Dreaming is Breathing

 Poems by Bax

I am what I dream. Plus the actions that follow.
There's a fine line between enjoying today and planning tomorrow.
Wars and terrorists, home-grown and abroad. Why Lord?
What am I to do? I want to have kids with my wife
But this world is so trife. I strive. What will it be like when they arrive?

I close my eyes and wonder if things are worse than any other time.
As I view newspaper clippings and watch the history channel
The bible shows there have always been humans with animal
Instincts. I sink. Into the sofa.
Whiskey on the rocks.
I'm lost.

Pull a piece of paper to write my cousin.
He says "Keep your head up. I'm counting on you"
"The walls of failure I expect you to break through"
Well that's that. I'm back not only dreaming but believing
I'm living for so many, no time for defeating feelings
I will become what I'm dreaming
And this is life's meaning

Shut Up and Listen!

by Deon Carson
 

                Is Isaiah Thomas crazy? Yep. Was he a losing coach? Yep. Was he a terrible president of basketball operations? Yep. As a player was he a fierce competitor, a winner, and the best little guard to ever lace em up? Absolutely yes. This is why I do not understand the blatant disrespect that Zeke receives for his on the court game.  Please do not compare any of these players to Zeke (sorry CP3 that includes you).  Isaiah could score and if he were stupid he could have avg. 30, but as we have seen when your PG avg. 30 you do not win championships, go ask Iverson how that worked out. Instead of averaging a ton of points Isaiah chose to win he saved his fireworks for the biggest moments.

          Isaiah Thomas had some great great moments, like the 1990 NBA finals when In game one, Isaiah scored 16 points in the 4th quarter bringing the Pistons all the way back from ten points down with seven minutes remaining. He scored 22 points in a quarter later in those Finals. He averaged 27.6 points, 7.0 assists, and 5.2 rebounds against Portland that series. In the 1989 playoffs Isaiah and the Pistons would lose only 2 games in route to their championship. The legendary ankle sprain game when Isaiah scored 25 points in the 3^rd quarter of game 6 against the Lakers on a badly hurt ankle. I won't even bring up the 16 points in 94 seconds in game five against the Knicks in the playoffs (oops too late).  I could go on all day about Zeke and his feats the point is there was no little guard ever better than Isaiah; he elbowed his way into history. While the league was celebrating Magic and Bird, and elevating Jordan the smallest man of them all managed to leave a huge footprint on the league. You may not like it but he did it his way and succeeded, 1 National Championship, 2 NBA Championships I'd say his accomplishments speak for themselves. My last note is that a man like Karl Malone who could never get it done should not be allowed to say any disparaging words about Isaiah remember Karl the mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays.

Shut Up and Listen!

by Deon Carson

I have a problem with some of the criticism toward Carmelo Anthony, they say he doesn’t make his team better they also say he can’t win well I beg to differ. From the 1995-1996 season through the 2002-2003 season Denver DID NOT make the playoffs as a matter of fact the season prior to drafting Carmelo they won a grand total of 17 games. Melo's rookie year they make the playoffs and made it every year after that. Some will point out that he lost in the 1^st round 7 of eight years while in Denver. During that time Carmelo lost to the Spurs and the Lakers 5 times, once to Minnesota, once to Utah, and once to the Clippers. Out of all of those series he may have had the better team once. Since coming to NY he lost to Boston, and Miami I’m no genius but I doubt he was favored in either of those series. Not to mention NY had not won one a playoff game in ten years prior to him dropping 40 on the Heat this year.

Now the media is saying the pressure is on him to “win now” unless I’ve been asleep and the Knicks have Chris Paul, or Dwight or Bynum there is no pressure on him to “win now” because he is not on a championship team. Duuuh. The Knicks are a middle of the road team, and if I blame Carmelo for anything (other than playing no D) it’s forcing a trade to a team that has 2 rings in its’ history with no real young talent, and no cap space.

Love and Marriage

I love my wife and today, (like every single day, several times a day) I told her as much. She gave me a strange look. "Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked her. She replied, "You'll be telling me how crazy I drive you before today is over". That is true. She does drive me crazy sometimes. As I'm sure I drive her crazy. I made a vow to take the good with the bad. The bitter with the sweet. And if even given the choice, I'd stay where I am. Both of those statements can be true...even at the same time.

I was  hanging out with a couple of friends of mine and one of them happens to be single. Through out this blog I'll refer to him as "My single friend" or a similar distinction. We just hung out and talked like we often do. We laugh and joke, reminisce about old times and vent about jobs and significant others. As we went through our typical routine, my single friend said, "I never hear anything good about marriage". I was actually disappointed. I feel like my outlook on marriage is pretty good. And I feel like I communicated the positives more often than the latter, but apparently I don't communicate well enough to encourage my single friend to consider getting married. I have some friends that are super negative when it comes to their outlook on marriage and I started to think, "Maybe my single friend is not discouraged by me, per se, and maybe it's those other guys". And maybe just a little because of me.

I try to be honest with everyone. Nothing is great all the time and I don't waste time lying to my friends trying to convince them that my life is perfect and I don't waste time telling acquaintances about any problems I may be having. Most acquaintances don't care if you're having a bad day or not so there's no need going into detail with them, and your friends don't deserved to be lied to (One of the problems that you run into is friends who want to know your dirt to make them feel better about themselves, but we'll get to that at a later time).

Many would say I got married late. But at the age of 27, many more people would say that I got married too soon. In my wife I have my best friend. And like any best friends, we laugh more than argue, we smile more than we frown, and we chit-chat more than we give each other the silent treatment.

Between all of the television shows and stand-up comedians, bad-mouthing marriage, it has become commonplace to joke about how much your wife or husband sucks. In a way, we could be shaping unmarried people's views in a negative manner (Along with the near 50% divorce rate). Fact: Marriage is work. There are definitely days where I question my decision to get married, but for every 1 day I question marriage, there are 25 days where I am so thankful that God blessed me with my wonderful wife and can't imagine not being with her. I guess I need to be more mindful and communicate those things more and focus less on making Al Bundy type of jokes.

This is dedicated to one of my newest friends who was just engaged recently.

Shut Up and Listen!

by Deon Carson

People still don’t get it PED’s are a problem in Boxing. When Floyd Mayweather Jr first implemented his “anyone who fights me has to test” system people ostracized him calling him afraid. But after Andre Berto, Lamont Peterson, Antonio Tarver, and Ali Adams to name a few have all tested positive for PED’s he looks like a boxing prophet. Allow me to reiterate that boxing is a life and death sport; someone will die in the ring this year (boxing averages 11 deaths per year). Yet and still people continue to ignore PED’s in the sport, 21 July 2012 boxer Adrian Bronner came in 3.5 pounds overweight for his fight and he has been dogged in the media more than Antonio Tarver who just failed his drug test. Bronner was fined $ 60,000 while Tarver was fined only $2,500 doesn’t anyone see the insanity in this?  When a man is hitting a baseball, or swimming, or dunking a basketball I am not as concerned about PED’s but when a man is hitting another man’s skull potentially hundreds of times in a fight I have a huge issue with it.

By the way if a guy turns down 40 million to make 20 million then I want a test for crack more than PED’s  but hey that’s just my opinion sorry, Manny.

Clean Living

I've been doing laundry since Friday (off and on anyway). As I sat in the basement on Sunday morning I asked myself, "Where did all of these clothes come from?" I can remember a time not too long ago where I was completely done with laundry (except the clothes on my body. Every now and again I debate on doing laundry naked in order to have EVERYTHING clean at once but never have). In my mind it felt like just a few weeks ago when all the clothes were clean and folded, but as I looked at the mountain of clothes (clean and dirty) I doubted my time-frame. I started to smile and realized that laundry was like life. Keep it clean!

Conservative Views

There's a time to vent. There is a time to throw yourself a small pity-party. And there's a time when you need to dust yourself off and start moving forward again. Failure and disappointment is tough to get over. I used to be extremely stubborn now I'm only just a little stubborn. I've become more mature, more lazy (not wanting to expend extra effort proving a point or being confrontational), and I feel like I've lost some of my edge. The proper edge is a beautiful thing, believe it or not. You have know "when to hold em' and when to fold em".  It's a crazy balancing act. I was watching an interview on Kobe Bryant the other night and he talked about his stubbornness and how that helped him get to the NBA. He also talked about the early 2000's when he was facing the sexual assault case and how people said he couldn't go to trial and continue to play in games afterwards. He attributed his stubbornness as the biggest reason he was able to literally leave trial in Colorado, fly to LA (or wherever the game happened to be), arrive just before game-time or shortly thereafter and play exceptionally well.  There are times when you are the only person that believes in you and you're faced with a decision: Push forward with no support or let others dictate the outcome of your life. Of course, there are a zillion exceptions to my last statement. You have to be rational but contain just enough stubbornness to strive for things that may seem out of reach to many...or most. Success will dull your edge. As you achieve certain goals there's a tendency to "fight" for less, as to not make waves and potentially upset your lifestyle. I believe that mindset has kept me from achieving much more. When you have nothing to lose, you tend to take more chances, it's natural. Having things to lose makes most of us much more conservative in our views, our actions, and our goals. If/or when I become a multi-millionaire, I will revisit my conservative and less edgy ways, but for now I plan to crank it up. I have too much to achieve and being afraid to push the envelope will NOT help me get there.