Where the Hell You Runnin'?

The Sound of Summer Running - Alison Brown (mp3)
God Shuffled His Feet - Crash Test Dummies (mp3)

Running sucks. People who are passionate about running don't like people.

I mean no intentional offense to anyone reading this who likes to run, but it's just about the most horrific hobby/interest/passion/whatever in the entire fuckin' world.

Yes, I'm writing this intoxicated. Which is something runners don't generally understand or appreciate, because they're mostly too busy stretching or getting rest for a run they've gotta do in a couple of hours, 'cuz they're gonna wake up at, like, 4 a.m. and run 20 miles and buy groceries at Greenlife or some other hoity-toity grocery store like Whole Foods and then run 20 miles back home with their groceries strapped on their back. Then they'll run in little circles around their kitchen while the whole-grain bagel is warming in the toaster. They wouldn't dare be awake at midnight having poisoned their body with three or four or God forbid five beers. (Even dedicated runners mock those Michelob Ultra commercials.)

If you run, I mean no offense, but you people are friggin' weird. I mean, like, messed up in the head. Like, as in you should be institutionalized. Forever. But no offense, seriously. I'm just funnin'.

My daughters both qualified to run in this citywide youth cross country race. Trust me, this has nothing whatsoever to do with inheriting genes from their father. They apparently are in modest shape and have found it in themselves to run at a decent pace. Whatevs. Not jealous. Not at all.

Anyway, when they raced, they had these two "coaches" who served as the "rabbit." Which is to say, two human beings who can only be described accurately as "beanpoles" served the same purpose as a mechanical "rabbit-looking" device would to dogs who race around in circles for a living. Except these men seemed to think this responsibility was an honor. Being a damn rabbit.

What scared me is that apparently young runners are no safer from obsessive and crazy parents than kids whose parents shove them in other sports. You had parents warming their kids up and getting there an hour early just to walk the course. You had parents feeding them particular energy bars or standing several hundred yards from the finish line and running with them, shouting at them all the way down the stretch.

At one point, I wanted quite badly to shout, "Go, Seabiscuit!!"

Ultimately, however, my discomfort at the thought of my girls becoming dedicated runners goes back to my original comment: all the people I know who are obsessed with (or "dedicated to," if you prefer) running are isolated and isolating people.

In all the world, of all the ways one can choose to condition and hone one's body and health, running is far and away the most solitary, the least sociable. Hell, just ask a runner!

Runners would read my criticisms and joyously proclaim, "Exactly!" Running is the perfect exercise for an introvert. The activity gets them out in the open and even, occasionally, around other people, but they don't ever have to actually acknowledge those other people anymore than you have to acknowledge some toll booth operator.

Friends of mine who have found joy in running tell me it gives them time to think, that it takes them away from the worries of the world and gives them an almost meditative peace. I'm left to wonder just how long one must be dedicated to running in order to get this feeling, because the only feeling I get when I'm running is "Can't.... breathe.... holy... shit... why am... I... doing this... to myself!??!"

Never once -- not when I ran cross country in middle school and high school, not when I tried running on tracks or up and down hills or even running away from a dude I thought wanted to beat me up -- have I run a long way, finished and thought, "There couldn't possibly be a better way to get from Point A to Point B than this!"

Runners want to run away from people. They want to run away from interaction. The only time they seem to want to interact is when they are trying to convince others about how great it is to run.

I'm not much of a fighter, but the very small part of me that enjoys physical activity (heyyyy) really needs someone else to participate with me (heyyyyy stop that!). Competition is a minor motivational factor for me.  It's more about the need to enjoy someone else's company. Misery loves company; when I'm exercising I'm miserable; ergo, I need someone with me.

Runners don't need anyone. They don't want anyone. They just want the isolating joy of their feet hitting pavement, moving them away from troubles. And wherever you find troubles, you find other people. They want to run away from people.

But I'm sure they'll deny it. 'Cuz who wants to admit even unintentionally being a misanthropist just 'cuz you enjoy running?

Today's post was inspired by Ann Coulter. I hope she runs. Off a very large cliff.

People on the Felt

No Cheap Thrill - Suzanne Vega (mp3) link removed by request
Beat's So Lonely - Charlie Sexton (mp3)

Because one of my roommates was touched by the gods with the gift of The Earth-Shaking Snore, I found myself at a No Limit cash game in the GoldStrike's poker room at 4:45 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Over the next seven hours of sitting at that table, the men (and one woman) I encountered gave me some of the best memories of my entire gambling weekend. The people always make the memories.*

If anyone enjoys books like Midnight at the Garden of Good and Evil, books that are as much about the odd and compelling characters that can populate a small area of shared space, then I highly recommend a poker room in a Mississippi casino. Although it's a little skewed toward the male perspective, you will otherwise find a greater diversity of background, ethnicity, money, disposition and alcohol tolerance than you could find almost anywhere else in the South outside of a Waffle House.

On my side of the table, three of the four guys had been in the poker room or in poker tournaments for at least 24 hours straight. They were all very good and regular hobbyists (as opposed to pros who hold no other job).

GRAY was this short and fairly tubby fella in his mid- to late 20s with a blonde burr haircut. He reminded me of someone I grew up with who had a developmental disorder. He didn't talk much, and he mostly seemed bored with the whole process, but maybe that's because he'd been in that poker room for 42 hours straight, with the exception of two free trips to the buffet.

He won his money, I think, because he looked stupid. And at a poker table, looking stupid but being halfway intelligent is an uncoachable gift. Woody Harrelson is stupendous at looking stupid, for example.

Anyway, he came to the GoldStrike at noon on Saturday with $400, and by the time he called it a day at 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, he went to his room with $1,500. "Standard good weekend," he explained. He started talking with my side of the table at about 6:30 because he twice fell asleep at the table, and that was the only time he ever talked, he said. Besides, his plan was to grab a room at 7:30, sleep 'til 5 p.m. and then drive back to western Kentucky on a straight shot.

I have no idea if Gray was his real name. But that's what he said it was. Poker people are kinda tricky like that. It's like we wish we were in Top Gun, so everyone gets some kind of call sign. (Well, I didn't get a call sign, but I ain't got time to explain that.)

Here's one stereotype that rings pretty true at a poker table: the best women are tight and tough to crack. Bad women players rarely sit for more than an hour because they lose their money quickly. But the good ones, they play very few hands and just wait. The poker room is filled with an unspoken misogyny, full of men who absolutely can't stand losing a single chip to the fairer sex. So the smart women wait patiently -- very patiently -- to catch something good and then just call those big testosterone-fueled bets.

MORRIS was the most solid (read: best) player at the table. He was also a larger guy, but his buzz cut was gelled up and dark. He was on the final hours of his 28-hour run and was kind enough to give me his take on the players on the other half of the table.

One of the best things about being a talky and (mostly) friendly kind of guy is that, when you sit next to someone who knows their craft, they'll pass along crucial info. Especially if they're about to leave, because nice guys usually like to pass along their wisdom to someone else when they can't use it anymore. ("If that guy bets big on the flop, he's chasing. Just call and bet hard on the turn if nothing scary hits." "If Kevin has anything better than top pair he'll check-raise you.")

As a mere bear cub in the poker world, I'm delighted when an Obi-Wan wants to offer me advice, hints, tips. Unfortunately, when someone sitting next to you keeps giving you advice at a poker table, 80% of the time it's a donkey who doesn't know his ass from shinola but just won't shut up.

A donkey, for the uninitiated, is a poker buffoon. They don't mind giving their money away because they don't realize how bad they are. They tend to just think other people get lucky on them. They tend to think their bad bluffs almost worked. We had two of them at our table, and they combined to give the rest of us more than $1,000.

Both donks were in their 20s. The first was lanky and skinny and dressed in a satiny black shirt unbuttoned halfway, exposing a designer cross. Much like Morris, his hair was gelled, but it was a much fancier -- and metrosexual -- deal. The kid clearly came from money, and it clearly didn't mean much to him. He was just tickled to death to sit with eight other people who had no choice but to listen to him. When you're a donkey, people don't ask your name. Everyone just called him SLICK. Y'know, for the ironical glee of it.

The other donkey earned the moniker TWIN. He earned this name because he apparently looked like he could be my brother. And he was originally from Chattanooga. He was the worst kind of donkey. He was a Drama Donkey. Every decision required deep thought, and he would talk about it as if he had to fold AA when everyone at the table knew he was going to fold two seconds in. I made $150 off him in one hand because I knew he was bluffing and let him bet into me every time. He bet $100 on the river -- no small amount for me, mind you -- and I called instantly and showed the better hand.

"Would you have called me if I'd bet $200?" he asked, baffled that I called him with what wasn't all that impressive a hand.

"No way dude. I would have thought you really had it then," I lied. Because that's what you do at a poker table.

* -- Unless you win, like, a SHITload of money. Then the money makes the memory.

The Familiar Unfamiliar Amongst Us

People are Strange - Echo + the Bunnymen (mp3)
Crash - Flesh for Lulu (mp3)

When I was at UNC, there was this guy we all called "Everywhereman." And by "we all," I mean 90% of our campus knew who Everywhereman was. He looked a lot like a short version of Bill Haverchuck from Freaks & Geeks except maybe more awkward, less talkative, and with long curly hair. [NOTE: If you read this blog with any regularity and haven't ever seen Freaks + Geeks, you need to stop reading right now and either put it at the top of your Netflix or start hunting the damn thing down, 'cuz it's one of the best 1-season shows ever.]

He earned the name because, on a campus of 20,000+ students and a town of some 60,000, everyone ran into this guy. He was everywhere. If you ate breakfast at on the main strip, he was there. If you went to study in the library in the afternoon or at 4 in the morning, he was there. If you went out for a night of bar golf, by damn if the dude wasn't in more than half of your bar holes. ("That's what she said!")

He seemed omnipresent, yet no one had ever even briefly conversed with Everywhereman. Everyone knew of him, yet no one knew anything about him. He was a ubiquitous, geeky, complete mystery. Everywhereman was the subject of constant derision, yet never attacked directly, because that seemed somehow sacriligious, like puking in a church pew.

I was a weekly columnist for our the school newspaper when they ran a cartoon that depicted Everywhereman. The cartoon basically mocked him in kinder ways, but in an all-too public fashion, and the campus went into a mild uproar over it. It was hypocritical, but we all stood up in that one moment -- and only for that moment -- to defend the guy we all found wildly odd.

That next weekend, I was in one of the more popular bars when Everywhereman showed up. Conversations had buzzed on whether the cartoon might push him underground. When we saw him in the crowd, we raised our glasses in our own groups and toasted him. Then we mocked him by wondering if Everywhereman ever even knew he'd been immortalized in a cartoon.

After more than a decade back in Chattanooga, it's become clear that all cities have their own ubiquitous mysteries. The 'Noog has at least two.

One-Legged Wheelchairman: If you've lived in The 'Noog in the last decade, you've seen this man. He's black. He's bald save for this one long braid of hair that sprouts from the top right side of his noggin. He has one leg. Which is kinda noticeable. There's nary a street corner in the city limits this dude hasn't panhandled.

I gave him a ride back to his home from downtown back in 2005, and the way I recall it, he told me his name was Blue. Unfortunately, time and Old School could have altered my memory. He called me "Red" because I drove a crappy red Toyota Tercel. So maybe he called himself "Blue" because he was being clever. Not sure. Anyway, I stopped at a McDonalds on the way back to his proclaimed neighborhood and bought him dinner. Our conversation was stilted and odd; gab is not a particular gift of mine in such circumstances. I overthink it. The next day, I saw him panhandling at a stop light and waved at him and said hi. He didn't know me from Adam. I was a kind means to an end, not a specific person. To take it personally would be a little pathetic.

Unemployed Santaman on North Terrace Porch: On one of these streets that runs parallel to I-24 on the way to downtown 'Nooga, there's this old white bearded dude -- looks like Santa Claus... if good ol' St. Nick had been laid off back in 1992 and had long ago run off the unemployment dole. He's got a Dunlop that rolls right into a Front Butt, and for roughly 20 hours each day, he can be found sitting right outside his house, looking out at all the traffic passing him by, drinking out of a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke. He looks bitter and angry, but I'm starting to think that's kind of his look, completely unattached to specific emotion. If I were a journalist, he would be the subject of a story.

We remember these kinds of people because they break an important pattern for us. Almost always, the more frequently we see someone, the more familiar they become to us. We tend to get more comfortable around them as well. Coworkers, bartenders, baristas, bosses, doormen, janitors. Their walk of life need be nothing like ours for us to get comfortable, to grow familiar. (Random side note: This is one reason I enjoy going to church.)

But with Everywhereman, Wheelchairman, and Unemployed Santaman, we remain utterly clueless about them even while we become more familiar with them. We know of them, but we don't know them. At all. (Nor, most of the time, do we really care to. Otherwise, we'd have already gone out of our way to get to know them better, since we have plenty of opportunities.)

The contradiction between knowing them and not knowing them freaks most of us out. It scares us. That's why teenagers spend so much time mocking the goth kid in the corner who's there every day, yet unfathomable and distant as another galaxy.