Listen to this: A great podcast episode about giving up something you love.
Yesterday I was out walking my dog, which I do multiple times a day and I came across this podcast episode while scrolling the Slate Podcast Daily feed on Spotify:
The Man Up podcast by Aymann Ismail, and this particular episode is about a 24 year old football player who retired from the game due to primarily concussions, but also other nagging injuries.
(First off, yeah, the name of this podcast isn’t something I’d gravitate to. I’m a dude, but I’m not really a jock-bro-dude, and the name of this thing sort of screams that out to me.)
But, what did appeal to me was an athlete talking about something he loved due to concussions. This ties back to my own life because I suffered a concussion while coaching a roller derby practice.
The backstory is that I played (I almost typed “play”, present-tense, because I’m still dealing with this whole can’t play because of injury thing) roller derby on an all-genders team. I had some pretty rough injuries – herniated disc, torn rotator cuff, and finally the concussion. It happened really suddenly and for a dumb reason. I was demonstrating how to block someone, and I fell backwards, and hit my head. It wasn’t a dramatic fall. It wasn’t something that stopped practice. I was wearing a helmet. Right away I could tell that something was amiss. Over the course of a few months, I’d have to stop skating. I went to a concussion doctor and they basically told me to take it easy and not skate for 3-4 months. This was pretty devastating to me because I loved the sport of roller derby. I loved my friends there, the liberal and welcoming community, and I loved pushing myself like crazy to do physical things I didn’t think I was capable of before.
A lot of those sentiments are reflected in that podcast episode with Joshua Perry. He brings up things I hadn’t thought of, either. How these sports like football (or in my case, roller derby sometimes) cause you to push yourself and not listen to your body. Sure, there are times in exercise and in sports when you need to push through, but playing with a broken rib, for example, is not one of those times.
Aymann reacted comically when Joshua Perry said this about playing a game with a broken rib. What is funny to me is my own reaction – I’ve known MANY derby players that came back and played with a broken rib. Or played derby with a cast on their arm, or a concussion that they sustained the day before.
Joshua Perry also said how ultimately he decided to quit because he thought about the long-term effects of what that sport would do to him.
I feel similarly about roller derby. I’m not 24 anymore by a long shot, and still thinking I can handle a full-contact sport. I think it might be time to put myself out to pasture and not risk further head or back injuries.
Read this: A great book about working in normal, yet terrible jobs.
On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How it Drives America Insane by Emily Guendelsberger.
I’m usually a person who takes forever to read a book. Especially lately. My attention span gets grabbed and twisted toward other things – walking the aforementioned dog. Finally making my room, which I moved into back in May, habitable. Playing endless amounts of phone games. Guendelsberger caused me to defy my own slothful reading habits and plunge through this book faster than I usually do.
She worked at three places – an Amazon warehouse, an AT&T call center, and a McDonald’s. Rather than interview people at length about the conditions at those places, she got employed at them and thereby was able to report back on things that journalists usually don’t have access to firsthand, like what the inside of the Amazon warehouse looked like, or the precautionary talks from the call center trainers about how using the bathroom could be construed as “time theft”, or how at the McDonald’s her shift manager had her refuse a cup of coffee to a person who had the money to pay for it. (I won’t spoil the reason for that one. You should definitely read the book.)
It is conversational enough to be a page-turner and also theory based enough to be substantive. I checked it out twice from the library because I forgot to copy down the further reading list at the back. This book lead me down the path to check out Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich (a little old now, and her written voice doesn’t appeal to me as much as Guendelsberger’s), and Scarcity by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir (haven’t started it yet, but I’m looking forward to it.)
This book reminded me that these types of jobs are totally normal for people in the United States to have. It’s totally normal to go to work sick because your job doesn’t allow you any paid sick leave. It’s totally normal to have your bathroom times monitored. “Normal”, not in the sense that it’s good or should be that way. “Normal” in the sense that so many people have to deal with that kind of crappy work environment that saps your soul.
Watch this: An old movie about dudes that say the F word a lot, but has a lot to offer in terms of work today.
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet, directed by James Foley.
Here is a quick grab of probably the most memorable moment of the film, featuring this speech we’ve all probably heard by Alec Baldwin’s character.
CAUTION- lots of F-bombs and assorted language. Mute if you care about that sort of thing.
And, let’s get this out of the way, Bill Hader’s rendition of this speech on the HBO series Barry:
There’s way more to say about Glengarry Glen Ross, but I’ll keep it brief. Watch it just for the over the top 90s noir vibe. The music, the shots, the rain in the first part of the movie. Watch it to see Jack Lemon act the shit out of that part and say more curse words than you’re comfortable seeing come out of someone who could be your grandfather. Also watch it because Alec Baldwin’s character is pretty much who I think Donald Trump thinks he is at all times.
Play this: a time waster of a game for your phone that takes legitimate finesse and is also pretty fun.
https://toucharcade.com/2019/07/12/toucharcade-game-of-the-week-walk-master/
Walk Master is a game where you guide ridiculous and lovable cartoony characters through a cartoon landscape on stilts. It’s a little puzzle-y at parts and reminds me of another game in a very opposite sort of aesthetic – Limbo.
The sounds are nice and calming – crunching through grass, wind in the trees, the bleat of your cartoon goat as it falls down a cliff.
It’s a fun game. It also features this guy:
Any recommendations for me? Let me know.
Cyborg Astronaut Dog 