Poets Day US

There is this team, lets call them the All Blacks, and they play a sport, lets call it rugby, and they are pretty damn good. Back in 2004 they came to a nexus after getting hammered by a team we will call Springboks. After the defeat they held a kangaroo court, drinks were drank, silly fines were imposed and general stupidity took place. The boys returned to a country we will call Hobbiton and had a 3 day ‘come to Jesus’ moment where the senior players decided that to succeed going forward they needed to have more ownership of the team. They created new guiding principles that included: Better people make better All Blacks. Leave the jersey in a better place. And most importantly - No Dickheads. This logic of course seems obvious however, as is the case in most things, sometimes people forget the basic tenets of what it takes to build a team and focus too much on the big picture. Sure, you have to have an overall plan of where you want to go and what you want to do, but if...

Y ou know that uptight HR lady at work?  She's me. Yep, that's right. (Well, she would be me if you don't know me.) So it might surprise you for me to tell you to be Rugby-hot at work.  Especially for a Poet. It's precisely how you earn that inspired cold beer after leaving it all on the field at the job all week. The beer just tastes better. The spirit is moved more euphorically. This is because you can thumb your nose at the boss man on a Friday night with the sole satisfaction of accomplishment and pride. Of being spent and seeking to refill. You made the work worthwhile while you were there.  Now it's your time. And the man can kiss your sweet arse until the sun rises on the proverbial Monday. I know this in my soul. I learned it at my grandaddy's knee. He was the foreman of a backbreaking road paving crew.  I can recall how he smelled of asphalt and Zest soap as he put away pint on a Friday night. And how his sun tanned face...

This post was influenced by the Rugby World Cup (RWC), luckily we can learn so much from the game they play in heaven and from ‘that volleyball movie’. As I sit here on a beautiful Poets Day in Raleigh with my All Blacks jersey on waiting for the mighty Boys in Black to take on Tonga in a few hours, I find myself wondering how I can possibly write another semi-brilliant post that will keep the audience (of 4) engaged. However, knowing who a fair amount of the audience is, I realize I could probably keep then engaged just by writing PTO on both sides of a piece of paper (way to alienate your adoring fans you King Richard). I could focus on writing a well thought out and factually supported blog regarding the evils of large corporations, governmental spying and accountants but there is no need to write at that level for a couple of reasons including the fact that I cannot be bollocked. Why sit down, research, watch Fox news for a week and actually write something at that level when ...

Back in my youth I believed I could out drink, out think, out fight and out fuck anyone. I am sure some of y’all felt the same way, and if any of the ladies out there think they can get me on the fourth one please feel free to contact me with a current picture JNow, as I age gracefully, I have come to realize that that belief is not 100% true and in the case of 2 of those things I tend to wake up with a very sore head.  Time for an anecdote, or, as my kids say, Daddy’s Story Time. Back a few moons ago, I decided it would be fun to run the Rotorua Marathon (for non-kiwis Rotorua or RotoVegas is a place with boiling mud pools, geysers and great outdoor activities – kind of like a stinky Queenstown without the mountains – or Orcs). I knew a couple of ‘older and wiser’ people that were also running so decided to have a friendly beer based wager with them. They, of course, reminded me that even though I was a young and spry 19 year old their years of wisdom gathe...