I Will Be Content After This Drink

Posted on December 8, 2014 by McPhedran

I just need this drink to be content. Just that, the refreshment, the alcohol in my blood at the right percentage. Ah, yes…there! I am content, genuinely and truly so.

It’s nice to feel like this, to have everything set, the holidays approaching, the weather cool and crisp, all emails answered, assignments managed, my work going fine. My Bad Side will be published one day, The Ark is finally coming together, and the first draft of Glenayr is almost there. Friends and family are healthy – Micaela happy and More Art prospering – and the Leafs are actually winning.

Yes, everything is all right…although, now that I think about it, the Leafs could be more consistent, especially in the defensive end.

And, well, my brother won’t talk to me, and More Art could use more grant money. Glenayr lacks a clear antagonist, and, to be honest, The Ark will be impossible to finish. An email from Fedex? Claim rejected? Damn it, I forgot to call my doctor, and I have to set up the website for next week. Yeah, and it’s going to snow.

What? And the bar is closed? No, that’s not good.

Phil Kessel’s Admirable Disdain for the Sports Media

Posted on November 18, 2014 by McPhedran

Last Friday, Toronto lost to Buffalo, the worst team in the league, and Phil Kessel, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ star forward walked away from the media scrum, telling them, “Leave me alone.”

The jilted scum (sic) made a story out of that. As Mr. Kessel admits, his answers rarely offer them anything much. “I’m a guy that likes to go out and play hockey and have some fun.” Teammate Nazem Kadri, victim of as much negative press as anyone, gave his point of view: “When (Phil) doesn’t feel like he can trust anybody, he gets a little bit shy and a little bit timid in that regard. It’s really nothing personal.” Let me put it differently and not so nicely: sports reporters are lazy and judgemental. They do not pose insightful questions that develop understanding of the nature of the game nor the player, but instead pose trite statements with question marks at the end, searching for a quote that they can insert into their pre-written narrative.

These are the statements/questions Kessel avoided: “What are your thoughts on losing to the worst team in the league?” “How disappointed are you in the team’s efforts?” “How can the team improve?”

Phil Kessel is a great hockey player not only for his skill and humility on the ice but also for his most admirable disdain for these morons he must endure.

Watching Beckett One-Acts on Leafs Opening Night

Posted on October 8, 2014 by McPhedran

Not I: What? . . the buzzing? . . yes . . . all the time the buzzing . . . dull roar . . . in the skull . . . and the beam . . . ferreting around . . . painless . . . so far . . . ha! . . so far . . . then thinking . . . oh long after . . . sudden flash Footfalls: Not enough, what can you possibly mean, May, not enough? May: I mean, Mother, that I must hear the feet, however faint they fall. Rockaby: So in the end/close of a long day/in the end went and sat/went back in and sat.

Chronicle of Wearing a Maple Leafs Hat in Boston

Posted on May 6, 2014 by McPhedran

I admit that I went to Boston with an attitude. As a fan of Toronto Maple Leafs, I do not think kind thoughts of anything Bruin, and so donned my Leafs cap to represent the true blue and white. I didn’t have to wait long for a reaction. “You guys have been losers since 1967.” The guy stared at me deadpan at the bus station.

My comeback wasn’t a classic. “At least I don’t live in Boston.”

It was going to be a long weekend, but I was up to it, and went straight into a bar called The Tam to watch the Bruins-Canadiens game, now in overtime. I received a few glares and just one muttered comment – “I think this guy is messing up my karma” – but that was it. I almost felt bad when the Bruins lost the game.

The startling silence continued over the next day – perhaps because I was at a writer’s conference? It wasn’t until I arrived in Cambridge that things picked up again. A square-jawed, almost pleasant-looking man leaned out from an alley. “Leafs are the only Original Six team that didn’t make the playoffs. Did you know that?”

I wasn’t sure if he was right. It took me a couple of blocks to think it through and another few to think of my comeback. “Now I know I’m in fucking Harvard.”

I continued on to The Sinclair, preparing for the next attack.

“Love the hat, man.”

I wanted to detect a tone but couldn’t find one.

“Got to wear your colors,” said another. “I respect that.” It wasn’t until I ran into an old friend at the show that the antagonism returned. “I looked up, saw the Leafs hat, and thought what an asshole. I knew it must be you.”

My Stupid Freewill

Posted on April 23, 2014 by McPhedran

I am dumb, looking at the screen.Only just able to raise my finger, I click again. I am non-thinking, the opposite of my brain working, and believe there to be a link, somehow secret, that will inspire, move me in a direction, anywhere.

But I stay thick and slow, stuck. There is nothing. I go around again, the same pages, the same things, the same morbid reflections, the same sentimental desires, and I know that I will not click on anything new, that I will keep circling in, trapping myself in this concentric hell. An email arrives and I have to respond to that. I have to get up. I have work, things I must do, and already am thinking back to just now, having this time to do whatever I wanted and doing nothing, absolutely nothing.I should have done something real and certain. I promise myself that I will do that, the next chance I have.

My Whirling Brain

Posted on April 20, 2014 by McPhedran

I don’t drink coffee. And for good reason. My brain is on constant whirl. It starts from the moment my eyes are half open. My dream? What was that? What did I do? I was a lawyer? I was that. And a murderer? No, that was him. And he got off. I was all right. My health was good, even if I always had the pain deep in my back and ribs. What was the point of any of this? I was alive. Yes. I had to get to work. I had to get back to the book. How were the Leafs? Oh right. Shit.Sometimes I want to hide from my head, get into the corner of it and let it spin on itself. It never stops, whirling from the banal to the introspective back to the banal. Lots of doubt. Lots of darkness. Lots of sex. Sports too. That helps tone everything else down – the nothingness and all that. And then I do what I have to do. I eat and walk, teach and talk, email and grade, write and plan, blog and argue, reason and mount the elliptical, try to make some sense of what’s to come. And then I have a drink and think and have another and try to ride the round slow arc, going up, my arms almost out, warm and clear, and chase that well, and slump, giving in to my urge to play Texas Hold ‘Em. Watch something and something else, sleep and do it all again.

The Existential Play of the Toronto Maple Leafs

Posted on April 5, 2014 by McPhedran

The heathen fanbase of teams across the continent – be they in Montreal, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles or Chicago – simply do not understand. They think it is about winning, hugging and celebrating in a crass display, that this is the point of the game. And I feel sorry for them.They don’t understand that it isn’t this at all, but, as Camus wrote in The Plague, instead is a reminder of our “never-ending defeat.”The Toronto Maple Leafs are only for those who can take it, not the world as we dream, but as it truly is: empty and unrelenting.

The Existential Play of the Toronto Maple Leafs

Leaf goaltender Drew McIntyre

Yes, the Leafs are only for pure existentialists. Their recent travails – an eight-game losing streak – has even brought The New York Times on the Being and Nothingness train, citing the “disturbing situation”, “devastating slump”, and Leaf coach Carlyle’s catch phrase, “Just breathe. Take it easy. Breathe.” But they don’t understand. They use these words devastating and disturbing like they’re a bad thing, like they aren’t needed, like they can be avoided. They don’t see the wall behind us, the epidemic that’s surrounds. No. All they see is putting the puck in the net. And it’s just so sad.

Quiet No More

Posted on March 2, 2014 by McPhedran

There was a day, many years ago, when arenas allowed for silence.A moment to consider existence, our utter meaninglessness in the vastness of this universe, interrupted occasionally by a polka played on the organ or a lone plastic horn.There were no big screens, no video replays, no music, just you and your thoughts.

Those intermittent moments are no longer. Trivia games are played at every turn, music blared, T-shirts shot into the crowd.And I no longer have the time to think about which might be better.

NHL Winter Classic – Cold and Colder

Posted on January 2, 2014 by McPhedran

I was at the NHL’s Winter Classic with 105,000 others. It was a thrill to be there and see Toronto defeat Detroit in a shootout. But I must admit to struggling with my focus, especially as the game approached four hours. The seven layers of clothes were no longer working. Neither was the Bloody Mary. I needed warmth. I needed to get out of there. And once I did, it was all about getting as warm as I could. We drove the six hours back to Toronto, through the snow and traffic, the car getting warmer until I was finally over-heated. I refused to take off any of my seven layers. I only took off my hat. That was it. I was happy to be warm again. And then I slept and dreamed and it was all about being cold again.

24/7 of Cliche and Profanity

Posted on December 23, 2013 by McPhedran

The idea of HBO’s sports documentary 24/7 is enticing to hockey fans – especially those of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings. Advertised as an inside look at each team’s personnel as they prepare for the Winter Classic, the show promises to offer insights into the people who will play in the big game.The payoff is disappointing, offering little more than vacuous reflections on what it is to play for “a storied franchise” and boys pretending to be grownups, driving fancy cars and wearing fine clothes. And there’s a whole fucking bunch of swearing. They have that vocabulary in common with the coaches. Instead of details on strategy, style or even on their personalities, it’s a lot of “Let’s (fucking) go, boys!” It’s not that much should be expected of these characters in this format – they are hockey player after all – but HBO could certainly do less of the epic music and close-ups of skates and actually make an effort to tell a (fucking) story.

my bad side

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