Tuesday Top Ten: Moments at The Hydra

Stranded.

The Tuesday Top Ten is back for a quick look at some of my favorite moments over the years at the lake house (aka the Hydra).  While I kinda wish these were more detailed (I'm not sure how interesting these short anecdotes will be to outsiders), I really just wanted to make a short and light-natured post after the drawn out Road House epic.  If you need more info on the Hydra...here's a shameless plug for an older post.

Honorable Mentions
- Cale barrel rolling off the roof to the ground.
- Blake to Heather: "I'm cold...can you give me your socks?"
- Nick: "She's mine tomorrow night." 

10. Ghost Stories
-On special occasions (New Years, boredom) we build bonfires down by the lake.  With a little help from some Color Flames (also talked about in an earlier post), the bonfire quickly turns into an Are You Afraid of the Dark world where we can tell stories while throwing magic dust into the flames, turning them cool shades of blue and green.  There's something about being able to tell ghost stories in the same mold as a classic '90s Nick at Nite show that makes me content with my life.  I guess it's the little things...

9. Sneaking into the Neighbor's Hot Tub
-For as long as I've visited the lake, our next door neighbors have always been a giant condominium.  The mysterious strangers that live over there have been more secretive than JJ Abrams and the only thing I know about the place is that a hot tub is located in the center of the complex.  Ever since I was six, I've wanted to jump in it.  Not until New Years' Eve 2010 did we finally gain the courage and idiocy to trespass and use the vacant tub.  We were 22-24, the weather was cold, and the tub was awesome.

8. The Ghost-Riding Jet Ski
-The summer before our freshman year of college, about seven of us went to the lake house for our first trip together.  My friends Alli, Janisch, and I were riding a jet ski when we all flipped off of it.  Normally, the key is strapped securely to your life jacket in order to kill the engine in situations like this.  Long story short, the key was not securely attached and as soon as we emerged we watched in horror as the jet ski headed straight towards rocks.  However, in a miraculous twist of fate, the jet ski did a 180 and headed straight towards us.  The three of us swam steadfastly towards the jet ski.  While Janisch and I might as well have been bowling balls in the water, Alli pulled an Indiana Jones and grabbed on to the passing craft and saved the day.

7. The Sink Picture
-There is a picture online somewhere with my friend Jessie and I.  While our friendship is completely platonic, the photo says otherwise.  We've recreated it for fun countless times, but it is by far the weirdest photo I've ever seen involving a guy, a girl, a kitchen sink, and a bottle of WD-40.  Sorry, not gonna upload it.  I promise it's classy.

6. Cliff Jumping as Superman
-This is actually a memory from high school, but it's absurd enough that it needs to be noted.  For my 16th birthday my friend Max gave me a Superman costume.  (Those were the days).  Within minutes it was decided that I should put the costume on and jump from our cliff into the lake thirty-five feet below.  Cliff jumping as a regular person has never been the same since.

5. Rickesh and His Wrath
- Several chairs, small life jackets, and rafts have seen better days after my friend Rickesh, a bigger guy, wrecked unintentional havoc on them. Some highlights:
a) "Snorlax."  - T.Whitt's nickname for the sleeping giant.
b) "This is a child's vest! I'm drowning!" (That life jacket was never the same.)
c) "Heather, stop being immature and let's play hide and seek."
d) Literally fell three-forths of the way down a spiral staircase, crashing into a bedroom door like a battering ram.
e) Getting on name-to-name basis with local BBQ cooks...more on that in a bit.

4. The Male-Bonding Trip
- Graduation has made me lament about the end of meaningful pick-up basketball in my life, but it also signifies the end of trips where my friends and I can leave on a Tuesday and go to the Hydra for several days.  My friends Blake, Rickesh, Nick, David, and Janisch joined me on this trip, which happened spontaneously from a Tuesday-Thursday and involved several trips to Lee's Burgers, discovering the mythical Strangely-Attractive Girl, cliff-diving, and card games involving a gentlemen's amount of air humping.  Don't ask, don't tell.

3. Spring Break 2011
- This may have been the last stand.  Not only because of graduation but because there is a chance my parents may rebuild the Hydra in order to live there after retirement in a few years.  This week had it all- a great group of friends, some great stories (the failed shotgun on the dock, throwing live matches at each other, a day full of Community, 3 AM trash disposing, to name a few), not to mention plenty of frustration from real life knocking on the door, but I think what sticks out most is the finality I got out of it.  If that's the way the Hydra went out, I think I can live with it.

2. The Impromptu USA Weekend
-On 4th of July weekend 2010, my friends and I decided to head up to the Hydra for some fun and fireworks.  What we got was Rickesh making friends with the local BBQ people ("What should we make for you tomorrow, Rick?"), Janisch shooting Roman candles at me, friends yelling at the moon, and one of the greatest shows of American patriotism I've ever witnessed.  I was on the hammock with someone while a few friends played a game inside.  Normally, after one team wins with my friends there is incessant but unintelligent trash talking.  Not this time though.  On cue, a raucous chant of "USA! USA!" emerged from inside the Hydra, which lasted for what seemed like an eternity and could be heard over the fireworks blasting from across the lake for all our mysterious condo neighbors to hear.  I jumped from the hammock and left her behind, because anytime you can win a game and demean your opponent by yelling your shared nationality at them, you've gotta do it.

1. The Stranded-on-the-Lake Fiasco
-MLK weekend 2008 may have been the game-changer with my friends.  It was that weekend that we realized that the Hydra was a place where we could always go to to reconnect, no matter how far away we lived.  This is the same weekend where I came down with what I am pretty sure was walking pneumonia.  I felt deathly sick.  Rickesh, always looking to complicate things, demanded that he go out in the freezing January water on jet skis.  Since I was the only one who knew how to get them off the dock and into the water, I went out to help.  As the jet ski started to drift away I jumped on it, thinking I could drive the it back to the dock with the keys.  Little did I know that the machine's battery was dead.  In a matter of moments, I found myself a hundred yards away on the other side of Lake Travis as the rest of my friends pointed and laughed from either the dock or the cliff above.  I felt the icy water with apprehension, knowing I had to make a decision.  I took off my sweatshirt, shoes, and jeans, yelling at my friends "Don't look at me!"  (Except for the girl I was interested in... she could look.  Kidding.)  I jumped into the water, positive that I was going to die embarrassingly in my underwear, and pushed the jet ski back towards the dock.  Here's the best part though: Rickesh and Janisch jumped in foolishly to help.  While Janisch actually swam like a normal human being, Rick, who threw a life jacket over his clothes, thought that he could magically float towards me.  He looked like a human buoy.  Together, we acted like human seals and moved the jet ski like a beach ball while the rest of our friends mocked us from above.  And THAT is what friends are for.

(I'm sure I'm missing on some better stories, so if you guys remember one, post it below!)

-PB (this song has been stuck in my head for days)

When Life Gets in the Way of Pop Culture (aka the opposite of Jersey Shore)

Ok, so I know that I haven't really posted on here for a while. And by a while I mean almost exactly 4 months. I'm sorry, I've just been busy trying to start the so-called rest of my life.

I think that one of the reasons why Ryan and I haven't been posting as much is that both of us expected this blog to be a light-hearted take on college life. It would mainly focus on sports, TV shows, movies, music, and pop culture in general. However, I think this might have been a mistake in retrospect. For one, it is nearly impossible to keep up a happy appearance all the time. After all, are we back in Mad Men times? No. Instead of repressing our feelings so that they "make us cheat on our wives" and "make us drink copious amounts of alcohol", we let it all air out. That's what blogging, Facebook, and Twitter are all about (for better or worse).

(Just a quick aside, I just noticed that I always use an oxford comma. Is that a normal thing or just me?)

Anyway, platforms such as this are meant to release thoughts when they're perhaps in their purest form: instantly.

There is no time to sit back and reflect on what you want to say. You just say it. And, again, maybe that's where we went wrong. We expected almost every post to be mini works of art, testaments to our writing skills, and, hey, maybe a girl or two would notice in the process. But as a college graduate on the wrong side of 22, I am here to tell you that was totally foolish. And I am here to embrace the doom and gloom and the gravity that Ryan has given Charging Interests. I say, we are all living in worlds of darkness.

I don't mean to put words in my friend's mouth, but there might be a reason for the heavy posts (aside from alcohol and sad anniversaries, that is). While high school graduation is filled with joy, expectation, and Vitamin C, college graduation is (by my account) filled with anxiety and fear. By the time college graduation rolls around, you are expected to have gotten your shit together.At the end of college and after multiple majors (and maybe just as many transfers) your parents and most of adult society expect that you: a)at least know what career field you are going into, or even have a job lined up, b) are committed to a long term relationship or maybe even engaged/married, and c) for fuck's sake will not move back in. Well as it just so happens, I have failed on all of these counts. For people that are either far removed from this time period in their life or have not yet come to it, this is a very discouraging situation to be in. No longer do you have classes or clubs to at least passively move you along when you get in a rut. Now you either get yourself out of that rut or you stay in it and become Matthew McConaughey's character in Failure to Launch (sans "horse" of course). And believe me, after your first couple of job rejection letters, you will get stuck in a rut.

(Another aside. The new Shiner beer isn't all that bad, if you ask me. Y'all should give it a try. [And no, we are not getting advertising money from Shiner.])

What I mean to say is that I understand why people (including Ryan) feel/write the way they do. Graduating from college is perhaps one of the most petrifying things that I have done in my life. When I think about it, I have been in some form of school for over 17 years. Let's just say, I've got this shit down. And for people who aren't so academically inclined, well, at least you have come to know what to expect from school/college. Late October/early November is rolling around? Boom, mid-terms. May is coming soon? Well, break out the books and head to Sweet Eugene's, 'cause finals are just around the corner. (Btw, I would like to apologize for Sweet Eugene's website. No, it isn't a coffeeshop where Twilight reenactors brood around avoiding the sun. It's a pretty cool place, and you should check it out next time you're in CStat.) I know how to write a paper for school. I could do that in my sleep. But the past couple of months of work have been interesting to say the least. But a job, that's a whole different story.

For those of you who aren't either in my inner sanctum of friends and/or within earshot of me since February, my post-collegiate job is an internship at the German American Chamber of Commerce in Houston, TX. And I know, it sounds like I have it all worked out, right? "I am doing something that I studied for and that I've always wanted to do." No sir, let me personally tell you that some days I loathe going into the office. There is nothing worse than not knowing what to do, and then being totally screwed over because you didn't know and were to dumbstruck/scared to ask about it. And there is no extra credit! Then there is the office politics, of allying yourself with the right people, kissing your boss's ass, etc. But let me remind you that I have to deal with all of this in another language! Yes, the language of the office is German, and even though I love the German language and have studied it for many years, there are moments that I feel like I can't get a word out. Sometimes all of it is positively terrifying.

So, I'm sorry for the last bit there. It kind of devolved into a bit of a rant. But my ultimate point is this. If you have been disappointed with Charging Interests lately because of either lack of postings or content, then yes, we are guilty as charged. However, as I believe anyone will tell you the post-college period is not the most cheerful of places, so please excuse us as we get our lives in order. I promise, the funny, bright, and sports-oriented blog will return soon.

P.S.–Today, I believe, for the first time, I had a good day at the office. Maybe there's hope for us after all.

P.S.S.– I wrote all of this under the influence of half a bottle of red wine and several bottles of Shiner (as you can tell). Take this post as you will.

–Nick

Glory Road House

Last Friday I received my Aggie Ring.  For those of you not familiar with Texas A&M tradition, it is a milestone and it signifies the looming end to the college undergrad experience.  (I'm sure it means more than that, but I am a 2%er.)  After three schools in four years, I truly cannot be more blessed that I am able to wear it and that I am on track to graduate on time in May 2011.  However, graduation has taken a seat on the back burner a bit to one last hurrah with the sport I've always loved.  To top it off, I've found myself trying to live up to my dad's 1960's intramural basketball fame with a team named after a classic '80s movie starring my mom's old boyfriend.  What does it all mean?  I'm not sure, but I feel like there's a story here.

Road House
 (Crouching From Left: Cam Glass, Chris Selle

Semi-Crouching Like a Fool: Ryan Smith

Back From Left: Ken Baer, Joe Bailey, David Hall, Sam Brenner, Tyler Whittington)

Basketball has been in my blood ever since I saw Hakeem and the Rockets take out Ewing and the Knicks for the '94 championship when I was less than six years old.  Granted, I was too young to really know what was going on (I am pretty sure I spent most of the game playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2), but that didn't stop me from going out to Dillard's with my family the morning after to pick up a hilariously over-sized championship shirt.  After my parents got me a basketball hoop the following Christmas and Houston repeated the following season as NBA champions,  my life and basketball were destined to intertwine.  As I briefly mentioned in an earlier post, I used to cry every single time the Houston Rockets lost from about age seven to nine.  What can I say, I've always been a pretty passionate guy.  (I still hate you, Utah Jazz and Derek Fisher.) Basketball was the common factor with all of my friends growing up as well as over half of my game when it came to impressing girls (which still probably put me at a disadvantage). 

In high school I was lucky enough to be named on the All-District and All-County team my junior year, despite being a key part to a terrible team.  A team so terrible, in fact, that the coaches began to hype up kids the next season that weren't even old enough to take high school algebra yet.  Nearly overnight, I went from team MVP to team scrub, and if TLC taught me anything, I was a "guy that couldn't get no love" from anyone.  So what did I do?  If you read my last post, you can probably guess that I played the tragic hero card and stubbornly quit the team rather than be a drone on the bench.  I lost a lot of love for basketball after that.  I barely played my first two years in college.

Arriving in College Station changed all of that.  It was here that I reconnected with an old friend from high school named Ken Baer.  Ken played with me growing up, but it wasn't until he started doing Aggie yells that he had a ridiculous growth spurt that transformed him from a 5'10'' undersized post to a 6'5'' behemoth down low.  He introduced me to Tyler Whittington and Cam Glass, two guys from his organization One Army, and together we formed a very formidable quartet our junior year.  After spending most of the summer playing basketball with Ty and Cam (not to mention watching the 2010 NBA Finals together with the aid of some Beach Bums), we had more team chemistry than the characters from Weird Science.  For the first time in years, it was actually fun to play basketball. 


"The Rule of Three": I learned early at Texas A&M  that you should never attempt to play pickup basketball unless you have at group of at least three players with you.  There are too many selfish ballers out there and anything less than three will leave you feeling bitter and angry.  With three, you can monopolize the team to your liking.  (And that, my friends, does not make me a selfish baller.)

Ronnie "Red" Smith and the "Junior Farcity"

(This picture, amazing on so many levels, still hangs in Gregory Gym at the University of Texas.  My dad is second from right in the back.)

My dad may be the greatest storyteller that I know.  Ever since I was a kid, he has told me the story of his intramural basketball team at the University of Texas, creatively named the Junior Farcity (The team was named after his friend claimed "it would be a farce if we won the whole thing!" Hearing that only confirms my suspicions that I am living in the wrong era).  The team went on to have some miraculous feats, including being the first team in UT intramural history to score 100 pts in a game against the likes of Elgin Taylor and Little Kenny Ferguson.  They made it to the championship game as a motley crew of freshmen.  These stories have stayed with me my entire life and subconsciously I always knew I wanted to try and match him.  However, it wasn't until my senior year before I finally was able to assemble the team to take on the new generation of Little Kenny Fergusons.

The Team: Road House

As I mentioned before, my mom dated Patrick Swayze when she was young.  They even went to prom together, not to mention the University of Houston.  It's always fun watching people's reactions when I reveal this information, but truthfully I really have no interest in the situation; my dad is much cooler (not to mention much more alive) and he doesn't have to rip out a guy's throat or become a ghost to prove it.  My mom could not have picked a better husband.  That being said, Road House is an incredible movie and a well-deserved moniker for the greatest team I have ever played on.

The roster:

-Cam "The Little General" Glass - Road House's Kyle Lowry. Also known as The Post Up King.
-Tyler "The False Prophet" Whittington - The heart and soul of the team. A complete glue guy, does everything it takes to win.
-Ken "Papa" Baer - The man in the middle.  May have the coolest post passes I have ever seen. 
-Sam "Slytherin" Brenner - The wildcard.  Mysteriously drains dagger 3s. 
-Chris "Swat Team" Selle  - the lockdown defender.  In the words of T.Whitt-"A high school coach's wet dream." 
-Joe "Houdini" Bailey - My roommate at The Orchid.  Has a sick running jumper.
-David "Detention" Hall - an unsung hero (partially bc he missed a few games), can do a little bit of everything.
-Ryan Smith - I'd like to consider myself a much more selfish, much more turnover-prone intramural version of Steve Nash. I don't know...just don't call me Matt Maloney.

What else is needed? Sometimes a little extra help from the worst pair of basketball shoes in history doesn't hurt.


The Kicks: The Gentleman's Starbury

 I am a fairly superstitious guy.  Mainly on stupid things.  For instance, I recently tricked a pretty legit girl into being interested in me.  When I first met her I was wearing glasses and had a decent amount of facial hair.  For some ridiculous reason, I refused to be clean shaven or cut my hair while we were hanging out.  I even went out of the way to wear my ridiculously dorky glasses for a while until she said something nice about my eyes.  What the hell is wrong with me?  (Things did start to unravel almost immediately after I cut my hair and went clean shaven, so maybe I'm not crazy.  But I wouldn't put money on that.  Then again, I was the only that was really cared about anything, so that may have played a small part.)
   Anyways, back to the Starburys.  If you don't know anything about the maker of the shoes, Stephon Marbury, this next sentence will sum him up:  He tattooed his logo onto the side of his head, was paid over $20 million to stay away from his team, and ate Vasoline on a 24/7 webcam show he put online.  Hilariously psychotic.  So of course my Oklahoma roommate and friend Cale bought a pair on Amazon for $12 and somehow ended up with two extra pairs a few years back.  It was like he drew a Monopoly community chest and had a bank error in his favor, except this was "Ridiculous-Amazon-User-Selling-Mass-Amounts-of-Starburys-Error in your favor."  He handed me a free pair and I never looked back.
   Okay, maybe that is a slight lie: I did buy a pair that were better (the inside souls to the Starburys eroded over a year ago), but I ended up wearing the Starburys for the first game this season as a joke.  After a miraculous comeback win where I drained a few clutch long-range 3s, the superstitious side in me decided to ride the Starburys till the end, no shoe souls included.  In the least, they are a great conversation piece on the court.
"Hey, look at Captain America over there." (I've heard this on more than one occasion, said to me both jokingly and hatefully.)

The Last Stand
The next part of the story should be the part where we heroically run the tables on the rest of the students at Texas A&M, the part where you are given fulfillment on reading this far into an overall ridiculous post.  It's the part where I finally can hang my hat on advancing past the Junior Farcity and live the rest of my life in the glory of knowing we were the best.  However, it didn't happen.  Like many other things in my life, Road House ended in complicated heartbreak.  However, we did not go quietly into the night.

After rolling through the first four months of the season rather painlessly, beating teams like "Trees & Threes", "White & Slow", "The Nerdlocks" and "Erf, Wind, and Fire", we found ourselves in the Final Four.  We were set to play "Beer 30", and it was clear from the start that the two superior teams in the league were playing a game too early.  Led by two talented guards, Beer 30 led the game by 7 with 2:30 left in the game.  Never knowing a shot I didn't like (something that had hurt us for much of the game), I drained two 3s back to back to put us down 1.  On the second shot, the painfully inexperienced referee crew called a foul on the other team underneath the basket as the ball went through the hoop.  Now, most of the players were aware that the rule is an "And 1" for our player who was fouled.  However, the painfully inexperienced crew decided that with 2 minutes left in the game and with momentum on our side that they should hold the game up for literally ten minutes while they looked to the rulebook for the correct answer.

Ten minutes pass and one referee awards our team the free throw, which we make to tie the game.  However, he is overruled by the other painfully inexperienced referees who are not ready to call it official.  A few more minutes pass and the ruling is confirmed.  By then our team has as much momentum as Vanilla Ice had with the rest of his career after Ice, Ice, Baby died out.  After our first made free throw is called off, we miss our second chance, keeping us down 1.  With one minute left we are forced to foul, putting us down 3.  After Selle comes up with a huge "And 1" with 30 seconds left, we are tied.  We lock down their two best players, leaving the ball in the hands of a player who hadn't scored all game.  He pulls up inside the three-point line and drains a jumper at the buzzer.  Road House dies.  Beer 30 goes on to win the championship in a much easier game, and I experience another tragic ending to something I care a little too much about.

The End

It dawned on me that this may be the last time I would be playing for something that meant anything, albeit something small.  No more community league games where I can end the season by taking home cheap trophies, no more games where my roommates and I can half-jokingly draw out the tournament on a blackboard, no more games where I can legitimately get away with writing such an unnecessarily drawn out post.  This was it.  I can always play in adult league games, but that's not the same.  Graduation is in less than a month and after that there won't be time for me to call up my friends and ask them to meet me at the Rec Center on a Tuesday afternoon.  I think I am more disappointed in the idea that my basketball career may finally be over than I am that I won't be able to live the life of a college student anymore.

Picking up my Aggie Ring

(Ken, T.Whitt's thumb, my brother-in-law George, Joe, me, my dad, my mom, as well as my nieces in nephew in the front)
(Me, my sister, and Hudson)

However, what's important to me is the relationships I've been blessed with from the game of basketball.  Several players on Road House will be my lifelong friends and although we may not have the chance to meet up and play any time we want like we used to, the knowledge that I've made friends with upstanding people is the most important thing to me; much more important than that elusive championship.  As for Road House vs. Junior Farcity, we'll never know who was truly better.  I feel pretty comfortable taking it to my grave that we would have taken them out, just as my dad would probably say the same.  At the end of the day, though, I am truly grateful for my family and friends.  It makes things like receiving my Aggie Ring that much more special.

So thanks, guys.  Road House.

-PB (thanks to my brother Denver for the song)

Talking Tragic

 (This literally has nothing to do with the post, I just liked this picture I took at Chicken Oil Company in Bryan, Tx yesterday)

For the sake of making this a slightly more compelling post, I'd like to consider myself a tragic hero for a little bit.  Of course, you may be quick to tell me the only things remotely heroic about me are my occasional game-winning shots in pickup basketball and my uncanny ability to be available to babysit my sister's kids at a moment's notice; I would be quick to tell you that You are the worst.  Not too heroic, I know, but for argument's sake, let's pretend like I am the second-coming of Achilles (complete with the ridiculous Troy hair.  I like to dream big, ladies and gentlemen).  At the very least, Hector would not know how to guard me on the open court at the Texas A&M rec center, so at least I have that going for me.  (Didn't a single rock break that guy's ankle, anyways?).  So with all mocking and incredulity aside, if I am a real-life tragic hero, let's talk about my glaring tragic flaw: stubbornness.

These past few weeks I have been in full-fledged stubborn mode.  I'm a month away from graduation and I still have no clue what I want to be doing after college.  My parents, two of the most caring and thoughtful people in the world, have been doing their best to keep me motivated on the job hunt.  Honestly all I can think about doing right now though is living paycheck to paycheck while working at a bookstore or coffee shop while I give writing a serious chance.  I know, obviously that's what every college graduate aspires to be and would definitely make Mom and Dad proud that that's why they sent me to college.  I never imagined myself living life as a "struggling artist", but part of me thinks that's what might make me happiest right now, and even if I have a better chance of figuring out what was happening on Lost than making it as an author, at least I'll know I tried.  Then again, I know I have been unreasonable in most of my major decisions (three different schools in four years will help you believe that), so maybe it's an outright bad idea.  I really don't know.  But I don't think I can live up to the expectations laid out before me, and part of me doesn't want to.

It would be foolish of me to talk about my tragic flaw without bringing up women.  (Maybe it is actually MORE foolish of me to bring up women right now, but let's do this anyway.)  I'm a hopeless romantic.  Embarrassing, I know, but I said it.  Maybe it's from watching too many teen soaps growing up (I'm okay with my masculinity to admit it...Smallville and One Tree Hill used to be awesome) or maybe it's because it comes with the territory of wanting to be a writer, but for some reason I have always imagined myself finding the girl of my dreams and riding off into the sunset in an old VW bus (romance. at. its. finest.).  I'm only kidding about the last part, but I'm serious when I say that I get burned on my own account due to this unenviable trait.  In the past, I was all about having fun and worrying about the future later, which lead to me ruining plenty of friendships and relationships that I wish I could mend at times.  Now days I've been reluctant to share any part of my life (outside this terrible blog, of course) because I feel like it's inevitable that I'm either going to let someone down or get let down myself.  Living life to the fullest, I know.  Sometimes I wish I could go back and live in an everlasting Bob Seger "Night Moves"-like world where everything is just a breeze, but that's not me anymore.  So even if it brings more heartbreak than cheer (in a mix of indie-ness/lameness, Bon Iver's "Skinny Love" feels like an appropriate theme song lately), it's the way I am.  I feel like that may be the most tragic part of this all.  But tragic or not, I have faith things will work out.

My sister and I actually had a brief conversation the other day about faith.  Fed up with everything, I always know she's someone I can always vent to.  While I've always considered myself a relatively "good guy" and believe that God has a plan for all of us, I have refrained from getting involved with churches while in college for the most part.  I am not a fan of the "holier-than-thou" approach that I've experienced from others my age.  I know that not everyone is like that, but I'm tragically flawed, remember?  All I know is I am just a young, hopeful but foolish kid who doesn't have the answers to life and won't pretend to.  If that makes me hypocritical, I honestly have no answer.  My sister opened my eyes, asking me bluntly whether I've really tried to trust God or whether I have still been trying to figure everything out on my own.  In many ways, I have let my flaws win out these past few years.  If there was ever a time in my life where I needed to let my stubbornness go (with future jobs, girls, life), this is the time to do it.  Despite wanting to have a Heart for God, many times I've only had a heart for myself.  And that doesn't make me a tragic hero, that just makes me tragically misguided.

It's time I changed that.

-PB

The Hydra: Our Key to the Past

Spring Break 2011 came and went as quickly as Texas A&M's stint in the NCAA tournament, and as Charles Dickens once said, "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times."  The best of times because for my group of friends (a hodge-podge of old high school friends and newer college buddies) Spring Break usually means a trip to the one of the greatest places on earth, my family's lake house on Lake Travis in Austin, Texas.  Many of us hardly have time to keep in touch during the school year, but as soon as mid-terms are over it's almost like we never left Mrs. Waggoner's 12th grade Bio class.  Regardless of what college we attend or how long it's been since we last spoke, the Hydra (our nickname for the house) serves as our safe haven from the rest of the world.  Leroy, my Comm professor, would call it "hyper-reality".  However, it was the worst of times not only because it felt like the end of an era with graduation looming, but also because Spring Break will always be the dark reminder of a lost friend as well.

The Hydra was built in the '50s by my Great Uncle Ralph, who left it to the rest of our family once he passed.  I grew up spending most of my vacations at the house, so when my high school friends and I were looking for a "Last Hurrah" before heading out for our freshman year of college, it was a near-perfect choice (our first choice would have been Lost island, but I digress).  We spent an entire week there, lounging by the lake by day and climbing the tree to the roof to gaze at the stars by night.  We roasted marshmallows and played games; without a doubt a bond was formed that week at the Hydra.  While we were all friends to begin with, we suddenly became inseparable.  The eight or so of us, most of whom had barely even known each other in high school, were now closer than the Bluth family from Arrested Development (probably a bad reference, but that show had a lot to do with our friendships).  I am fairly certain I spent over 2/3rds of my freshman year road tripping all over the state to visit my friends, making sure that we would all stick together.  Attending UTSA as a frosh, I was a literal Roadrunner.  We spent enough time at the Hydra that the rest of my family should have started charging rent, with possible interest(s) as well.

 (From left: Janisch, Alli, Nick, Alya, Me in 2007)

One of my friends that was a part of the original trip to the lake was Alli Maloney.  Without sounding too cliche, she was the sweetest girl I ever met.  She hardly ever had a bad word to say about anyone and always went out of her way to show her support for me, whether it was planning a surprise birthday gathering for me, giving me relationship advice ("what were you thinking?!") or creating ridiculous "Team Smith" shirts with the rest of the group.  She gave me a cross necklace for my 19th birthday and I never took it off.  She was a great friend.  She was particularly in love with my nieces and nephew, who were all less than two years old when she first starting showing up at the house with the rest of my friends.  She always did her best to make it to the Hydra, no matter what else was going on in her life.  She was a joy to be around and we were lucky to have her in the group.  However, for some reason or another I began to take her for granted over time.  Instead of welcoming her over whenever my sister and her kids were in town, I tried to find reasons to not call her.  Her near catchphrase "When are the babies coming to town?" quickly went from cute to annoying.  I became selfish to the most selfless person I knew.  

I moved away from Texas my sophomore year and consequently my friends and I slowly began drifting apart.  College life consumed us all as we began to make new friends and lost more and more time for our old ones.  What used to be our bimonthly Hydra trip turned into one single trip in late February of our sophomore year.  Although it was just like old times, the feeling that things were not like they used to be was thick enough to grab out of the air.  I remember leaving that trip feeling that everyone was less nostalgic than ever for how close we used to be.

Then, a few weeks later, Alli died in a car accident.

It was the last weekend of Spring Break (two years ago to this day, March 21st, actually) and I remember sitting in my living room with my friend, shell-shocked and bewildered.  My mind was swimming with thoughts to how I had treated her recently: How the hell could I have been so resentful towards someone who showed nothing but genuine interest in my life?  How could something so horrible happen to someone so good?  Why not me?  I was angry with God, but really I was furious with myself for not being a better friend to her.  I remember standing outside my driveway in the beautiful Texas sun, calling all of my closest friends, one by one, and telling them the heart-wrenching news.  It was the worst time of my life.

My friends and I, who normally reconnected at the Hydra, found ourselves returning together for our best friend's funeral.  Seeing everybody mourn her was truly haunting.  She made such an impact on us without even realizing it.  To that effect, the biggest tragedy in our lives made our bond stronger.  I don't like to talk about what happened much, but very rarely does a day go by that I don't think about her.  An avid artist, her drawing of a flower hangs on the wall of my room and the cross necklace that she gave me now hangs protectively over my rear-view mirror.

Flash forward two years and most of us are beginning to feel the pressure of the real world breathing heavily down our necks.  I'll be the first to admit I have no idea what is in store for me upon graduation.  It is a scary feeling that I have not been able to shake for months.  We arrived at the Hydra and for the first time, it felt like time didn't stop.  The real world pressures are more tangible now, with several of my friends already out with full-time jobs.  No matter how much we want it to be false, the days of packing our things on a Tuesday afternoon and spending three days at the Hydra are over (one of the greatest male bonding trips of all time, BTW.)

One of the last nights during our final Spring Break Hydra trip we sat on the roof, staring at the stars just like our first time before college.  The cathartic feeling that consumed my soul made me shiver in the cool night air.  Although I'm not the same doe-eyed teenager from that original trip, I felt like a part of us never really left.  I could almost picture Alli taking photos of the lake while we continued our four-year argument on whether that was an airplane, a shooting star, or a satellite in the sky.

I'm not the best Christian by any means.  I have my struggles and my insecurities with life, but no matter how stubborn I am to try and figure life out myself, I do believe He has a plan.  Two summers ago I was able to share my testimony with several hundred people in Germany during a mission trip.  Despite being a terrible public speaker (the language barrier helped), I had enough confidence to talk about my friend Alli and her love for God.  No matter how angry I was with myself and with God, I came to the conclusion that she did not die in vain but that she shaped countless lives while she was with us.  I miss her and will always wish I had been a better friend.

As I drove back from the Hydra on Sunday, I noticed the cross necklace dangling from my car's dash, only further reminding me that although she may not be with us anymore, she is not lost. 

For me, the Hydra has been the location of many of the most important events in my life.  I have learned the true meaning of friendship and experienced a little bit of what love was like there.  I've found out how it feels to jump off of a roof and what the inside of a sink feels like.  I have watched countless bad movies there as well as experience countless shooting stars (Okay, maybe some satellites too, Alli) in the night sky.  But most importantly, I've learned that no matter how old we get, we will never forget the family we made there.

-PB

Tuesday Top Ten: Most Regrettable Deaths in Pop Culture

In true English major fashion, I read several books over Christmas Break.  I found myself opening more books on Christmas morning than I did my entire fall semester (only kidding...except for you, Health book.)  After reading Christopher McDougall's Born to Run, I found myself inspired to run five miles a day in The Woodlands (not as impressive considering half the people in the book are running 50-100 mile marathons in intense weather conditions).  After reading Free Darko's The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac, I found myself inspired to write more about my favorite sport in the future.  And after reading Stephen King's The Green Mile, I found myself inspired to write about the deaths in pop culture that I regret the most.  I know, in true English major fashion...

(*DISCLAIMER: If you don't want to read spoilers for 24, 3:10 to Yuma, Dexter, Alias, Rocky, or Lost, then don't read the rest of the incredibly well-written and compelling post.)





Honorable Mention:
-David Palmer from 24 (although you're still in his good hands with his Allstate commercials)

-Charlie Prince from 3:10 to Yuma (because you know you'd rather see Ben Foster starring in a sequel/spin-off as this great character than seeing him co-star with Jason "I Love Lionsgate" Statham in The Mechanic.)

-Elisha Cuthbert's career (one word: Captivity)

10. Arrested Development

  

The show that spawned and revived the careers of some of the greatest comedic minds of the past ten years was murdered by Fox before its time.  The reasoning?  Ratings.  From every highbrow joke to the plucky theme, this show was in a class of its own when it came to sitcoms (and yes, I'm including Sanford and Son, as well.)  Lately, I've been worried that one of my favorite new shows, Community, might fall to the same fate despite being one of the best written comedies in the past few years.  Rumors of an Arrested Development movie have been in circulation for the past twenty-three years.

9. Michael Vaughn - Alias

 

I stumbled upon Alias several years after it had already ended while I was on summer hiatus from another JJ Abrams show, Lost.  The first couple of seasons were riveting, with great writing and good acting that could only be rivaled by a show like Lost (at this point, even I'm not sure if I believe half the things I say about my old favorite show).  However, things started to tumble after an incredible second season finale and I think Abrams desperately wanted to find a new angle to the show that was slowly becoming stagnant during the next few seasons.  And while Vaughn's death was a move that was bold and dramatic, I slowly lost interest with the newly introduced replacements.  Ben Affleck didn't help the show much either by getting Jennifer Garner pregnant for the last season of the show...just another reason to hate him.

(Editor's Note: When I wrote this, I wasn't aware that they bring him back to life...coming from a show related to Lost, I should have known I would be made a fool for jumping to conclusions..  In my face.)

8. Apollo Creed - Rocky IV

 

Let's forget the fact that Apollo's death resulted in one of the greatest montages in cinematic history, or possibly my favorite quote of all time, but hone in on how seeing Apollo die when I was a kid nearly traumatized me to the point of catatonia.  The guy represented America!  Even the fact that Apollo's death was necessary to bring Rocky out of retirement is regrettable because after his eventual defeat of Drago, Rocky 5 was greenlit, bringing a less-than-motivational brain damage/Tommy Gunn storyline.

7. Nick Drake

I've touched upon this before: in high school I was led to believe that Nick Drake was an up-and-coming musician that would rival Iron & Wine for the rest of my life.  His haunting "Pink Moon" is still one of my favorite songs.  But at a lake house trip the summer after high school, my friend Austin hit me with the sad reality that he died in the early 1970s, only further proof that I am living in the wrong decade.  Drake was right though, there was a pink moon coming.

6. Doakes - Dexter

Anytime the first two seasons of Dexter needed a breath of fresh air, either in the form of comic relief or intriguing storyline, Doakes was there.  While he mainly served as a major foil to the darkly dreaming Dexter, Doakes was seemingly more than that with his quick-talking, no-nonsense persona.  Many of his greatest quotes are unprintable for Charging Interests, but believe me when I say that he was an explosive character.  While his demise in the second season was slightly predictable and mostly warranted in order to keep the show going, it's disappointing to see the same cop-chasing-Dexter storyline with Quinn, a far lesser character than the (almost) immortal Doakes.

5. Rita - Dexter

Season four of Dexter was my personal favorite, seeing as the Trinity Killer was one of the greatest villains ever created.  John Lithgow's chilling portrayal earned him several much-deserved awards.  However, to truly cement his status as one of the best bad guys, he had to do something that would really shock the audience, which he did by killing Rita in the season finale.  I still remember being shocked watching the episode live back at my parent's house, well before Julie Benz would agree to be in the laughable No Ordinary Family.  However, this death makes the list mainly because of the shock value that it caused and not because I find it particularly regrettable, seeing that Rita was never my favorite character.  As my good friend Cale put it, "The only thing I regret about Rita's death is that it took four seasons for it to happen."

4. Michael Myers - Halloween II

Although Rob Zombie's Michael Myers also died in his updated version of Halloween II, both of his contributions to the Halloween series were mainly regrettable so I'll focus mainly on the original sequel.  (One time when I was in Oklahoma I started to watch the first Zombie Halloween with a girl I liked.  After the first thirty minutes we decided to stop watching due to the sheer grossness of it.  Several episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark soon followed.  In related news, we never dated.)  In the original Halloween II, the final standoff has Michael getting shot in both eyes and set ablaze in a gas leak set off by Dr. Loomis.  Despite Michael valiantly trying to walk it off (half of the reason why he made the list was so I could post the above still frame), he collapses and seemingly dies.  A completely Michael Myers-less Halloween III: Season of the Witch followed and I'm still not entirely sure if it was released as a horror or a comedy.  The movie was so terrible that Nicholas Cage couldn't resist making a movie of the same name.  I swear, sometimes Charging Interests writes itself.  Luckily, producers wised up and resurrected Myers for another eight movies before Rob Zombie did his best to kill him for good.

3. Every Attractive Female on Lost













I'm not sure why, but if you were a woman or a minority living on Lost island, you're days were more numbered than the prisoners from The Green Mile.  It seemed as if every month another cute girl on the island was finding themselves six feet under.  First it was Shannon, followed by Ana and Libby, then Nikki, Juliet, and finally Sun.  Yes, everyone may have died by the end of the show, but if you were a girl and your name wasn't Kate or Claire, then you might as well have walked into the jungle and begged for the Smoke Monster to come destroy you, Tom Jane from The Mist-style. 


2. Mr. Eko - Lost

Speaking of Lost, how disappointing was it that Mr. Eko was the one character that wasn't brought back for the final "sentimental" season?  Apparently Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje wanted three times the amount of money that they were offering him to return, which if true is supremely disappointing, seeing that he was one of the best characters on the show back when it made more sense (if any sense at all).  Apparently, the actor originally left the show because he wanted to return to London after his parents' deaths, leaving the writers to ditch their much more grandiose plans for the stick-wielding priest.  Mr. Eko's promise was ultimately unfulfilled and the only way to get your fix was to watch Adewale in GI Joe.  I didn't see it either.  It's also interesting to note that Adewale's character in Oz, Simon Adebisi, also died before his time.

1. Otis Redding

I had a hard time putting real people on this list, feeling pretty low that I would compare fictional characters' deaths with real-life death.  In the big scheme of things, I do know that pop culture is just trivial and people like Nick Drake should be honored before fictional people like Apollo Creed.  that being said, Otis Redding was the inspiration for this list and I had to put him at number one.  At the ripe age of twenty-six, Redding was able to establish himself as one of the premiere voices of the 1960s.  He died in a plane crash just three days after his most well-known song, "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay", was recorded.  If Redding had lived, there is no doubt that he would have continued to be one of the greatest singers of the 20th century and I would have at least three more hours of cool music to play when I jog.  We were born to run, you know. 

-PB - credit to Twhitt and Nick for the song.

The Cross

(Thanks to My Morning Jacket for helping me create this video)

Christmas has come and gone quicker than Michael Haywood's stint as Pittsburgh's head football coach, but the bowl season still gives us a chance to feel like we are living in a perpetual holiday world, especially considering ESPN uses a variation of "The Christmas Song" for Bowl Week.  I know Nick's list proves he is not a fan of traditional Christmas carols, but if I were to make a list of greatest Christmas songs, Andy Williams' classic would definitely make the cut (right behind Otis Redding and The Eagles).  However, there has always been a part in the song that I have never really understood, and it's "There'll be scary ghost stories..."  Now, if my inaugural post didn't show it, I'm a fan of all things scary, but unless the Smith family has just been missing out for all these years, I don't think Christmas is the time or place for scary stories (unless you spent the past Christmas Eve like I did by watching Silent Night, Deadly Night.  Not recommended, but I do recommend the original Black Christmas).  But in the spirit of the lyrics, I want to tell you one of the ghastliest moments of my life.

I went with some friends to my lake house (The Hydra) for New Years.  After we had set off a few fireworks (mainly Ty shooting Roman Candles directed at our friend Ken), we started a fire by the lake and sat down around it, deciding that this was the best time, if any, to tell ghost stories.  Little did the rest of the group know that I had snuck down a can of Color Flames, which is a sand-like substance that you can toss into the fire, changing it's color.  Think Are You Afraid of the Dark, because Lord knows that's what I was going for.  Anytime I tried to make the story seem more terrifying, I would throw the Color Flames into the fire for effect.  So without any more intro...I give you "The Tale of the Forbidden Cross."

(Color Flames)

I was a wide-eyed sixteen year old kid and was one of the first of my basketball buds to get their driver's license.  Without question, I was letting it go to my head and I thought that I was the coolest thing to ever hit The Woodlands, Tx (even if Danny Amendola was destined to make the NFL and Win Butler from The Arcade Fire lived there once).  My first car was a jet black 2000 Ford Explorer that my mom had driven for five years.  I took that thing everywhere, from the local Jack in the Boxes to a secret sand beach that a few of us found near a creek.  Taking adventures through the town was my forte and it was only a matter of time  until one day I heard about "the cross." (The actual history of the cross is subjective and I apologize in advance if I am in the wrong for treating a memorial cross like a haunted landmark.)

The original houses in The Woodlands were built in the 70s in a part known as Timberlakes-Timberridge.  Near the back of the neighborhood is a noticeable drop in the road that is frequently flooded and unsafe for houses.  However, there is a back road in the area, surrounded by towering, menacing trees and free of lights, houses, and people.  The nearly two-mile road is desolate and empty, with frightening things such as creaky bicycles and dilapidated pianos known to show up without warning on the side of the road.  There is no hint of civilization on this road, except for one man-made sign.  It's here that a man hung himself in the still of the night.


I gathered a group of six of us to head to the cross in my Explorer late one night to check it out.  One of the girls even joked that she was bringing a baseball bat because you never know what could be lurking in the dark woods.  I told her there was nothing to worry about.

When I rolled the car to a stop on the dark and lonely road, my friends were already thoroughly spooked.  Thinking I was so suave, I played the Halloween theme song on my iPod into the abyss (I was trying to impress one of the girls, probably.  Didn't pan out).  As I turned the ignition off, one of my friends bolted from the car to check out the cross in a challenge of masculinity.  However, he stopped dead in his tracks when a shadowy figure emerged from the woods.

(Whoosh.)

Terrified, the girls in the car sat in trepidation while the figure dressed in all black with a white mask walked slowly to the car, revealing a crowbar from his sleeve.  As he reached the passenger side, he tapped on the window with horrified precision.  Everyone in the car was with petrified with fear.  So much so, in fact, that no one noticed that a second man in black rush the other side of the car and begin to shake it ferociously.  One of the girls in the car tearfully exclaimed she was about to dial the police, but I told her that we could get out of there.  I fumbled with my keys, scrambling desperately to try to get the car to start.  This time though, my faithful Explorer was betraying me, refusing to start in the most inconvenient moment.  The group looked outside the car desperately, unsure of our next plan as our masked menacers terrorized our car.  And with one blink of the eye, they were gone, vanished beneath the car.

"I'm calling the cops," my tearful friend shrieked from the very back of the car.

"Don't do that," I said, opening the car door in a seemingly brave attempt to confront the dangerous duo.  My friends yelled at me to shut the door, but I refused, simply giving one of the monsters a helping hand to his feet.  I looked at my friends, who must have assumed I was about to join the two in a slaughter of the helpless passengers.  It wasn't until they removed their masks that the group finally realized what they had hoped for all along; two of my best friends and I had schemed the entire scare up.  Despite several moments of severe hostility directed at me, my friends hastily agreed that the practical joke was one of the most incredible plans we had ever devised.  My darkly dressed partners in crime jumped in the car and we were ready to drive off.  But much to my horror, my car wouldn't start.

(Whoosh.)

The Ford Explorer, the same car that had accompanied me for countless adventures, had actually died mere feet away from a haunted cross the memorialized a dead man.  Was it a coincidence?  We were now stuck in a pitch black hell, with no one within shouting distance to hear our cries.  I'd like to say we lived in an age where cell phones weren't used, but that's a lie that I'll conveniently leave in there for the story's sake.

Out of boredom, a few friends decided to walk down the path the led past the cross in an attempt to find the noose where the man hung himself.  I stayed behind, hoping against reason that someone would finally drive down the chilling road in the middle of the night.  I sat on the hood of my car for what seemed like an eternity, the crescent moon the only thing allowing me to see five feet in front of me.  About thirty minutes later, as I sat in the car talking to the girl I was failing to impress, a Godsend appeared out of nowhere in the form of a dilapidated truck with a broken headlight.  At first I was hesitant to flag the car down, knowing very well that the sketchier the car the more likely that it would be the last thing I saw.  However, the car came to a screeching stop right in front of my open hood, knowing exactly what I needed.

"Need a jump?" the voice from the car asked as I jumped out of the car.  The one headlight shone brightly in my face, disabling me from seeing the man in the car.  When he finally emerged, it was almost exactly what I had imagined--an old, mustached man with a trucker hat and a jean jacket.  He looked rough around the edges and from the look of his tired eyes, I could tell he had seen some things in his life.  I nodded and he immediately went to work.  Within a few minutes, the Explorer was up and running and the man simply shook my hand with an icy grip before disappearing into the night.

"Hey guys!  We're good to go!" I called into the woods.  My friends slowly walked back out into the road one by one, their arms folded to hide from the cool, windless night.  One of the initial tormentors looked at me like he had just been scared out of his shoes.  I gave him a quizzical look before he finally pointed behind him into the trees.  I followed his hand about fifteen feet high in the trees before I saw it.

The noose, gently swaying in the still moonlight.

(Whoosh.)

I looked back at the taillights of the car, looking very much like The Mothman.  I had to wonder, was the car that just helped me a Godsend, or a warning to stay away from Below?

(Whoosh.)

(Only about 1% of this is fictional.)

-PB - a good recommendation from my boy Kollin