James R. Brandewie

I shattered my phone. Put a good hole in the dishwasher too.

Dad called mad at Mom. Not unusual except I knew this was going to happen. Saw it coming months ago. I tried to intervene too.

The phone call was the epitome of my relationship with my parents.

My Mom told me that she was going on vacation and that her new boyfriend was going to watch my little brother. I asked her if she told my Dad. She said no. I said you better or he will be angry. This conversation was about two months ago.

So I knew sometime this weekend I would get this angry call from my Dad. After working 8 to 8 it was tonight.

Thing is I am in complete agreement with him. As I was with most things through the divorce. He has valid points. He has a right to be angry. But instead of dealing with it in a productive, positive way he would rather blow up his world. And I can’t stand for that. I told him I don’t like answering the phone when he gets this angry and acts this way. He makes threats about what he is going to do next because she made him do it. Which is such flawed logic no matter how angry you are.

But what pisses me off is he calls me to blow off steam and when I give him constructive criticism like “don’t call her relatives because all it will do is make you look like a a crazy, angry man unable to control your emotions” he gets angry at me.

What he misses is that I am in complete agreement. She should have called him. I begged her to. This is about the 100th time I have asked her to take my Dad’s emotional state into consideration and perhaps selfishly my own. Because I am the one he calls when he gets angry or sad like this. And it makes me very angry and sad too.

I guess at 29 I shouldn’t care too much about my parents actions. But there is something inside me that keeps on thinking “when are you two going to grow up?”

It isn’t like one’s actions are worse than the other. They both are equally insensitive to everyone involved, or at least to me (I make assumptions for my brothers that I should not).

I am absolutely at a point where the only reason I communicate with my parents is out of a weird sense of duty.

I don’t know what to do, what I can do. I just feel indifferent towards everything. I think that is the result of all this. Indifference towards life in general. Probably why I get up, work and live like a zombie.

March 8th, 2010 | Category: Frustrating Mess | Comments Off

Well I think it is safe to say I am there. Where is there? At a place where I feel completely comfortable with my life.

I don’t know if it is having enough income to pay all my bills, or the unique little house I live in, or the fact that I forgot all my other worries because my biggest one has lessened. But I am here.

Which doesn’t abolish the failures of my past. The old saying that everything happens for a reason. I don’t subscribe to that at all. I believe that life is what you make it.

I could dwell on all my past failures. But what is the point? The only thing I could do is learn from them.

I have learned that I am the most happy when I am free. I do not work well with a lot of responsibility or obligation. So I have broken ties with almost everyone I know. Not that I don’t care about them. I just can’t function when my life has too much going on. Socially, what most people do daily, I do weekly. What most do weekly I do monthly. I don’t hangout, I don’t date, I don’t call.

When I feel social I grab a few beers and talk to random people. When I am horny I buy someone a few drinks. When I get lonely I read. When I get depressed I sleep then try to fix what is ailing me. Pure self-help.

I have a line from one of my favorite songs “Embarrassment remembers like no other“. And at times these thoughts about the past taunt me. But what can you do? Nothing. So let it be.

February 25th, 2010 | Category: Better Days Ahead | Comments Off

Every year I get the hopes up that everything is going to fall into place and I can write this story.

But one of the features is a problem. Because I must rely on programmers, developers and hard work from all across the world.

So far it hasn’t worked out yet. Every year something just a little off. Just not quite right.

And I wait, and wait, and wait.

This year was really close. In fact I may still be able to do the workload to get it started. But the margain for error is always very small and there is nothing worse than losing many hours of work to a bug. Which has happened at least 10 times in the last 4 years. Heartbreaking stuff for me.

So do I press on or not? There are days when this feels like the most important thing in my life to do. Then other days I think I would be better off doing something less isolating.

My life is pretty secure and I am fairly happy. I just wish this would come together.

February 21st, 2010 | Category: Basketball, Big Ole Whiner | Comments Off

Teeth. Need to find out what I can do about my wisdom teeth. Blood. Headaches. Need to do something. Been putting off for too long.

Bed. Still haven’t picked out what I am going to get. I think I may wait until……

House. Been searching for a house and a loan. $50,000 and under. Looking for a place to slowly build into something me!

Work. 12 hour days including travel. A lot of hours for okay money. But surprisingly enjoying it.

TV. I have never watched so much TV. NUMBERS, Leverage, Burn Notice, Angel….the wee hours of the night/morning.

Sleep. Strange hours and amounts. 2 then 3 then 5 then 2. Little naps.

—45% Productive— or something like that.

February 20th, 2010 | Category: Better Days Ahead | Comments Off

Well I got a book I have been waiting to read for years. Taboo : Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It by John Entiene.

The book is not really all that exciting, much of the information is stuff that I have already read. But I am only 1/3rd through so hopefully the thesis gets more in depth otherwise I am going to be a bit disappointed.

But there are certainly some great information in the book. Primarily that since Africa has had the most geographical barriers and least amount of cultural intermixing (due to cultural breaks in clans/tribes) they have the highest amount of genetic variation.

Also the notion that all humans are 99.8% genetic matches is true but he mentioned that apes are 96% are match and dogs, fish and earthworms share more than 70% of our genetic material too!

But the main thesis is that athletes with sub-Saharan African ancestry clearly have genetic advantage in athletics over different races/geographic populations. Even within the Sub-Saharan breakdown their are certain tribes from ethnically distinct regions that excel at certain types of running.

The book goes into a decent description of certain African phenotypes that differentiate regions from another and potentially what the environmental causes that created these genetic differences where. But it ended there.

My biggest critique is that the book is so obsessed with not being seen as racist. It presents the mythology of race and continues to make the argument on this mythological end, instead of just giving the genetic evidence around a solid hypothesis.

To me the evidence is clear. I spent my early 20’s playing a lot of basketball with 85% black Americans. The average white player, including myself, lacked the top level of athleticism that only black players had. This is seen everyday at the highest level of professional and collegiate athletics in America. Everyone I know talks about it and believes it.

Now I believe a great deal of social and environmental factors can contribute to success in areas of athletics. Cutting body fat %, training muscle memory etc….. I still contend most of white athletes are lazy, filled with misinformation (lifting weights will effect your sport) and in general just don’t have the culture that embraces athletics in a social way. For most whites I think sports become a top down, hierarchical environment that doesn’t create self-confidence but creates a dependency on institutions and authority. But that is a different can of worms.

The overwhelming fact is the best of the best all seem to have one thing in common. African genetics. Skin color isn’t enough, its deeper than that. But it sure gets you in the right ballpark.

————

This website is a site that tries to perpetuate that we are all created equal, which is currently the widespread socially/politically accepted narrative. Just as phrenology, social darwinism and a whole array of theories that led to eugenics in the late 1800’s/1900’s were the progressive, socially accepted hypothesis of the great minds of their time. –http://www.understandingrace.org/home.html –

—Interview http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/qa/19640.html

February 18th, 2010 | Category: Basketball, NBA, School | Comments Off

Finally back on track with my life pursuits. A little kick in the butt from the muse. Finally piecing together the last bits of lyrics. Picking away at song ideas and forming them together as a whole.

I can’t wait until my brother and I start exchanging ideas. I think I can be less dictatorial this time around.

A lot of the stuff I am writing is in this old folk and blues, with a distinct desire to jazz it up. Like a black Pentangle…or something like that.

Script is more elusive but the music for it is almost complete.

All in all everyday I work and that is always the funnest part, enlightenment.

February 15th, 2010 | Category: Music | Comments Off

NBA All-Star weekend.

Love the NBA weekend. Celebration of the game. Loved TNT’s coverage.

Slam dunk contest wasn’t so good. But the rookie/sophomore game was beyond great. Leagues got a lot of young talent coming into the fold. A lot of different style 0f games too. The powerful athleticism of Russell Westbrook. The feisty play of Omri Casspi. The gorgeous shot of Steph Curry, the baby faced assassin.

You gotta love Steve Nash and his sillyness….and undeniable skill. Paul Pierce is always a competitor and showed that he is adjusting to his later career. Nate Robinson may be the greatest athlete. 5′6 and just jumps out of the gym.

The All-Star game had its share of unbelievable plays. Lebron James and Dwayne Wade were clearly better than all the rest. They have the supernatural ability to out run, jump or create better than anyone else on the planet. Amazing to watching humans with that type of ability. Purely majestic.

February 14th, 2010 | Category: Basketball, NBA | Comments Off

Well I went into work Saturday.

Looks like the next two weeks I am going to get some extra hours. Be full-time again. Which is nice because I am going to buy a new bed. I have been waiting to make sure I could afford it. But with some extra hours coming up as my boss is on vacation and we have some extra work for me I think it is time to pull the trigger. I can pay it off through my paycheck over 3 months.

February 13th, 2010 | Category: Better Days Ahead | Comments Off

Well they kicked me off of Operation Sports.

I got infractions for political discussion.

One of things that always bugged me about that site was a pro-american, support the soldiers, was never seen as political. Not that I disagree with that statement in anyway. I just think it is overtly political. If you have flag waving people on a forum and then restrict political discussion, how can you say there is no political discussion.

So the private owners of the site….well it is theirs and the moderators have kicked off most of the long time guys and most of the other long time guys have stopped posting as much. So no big loss.

Except that this became my prime NBA discussion. I am going to miss that. Also there was a few really cool dudes on there.

I will also miss a platform for my basketball story. Which is getting closer and closer to launch. Hell the reason I started posting on there was to establish a base to launch the damn thing. Well there goes that.

If anyone from OS straggles over here feel free to email me at james@jamesbrandewie.com

February 9th, 2010 | Category: Day in Review | Comments Off