life, and art (to me, which I will forever remember and appreciate. He encouraged me to write as much as possible, and to find that place in myself to be original, because there's no point in being somebody else telling somebody else's story. Thanks Bill).

His painting have something soulful and beautiful, a fullness that isn't necessarily apparent from the surface. Some people, I hear, dislike the faceless quality of the figures (almost always of black people) that he paints, but he says he has them remain faceless because he wants to represent a kind of universality. The universality being the dignity, the grace, and the beauty of people, especially black people.


He has a series of paintings with the same figure, called "Sweet Olive." She is long, lean, and graceful, and Bill says he paints her that way because growing up, he saw that black people had always been represented in negative ways, so he wanted to paint them in a way that was beautiful, in some sort of classical way.

Bill himself is very gentle, calm, childlike. Despite his humble appearance, he is articulate, sympathetic, aware of the world. His publicist handles the sales, freeing him to paint and live his solitary lifestyle. He paints, feeds his dog and his cat, meets with people who like his paintings, hanging in the back gallery of a furniture store. Who knew you could find this stuff in a small town in Louisiana?

I almost, rashly, put some money down on one of his originals, which would definitely have put me in some kind of ridiculous financial hole, but... it sure felt like it'd be worth it, before I came to my senses. Maybe, just maybe, I can have one of those hanging on my wall one day, now that it looks like I'll be able to support myself.

Also, Blades of Glory? Totally ridiculous.