The Sound of One Hand Tweeting (five years ago)

Okay, this made me laugh.

I have mentioned before that I have a Twitter account (2018 Chris - Twitter was newer than and it didn't have the same power to make me want to stand in front of a speeding freight train). The majority of the people I follow write jokes.  I do not follow people who use it to discuss the mundane day-to-day of their lives - Oh, boy, I just love milk - or who use it to push an agenda - You must send money today to protect the planet against the ever increasing scourge of people wearing plaids and checks at the same time - or people who simply use it as a way to self-promote - I will be selling my hand woven raffia iPhone covers at the supermarket parking lot this Saturday. Recently I clicked on the "follow" button for the Dalai Lama.  He doesn’t talk about the tasty mustard seed dressing (2018 Chris - I was soooo proud of that deep pull allusion in 2012) he had at dinner last night, ask for money to buy more robes for disadvantaged monks or peddle his mountain top tours.  He says things that promote kindness and reinforce the ideas that we need to be nice to each other.  I like that.

Here’s the part that made me laugh.  Twitter sends me e-mails suggesting people I might want to follow based on who I already follow.  The e-mail I got after choosing to follow the Dalai Lama said “Here are accounts similar to who you followed.  Similar to the Dalai Lama… The Onion.”  The Onion is an organization dedicated to silly.  It creates fake news (2018 Chris - I said "fake news" in December of 2012. Can I retroactively copyright that and make a crap ton of money?) for the purpose of entertainment and has very little concern about offending people.  So, on the one hand we have a man who has dedicated his life to spiritual enlightenment for himself and as many others as he can possibly reach and on the other hand we have a group of people who like writing stories with as many double entendres as humanly possible.  Yeah, that connection makes total sense. 

Now let’s examine the idea that the Dalai Lama has a Twitter account.  The Dalai Lama is thought to be the reincarnation of a series of spiritual leaders who have chosen to be reborn in order to enlighten others. The Dalai Lama is the highest lama of Tibetan Buddhism and the highest goal of Tibetan Buddhism is to achieve Buddhahood, or a state of perfect enlightenment.  This perfect enlightenment means one is freed from all mental obstructions, one attains a state of continuous bliss attached simultaneously with the knowledge of emptiness, and all limitations to help other living things are removed.  That is perfect for Twitter.

Let’s look at the "perfect enlightenment" one component at a time.  One is freed from all mental obstructions.  Have you spent much time on Twitter?  Or any part of the internet?  Mental is not what it excels at so mental obstructions would not be present. One attains a state of continuous bliss attached to the knowledge of emptiness.  Happiness brought about by emptiness may be a better definition of the internet than a global system of interconnected computer networks.  Finally, all limitations to help other living things are removed.  The internet is pretty magic. 

Sounds to me like Twitter was created to facilitate the Dalai Lama’s mission statement:  end suffering in 140 characters or less (2018 Chris - which is how Twitter should be, not this 280 character crap).

The e-mail from the Twitter minions brought to mind something else about the internet world.  Just how many people know stuff about me?  The Twitter guys know who I follow.  The iTunes guys know what music I buy.  The Google guys know what I don’t know.  The Wikipedia guys know I am gullible enough to believe the Wikipedia guys - see the previous paragraph comprised of Dalai Lama facts. (2018 Chris - this was written before we knew about Snowden and Assange, which sounds like a cheap version of Siegfried and Roy)

Now I lead a preternaturally uneventful life and my deepest darkest secrets include the guilty pleasure of eating food designed for eight-year-olds.  Froot Loops, they’re not just for breakfast anymore.  Also, the fact I listen to entirely too many showtunes for a fifty-year-old guy who doesn't live anywhere near Broadway.  Yes, I even have stuff from Glee on my iPod (2018 Chris - technology has evolved quickly.)  Is there a support group for this? So the internet facts of my life being open to those living in the cyber-world doesn't scare me all the much.  Really, anyone who hacks into my internet browser history would be asleep in the first ten minutes.  After the third story about Jeff Withey’s prowess blocking shots (2018 Chris - Jeff is currently on the roster for the Dallas Mavericks and averages 0.3 blocks per game) and the fifth blog entry from a guy who wrote for television comedies back in the 80s (2018 Chris - I don't even read that blog any more) they might not just doze off, they might start contemplating a fork in their own eye to spice things up a bit.  

Christopher Pyle truly does believe that spreading kindness is important and hopes to end prejudice especially against grown men who listen to Julie Andrews and Brian Stokes Mitchell, on purpose. (2018 Chris - I now have Lin-Manuel Miranda on my iPhone so I am much cooler than I was.)

Just have fun with it

I have always been a sports fan. It was something I shared with my dad.  I have very clear memories of watching games on TV with him and he took me to many a live sporting event.  Each summer we would visit Kansas City and he would take me to a Royals game and he even took me to a preseason Chiefs game the very first year of Arrowhead Stadium (which he didn't fully enjoy because people stayed standing like the whole damn game - a preseason game - they stayed standing).  We also went to bunches of basketball games because Hutchinson hosted the NJCAA championship tournament every year.  

He was in his recliner and I was at the end of the couch in 1988 when the Jayhawks with Danny Manning won the NCAA championship.  That was way fun.  

Flash forward a bunch of years and I have gotten the opportunity to work in sports in a few different ways.  I have taken it too seriously but I also know how to just play. 

The too seriously can be illustrated by how I behaved as the general manager for the Dodge City Legend during the championship game in 2005.  We had lost the second game in the tournament in 2004 even though we had the best team in the league that year. One of the reasons we lost is more than half the team, including the head coach, got a wicked case of food poisoning just before the tournament started.  I still have suspicions that the Pennsylvania ValleyDawgs slipped something into the baked beans at the end of the season celebration dinner.  

Anyway, in 2005 I REALLY wanted to win.  I am a superstitious sports fan and I started pacing in the hallway of the arena and then I started to believe we were only playing well when I was pacing. This was proven to be scientifically accurate when I stepped into the arena as the best free throw shooter on the team stepped to the line. This guy had not missed a free throw in five games. He bricked it like a guy building the foundation of the new library. So, I spent far too much time in the hallway as we won the league championship.  Even with the indisputable scientific evidence of the free throw data point, that was stupid.  I took it all too seriously and I missed what could have been a fantastically fun afternoon.  

I just started helping with the new minor league basketball team in Kansas City, the Tornado's.  

I am the PA announcer during the game.  I had done just a little of this with the Legend but not much.  The first game I was a little tight.  The second game I was much more relaxed. 

I decided I should not take it too seriously. I allowed myself to just be a fan and say stuff that came to mind.  The fans don't need me to treat this like it's rocket surgery.  

There was a questionable call that went against us.  Followed closely by a questionable call that went our way.  I simply said "basketball karma".

The point guard for KC is named Charlton Jones.  He stole the ball and dashed to the goal for a lay-up.  I half sang "and along came Jones". Which was probably not a reference many, if any, of the fans present understood but I liked it.  

I was reading one of the ads for a sponsor and messed up.  Most the time people are told not to call attention to a mistake but to just keep moving.  Not me.  I said "That wasn't right.  I'm gonna try it again. This isn't my day job."  

These games should be entertainment and I am going to have fun and I really think the fans will have more fun if I allow myself the freedom to say what occurs to me.  

This is a line I am keeping handy for just the right moment. One player is named Jacob French. I can't wait for him to hit a big three pointer so I can say, "French for three. Parlez-vous jumpshot."  Lori thinks that may not be my best choice.