Generous Clarity

I love headphones as much as my wife loves flashlights. And that is saying something. She loves flashlights so much.

She just got me a lovely headset that is sleek, light, bluetooth-enabled . . . meaning that they pair wirelessly with my phone and my computer. This will allow me to jog without my flailing arms catching a headphone cord and yanking the earbuds out of my ears while simultaneously pulling my phone away from my body and toward the cold, hard ground. Not that this ever happened last month when my buddy Larry and I ran more than 24 miles in our lazy man iron man challenge. Volume up is touch-sensitive . . . just slide your finger up the side of the right earpiece . . . so if you need to reach me when I am rocking out, you can just call and I can talk to you with just the touch of a button. Music resumes as soon as you finish telling me, in great detail, about all of the amazing Italian food you just ate while you were out of town . . . in case that happens again.

These headphones sound oh-so amazing. I am listening right now and they occasionally startle me when something in stereo makes a noise just behind and to the left of me. As is the case every time I get shiny new tech, I am listening to all of my favorite songs one after another and they all sound brand new.

Of course, the first really clean music came out of the stereo in my brother Clair’s room. Pablo Cruise, Loggins and Messina, America, Chicago… I understand you’ve been running from the man who goes by the name of the sandman and that your horse has no name. And music always sounds better when you have a dart wound in your kneecap. Or so I’ve heard.

I can still hear some of the amazing vinyl from a set of corded over-the-ear headphones at my sister Charlotte’s house in Jerome. The curling cable only let you go so far from the turntable and receiver so I just plopped down on the floor six feet away and listened in the dark.

And I remember borrowing my brother Justin’s Hi-fi Sony cassette player. The song playing as I traipsed from their apartment to our house in American Falls on a crisp winter day in 1977: “Don’t Fight It” by Kenny Loggins (Steve Perry of Journey doing background vocals). That guitar still rocks and rolls inside of my head. And will again . . . forever.

The first time I heard a CD . . . it was a Christmas morning in Idaho Falls. The song was Corey Hart’s remake of Elvis’ “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” The clarity of the sound burned the moment in my brain and I had to hand the earphones over to my wife so she could hear the latest wonder.

But it’s not just the music or the new technology. What it really comes down to is the generosity. Someone else always had the good stereo. And they were always willing to let me borrow it.

Finally, just before I was headed to serve a mission, I had a Christmas where I received white shirts, ties, shoes, all of the gear I needed for two years in South America. I truly and deeply appreciated each of these things. They were practical and needed and I was truly grateful. Then my brother gave me a pair of old school battery-powered FM headphones (complete with retractable antenna). Completely frivolous, unnecessary, ridiculous and exactly what I needed. He knew I couldn’t take them with me but wanted me to have the joy of music up to the last possible minute.

That’s why I love headphones. But let’s just keep that between you and me. (You can borrow mine, if you want . . . but just for a minute.)

She also bought me a book called All of My Friends are Dead but that’s a story for another day.

Getting Jimmered

In honor of Jimmer “Got Range” Fredette who blew it up (43 points) in the only Top 10 NCAA matchup ever staged here across the street in the Marriott Center, I have been hoisting some beyond-NBA-range threes all this week. So far so good as I have hit three of the six that were actually “Jimmers.” (Don’t worry I missed all kinds of shots closer in to compensate.) He’s two inches shorter but I hear his feet are 2 sizes bigger than mine . . . a solid foundation for establishing position and making moves. Picture a hobbit making his way through Mordor. Actually, please don't. Okay, back to the story.

I had a feeling that this would be a special year when junior Jimmer said he was pulling out of the NBA draft and returning to play for BYU his senior year. He had talked to Danny Ainge after a workout for the Celtics, according to USA Today: "I didn't know where I was going to be picked," Fredette says. "That was concerning to me. I knew if I came back, I'd have a great year. Danny Ainge told me he had one of his best seasons his senior year." So before the season started, when my buddy asked if I wanted to share a set of season tickets, I jumped at the chance.

Wednesday night BYU played San Diego State to determine which team would lead the Mountain West Conference (may it rest in peace, we’ll be playing teams like St. Mary’s, Gonzaga, and Portland next year). More than two dozen NBA scouts descended on Provo, students stood in a snow storm to get better seats to the game, then a total of 22,700 fans found their seats well before tipoff. In my almost three decades at BYU I have seen some fierce games (against Utah, UNLV, etc.) but this was in another realm entirely. Sold out.

And intense. And loud. Especially during the last five minutes when the Cougars played some of the best defense of the year, forcing SDSU to a standstill twice; absolutely stymied and forced to squander time-outs. Then Jimmer dropped foul shot after foul shot and put the game out of reach. I have some inkling of how hard those athletes work to become proficient. So when they win at a high level and are rewarded it is really satisfying for the athlete and for those that witness the performance. At the end of the game the student section stormed the floor of the Marriott Center and Jimmer was escorted to a safe spot behind the scorer’s table.

Like everybody else at BYU (and in the national media), our staff has Jimmer fever. We will be publishing a feature on Jimmer in our April magazine; we’ve been working on it for a while now. So we get to follow the news, look at all of the pictures, watch the games, and call it work. It’s not my primary responsibility but I am doing my part to stay current and knowledgable.

One thing we are following is the creative fan signs. Favorites so far: “Chuck Norris wears Jimmer pajamas,” “Urban dictionary, Jimmer (noun) One who is in range as soon as he steps off the bus,” and finally, “We’ve got Jimmer, your chances just got slimmer.” We also have another player named Jackson Emery who just broke Danny Ainge’s steal record. A sign for him reads: “I had another sign but Emery stole it.” We’re having a blast.

We're saying Jimmer a lot . . . the player, the noun, and the verb. Being “jimmered” is something else entirely. That’s just playing your hardest and still getting beat; running out to defend a guy shooting from well beyond the arc, arriving too late, turning, and watching the ball barely touch net as it swishes. Wondrous.

I wore my Boston Celtics hat to the game, backwards like a dirtbag of course; is there any other way? I should have made a sign like the kid in the picture below. I would love to see Jimmer represent BYU on my favorite NBA team. But I’ll root for him wherever he ends up; he’s so fun to watch. For now, I am content to go to every home game from now until tournament time. It’s a special year and a special team and I am thrilled to be along for the ride.

There is Only Now . . . and Now . . .

I am watching (again) what I consider to be one of the best television shows I’ve ever seen. Life. It only lasted a couple of seasons but it made an impression on me. A cop show but with a twist. Detective Crews goes away for a murder he didn’t commit, gets beat up a lot, reads a lot about zen, is exonerated, then goes back on the job . . . with an eye for the real killer and a taste for fresh fruit (you don’t see a lot of that in prison I hear). Some people don’t get this show because on the surface it looks like a gritty police drama. But its true message is in how the detective reacts to the world swirling around him in unpredictable ways.

Not a lot of people have heard of Scott Yost but he writes a column for a newspaper in North Carolina. And a few years back he told a story I continue to think back on. Here is an excerpt:

“A few years ago I was driving down some of the mountainiest mountains in North Carolina and I saw something that just blew me away. I mean, it floored me. A friend and I had been driving down these incredibly steep mountain roads—you know, the ones that are like straight down and wreak havoc on truck brakes. As you drive down this stretch of mountain road, if you have your windows open, you can often smell the truck brakes burning.

We had been down miles and miles of steep road, and that’s where I saw it. Off to the side of the road was one of those exits that goes straight into a huge sand pile. The DOT puts them at certain treacherous parts of mountain roads so that, when truck brakes burn out, those truck drivers don’t have to keep careening down the mountain to certain death—instead, they can exit the road, run into the mound of sand, and, with any luck, stay alive.

With this particular mound of sand that I saw, after miles and miles of steep downward road, someone had strung a little chain across the front of the exit and hung a “closed” sign on the middle of the chain.
As soon as I saw it, I started laughing, because it hit me: You might try, but you can’t really close those truck ramps. I mean, let’s say you’re a truck driver barreling down the mountain at like 150 miles an hour because you have no brakes left, and you’re doing everything you can just to keep your out-of-control loaded-down truck on the road, and you come around this corner on two wheels just looking for some way to stay alive. And you see this ramp off the road with a big pile of sand at the end put there for the specific purpose of keeping you alive in this very situation. But then you see a little chain across the ramp and the “closed” sign. So, of course, you would just say to yourself, “Dang, just my luck – closed! Oh well, maybe there’s another one a few miles down. I guess I’ll just keep careening down this mountain, picking up speed, no doubt to certain death.”

I very seriously doubt it.

Whoever put up that closed sign and that little chain committed an error I think a lot of us make all the time: he (not to be sexist, but I’ll bet it was a he) thought he was in control of something he really had no control of.”

Yost continues:

“In fact, I would venture to say that one of the principal mistakes we all make in life is pretending we have control over things we really have no control over at all.

Let me cut to the chase and give you a complete list of things you have control over. Here goes:

Yourself. You know—your actions and how you react to things.

Oh, and here’s a list of things you have no control over whatsoever: everyone and everything else in the world.”

Then he wraps it up with some excellent advice:

If you are facing a really big problem right now . . . Ask yourself what things about the situation you can control; then completely let go of everything else, and—and this is the important part—maniacally take control of all those things you actually do have control of. I promise you, you’ll be able to solve your problem almost every time.

What you will find in 99 percent of the cases is that you have so much extra energy and time and focus because you aren’t worrying about those things you can’t control that you will get through your crisis quite nicely, thank you very much, simply by putting your time and effort into those parts of the situation that you actually can control."

Have a great week. Let’s all find things we can take control of in positive ways. And bite into some fresh fruit to celebrate your freedom.

Bright Feathers and Redemption

On Saturday I watched The Shawshank Redemption, again, for the dozenth time. I’ve seen it on cable, VHS, DVD, and now as a streaming movie from Netflix on my iPad.

I always think that I can just sit down and enjoy the storyline and not get all caught up in it. Not so. I sob like an abandoned baby at the same points in the film every single time. It hits me hard and I can only watch it every couple of years as it is emotionally draining. I find that spring is a good time to screen it as the beauty of the season can somewhat offset the dreary gray tones of the movie.

After spending decades together in prison, the two main characters, Red and Andy are separated, in a good way (I’ll try to be vague and not spoil the movie, in case you haven’t seen it. Nope. Sorry, I have to share this, to make my point.) Spoiler alert. Andy escapes through the sewer line and Red remains in prison. And this is how Red sums up being left behind.

Red: [narrating] “Sometimes it makes me sad, though . . . Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren't meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they're gone. I guess I just miss my friend.”

People come and go in our lives. Those with whom we develop long, deep relationships are the ones that, when they are gone, due to distance or death, are the ones that we miss the most, the ones that we have the most difficulty reconciling their absence from our days.

In this solemn prison movie, I recognize some of myself in Red, a short-sighted man who lacks hope, perhaps too accepting of whatever hand he is dealt. In Andy, I see my brother, gone now 15 years this May. He lived briefly but intensely. He loved his family deeply. But, in the end, he sacrificed for others, was put through a torturous measure of hell, then was dealt a mortal blow. I believe in my heart that he has now received some measure of redemption and is in a better place.

Red thinks of his friend Andy like this: “When I picture him heading south in his own car with the top down, it always makes me laugh. Andy Dufresne... who crawled through a river of [crap] and came out clean on the other side.

In the end, they meet again on a Pacific ocean beach . . . a “warm place with no memory.” I can’t always see the last scene because it’s blurry . . . though it’s no fault of the film. But through the haze, I see a joyful reunion . . . devoid of judgment or earthly weight. Just sunshine, a boat, fresh sea air, and two men reunited for the last time.

Above is a picture of my brother, sitting on a pile of rocks on a Bolivian mountainside. Not a subtle visual, I realize, but all that I had on hand to represent the hard lot he endured toward the end of his life. His feathers were just too bright. Like Red, I just miss my friend.

So, in spite of its troubling themes, I do recommend seeing this film. It is the farthest thing I can imagine from your typical chick flick . . . there is nothing light, romantic, or comedic about it. But it is deeply moving and, for me, cathartic as I ponder life, death, and the stuff we have to go through to get to the other side, better for the experience.

Be warned: Shawshank is rated R for language and prison violence. Please watch it on a Clearplay DVD player or wait for it to show up somewhere in a form “edited for television.” Thanks.