Less than ten pounds, but far more than a handful, we picked up the rambunctious little baby when she was six weeks old. My brother, Patrick, 21 and slightly cavalier at the time, wanted a pit bull to complement his Albany apartment and life. And, when they’d come to visit Colonie, I was able to partially fulfill my innate yearning to be a dog owner. By way of circumstance, Zoe would occasionally live with me at my parent’s house. And during those times, I wanted nothing more than to see her everyday, but she would soon leave once the supply of intact couch cushions ran out.

Over her life, Zoe’s antics and unique character developed a cult following. She had an uncommon affinity for explosives, once, memorably, grabbing a lit Roman Candle out of the ground and sprinting around the backyard as crowds of people ducked for cover. Her innocent beauty facilitated overt and calculated strikes on any unwatched beer bottle, which would later be licked from off the floor. And, a cartoon-like desire to catch a cat nearly tested her ability to fly, as she popped her head through multiple second floor screens just so they could hear her howl.

Yet, every moment of quirky madness was offset by her undeniable affection. You couldn’t sit down or go to sleep without Zoe lying as close to, if not, on top of you. She’d be under the covers, down by your feet at night, then lying with her head on the pillow in the morning. She wanted nothing more than to be loved and reciprocate the feeling. It was her warmth that brought great times to everyone she touched, and, I can say without a doubt, played part in building some of the most important relationships both my brother and I will ever have.

The birth of my niece prompted Zoe’s move to Boston. She spent the past two years with me, and when things started to slow down for her, it was an incredibly difficult thing to see. In our last week together, she would look to me with those big brown eyes, piercing my soul like ten million canine teeth all at once. But we both knew everything was going to be fine. In her life, she reinforced something which requires no words–an unwavering loyalty and unconditional love that I will forever carry on with those close to me.

The grief of loss is a sacrifice we have to accept in exchange for experiencing great loves. It’s something that, as they say, comes with the territory. And Zoe happened to be concerningly territorial at times, which makes this hard. Though, I wouldn’t have traded any time spent with her, just as I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere but by her side at the end.

As much as the spectacle of interconnection is a thing to appreciate, it can equally provoke fear. A fear of loss, heartache and pains so profound, they can only emanate from something which we truly love. Though, averting this–bypassing relationships and therefore the unfortunate–we deprive ourselves from moving closer to an eternal happiness, which, I’m finding cannot be achieved alone.

And, in our travels toward the unknown, I don’t know if or when we’ll find all the answers, but I’m certain that those with who we carefully choose to uncover the mystery hold an immeasurable importance. And like Zoe, or anyone close to you or me, they’re never to be taken for granted.

Thank you to everyone who loved her. She loved you more powerfully than I could ever describe here. And she will always be with you.

Anyone who’s spent time in the workforce understands the struggle, but it’s taken, in 2011, with a grain of organic sea salt. The weathered people will tell you, “it’s better to look for a job while you have a job,” never failing to mention that “life’s too short to be unhappy.” Have you ever met an older man or woman or man dressed as a woman who asked if you knew what you were going to do with your limited time here? And when you responded blankly, they joked, “Well, neither do I.” That’s actually quite disconcerting if you think about it, suggesting prevalence in settlement. But all these contradicting statements just reinforce the fact that no two men dressed as women are created equal.

Employment constitutes most of the waking day. For many, it’s a necessary sacrifice. History urges us to handle the mouse and keyboard in exchange for money, all too often at the cost of becoming a corporate archetype. From someone I came to love dearly, I learned to see the attainable beauty of liberty and, though she never really knew it, I took this lesson deeply into my heart. The thought of, even for a second, impeding the spirit’s ability to fly never crossed her mind. A notion I found deviantly impressive from the moment I laid eyes all over her. And after months and months of nine-to-five misery, I abruptly dropped a two week notice onto my supervisor’s desk with no certain plan for tomorrow.

Call it brash, irrational, stupid. Call it adventurous. Call it a surefire way to give your risk averse mother a heart attack. Call it nakedly forfeiting reality because the heart’s become all too callused. Who, though, that’s taken a chance regrets it? A lot of people. But the most important concept that’s fought its way into my soul this past year is to live this life passionately. To allow the raw emotion of who you are today lead the way. Forget who you were yesterday. Who you’ll be tomorrow is unknown. The time is right now. Of course, it should be disclaimed infinitely that this doesn’t always result in the way you want.

What remains is a potential destination of everywhere. The pen has no concrete home. Perhaps I’ll see you there.

If you’d like to support me in this journey, or any other Mike Roberts for that matter, please feel free to make a donation at www.mikerobertsfoundation.org.

RIBS (left to right) Justin Tolan, Keith Freund, Blake Fusilier, Christ Oquist

Eight minutes later, I looked to my friend, shocked, slightly deafened and said, “Holy shit, man!”

The following set was a combination of both heavy and mellow songs, hard and sensual, filling the air pungently with sounds as if someone had just time-traveled, throwing the discographies of the QOTSA, Muse, Deftones, and Smashing Pumpkins into the brewing primordial soup and out walked a four legged beast, shouldering a boombox, trouncing around the area you may know today as Allston.

This all took place a few weeks ago in Boston at Great Scott. Not a few weeks later, this past Tuesday in fact, RIBS released their first EP, “British Brains.” A bit of a strange concoction, the band is comprised of 3 parts Berklee School of Music graduates – Keith Freund on (vocals/guitar), Chris Oquist (drums), Justin Tolan (guitar) – and 1 part Boston University graduate who majored in biology – Blake Fusilier (bass). It doesn’t sound right, I know. My sister likes peanut butter and pickle sandwiches, that doesn’t sound right either … but it’s delicious.

This oddity is less unnatural than you’d think.

Ten years ago, while I was out bunny-hopping my Mongoose Villain around upstate New York, Fusilier and Freund, childhood friends from the freakishly hot Atlanta, started making music together. Songwriting and recording their sounds on a tape-mixer, the hobby became more and more serious throughout high school. Their first band, Midnight, played only a couple shows throughout the city and, notably, once drew a crowd of 40-50 people downtown.

With high school graduation came divergence – Freund to Boston and Fusilier to the Georgia State University. Geographically inhibited, but electronically connected, the two shared ideas over the internet, stating they would continue big-game hunting their musical dreams in full force together after college. Impatient with waiting, however, Fusilier headed northbound in 2006, transferring to BU’s pre-med program. In a more focused manner, the reunited duo worked on the songs they’d been exchanging over the web. Two years, and many demos, went by until their progress was interrupted – opportunity had ultimate punched them in the face with an unexpected invitation from an acquaintance to fill a slot in a show. Impromptu, they quickly grabbed a few additional members to play the written parts and had their first gig as RIBS.

Happy with the show’s outcome and receiving inspiring feedback from onlookers, they were eager to continue their work, but the band was missing a few things. Realizing it would need a serious lead guitarist, they began their search. Coincidentally, in Atlanta, Tolan ran into Freund’s father during a winter intercession, the two so-called “guitarheads” hit it off and Papa Freund later mentioned it to his son. Oquist joined in 2009 and the quartet was complete.

Musicians, but also, an enterprising group of young fellows, they’ve since been putting all of their skills to work. Freund majoring in music engineering and Oquist in music management allowed the band to self-produce its entire album. Demanding perfection and precision, Freund spent an innumerable number of hours on the EP while Oquist worked to promote and proliferate the muse, leaving ample time for Fusilier and Tolan to experiment and create for the future.

The highly anticipated “British Brains” came into my possession not long ago, and I’ve got to tell you, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it – particularly “Brains Out” and “Even.”

Check it here.

It’s wild on many levels, but before we jump to what this move actually means, let me catch you up on the background of the situation and the events leading up to this week. According to the NYT, the WSJ, and the place I go to get all of my facts for this blog, Wikipedia, 10 years ago Google first created an interface which was based in the Chinese language for our far east friends. In 2006, Google launched an actual site, google.cn-however, per order by the People’s Republic of China, it was launched with censored results. Over the next 4 years, google.cn’s search results were increasingly contracted by Big Brother’s mandates.

If you did search for something that was censored, such as ‘protest’ or ‘Tienanmen Square,’ on google.cn, a list of sites would come up, but with omissions (compared to that of google.com). In place of the excluded items it would say, in accordance with local laws, regulations and policies, part of the results were not shown. Also, certain pages were restricted, like Wikipedia, Linux Documentation Project, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter-pretty much all user created content sites, including WordPress (oh, that’s why I haven’t had any Chinese visitors on my blog. I thought it was just me). It also blocked tons of human rights and political sites.

“Somebody’s a little paranoid,” he said, as he nudged China with his elbow.

Google, whose mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” watched the happenings over the past 10 years, paradoxically perplexed, as their share of Chinese users rapidly increased while the country’s internet accessibility became more limited-history shows that they’re supposed to rise analogously. Signs of oppression made Google exec’s uncomfortable, but stock prices left shareholders in smiles-smiles with a mile between the s’s. I mean, GE exec’s were unhappy about dumping toxic waste into the Hudson River for all those years, too, right?

“3 headed fish are perfectly normal, what are you talking about?”

This did, however, all strangely diminish with the coming of the 2008 Beijing Olympics when the government loosened its cybernetic stranglehold to appeal to incoming spectators. Google exec’s thought this was a positive, progressive step, but as soon as the Games were over, the PRC retightened it’s rear-naked choke on its netizens Ethernet chords. Google, though feeling uneasy, decided to stay the course to see if it could internalize the problem.

BUT! at the year’s beginning, 2010, Google’s email services were struck by a seriously professional infiltration in China. After an investigation, it was uncovered that the attack, originating within China, was an attempt to gain information on the country’s human rights activists.

“Bad China! Bad!” he said as he swatted it in the nose with a newspaper.

Crushing dissident movements and controlling the flow of information suddenly became strangely characteristic of totalitarianism, not socialism. Having had enough, Google exec’s stated in early January that they were going to reconsider their position in China. Three months later Google stated it would soon begin uncensoring results, even if it meant the government would not allow them to continue operations in China.

This past week they finally took action. Google began redirecting search queries to the uncensored google.com.hk-Hong Kong’s Google.

The Chinese government still uses its crazy intense firewall (which some call the “Great Firewall of China”) to block some results to searches made within China, but it’s unknown how long it will let this little game will go on. It’s unlikely Google will be in existence much longer without complying with regulations.

Will they? Who knows. There’s a lot of questions to ask-which will be covered in part 2 of this blog (within the week)-this is just such a monumental happening that it required a 700 word squirt of catch-up for those who haven’t been following.

But the bottom line is: what’s more important, staying in China, making money, and trying to fix the problem slowly or walking away, consequently becoming one of the biggest moral and human rights exemplars in history?

Post what you think below in the mean time, por favor.

Check the article below. It’s about a cool new marketing company in Boston that, very strategically, leverages technology and social media in a time when our preferred mediums of receiving information are changing. Also, if you happen to be into marketing, take a look at their website-it has a lot of interesting, wittily written blogs and information on it.

Espresso gives the South End a jolt of energy-South End News

Last year’s economic bombshell, reminiscent of The Great Depression, caused an alarming number of layoffs and cutbacks. Yet, as the dim light at the end of the tunnel slowly brightens, many companies still find themselves on the operating table patching holes in their budgets from the shrapnel-particularly in marketing and advertising budgets. Espresso, an integrated marketing agency expanding in a time that others are shrinking, may just have the surgical tools companies are looking for…(click for more)

Who would have thought that Sills, who 5 years ago was putting his bagged lunch into his 3rd grade cubby, would now be verbally committing to play quarterback for NCAA powerhouse USC in 5 years?

Probably no one.

It’s silly because a verbal commitment doesn’t mean ANYTHING AT ALL. Frankly, athletes state their intentions on attending a particular school with no legal obligation to actually do so-it is essentially a gentleman’s agreement. In my own experiences as a division 1 athlete, I’ve seen numerous recruits come in and out for visits. Some liking what they saw and some, not so much. Some gave verbal commitments and then later signed the official letters on intent (LOI) which stated they would be attending in the fall. And some gave verbal commitments and then signed a LOI at another school. Jerks.

We were upset, yeah, but we couldn’t take them to court over it or anything. A verbal commitment is just a universal BS agreement.

Look at Sarah Palin. After the republicans lost the 2008 election, she said she would be running for the 2012 Presidency. That’s a verbal agreement. Now she’s pitching a reality TV show to producers about her family in Alaska (be sure to put the parental block on that one). Which, by the way, is incidentally just about as ridiculous as Rod Blagojevich starring on the Celebrity Apprentice-some people will do anything to be in the public eye. But, back to the main point, people proclaim absurdities all the time and never follow through.

Why put all this pressure the 13 year old for the next 5 years? The questionable thing is, commitments like this are never made in football where your skull could get crushed at any moment, but usually in sports like basketball or baseball. Well I just pulled the litmus paper out of this topic and the asininity level was very high. So, grab a hold of something tightly, I’m about throw you a twist. I have a theory, albeit a wildly and skeptically cynical one.

Steve Clarkson, who has been not only this kid’s personal coach, but also what seems like his PR man, runs camps all over the country. He’s apparently one of the best and mentored the superstar Notre Dame quarterback, Jimmy Clausen. Yeah, you see where I’m going with this, don’t you? What if old Stevie boy’s feeling a little under-praised and is using poor David Sills as his means to fame and fortune? It would make sense, because why else would he have Sills make this seemingly worthless announcement?

Risky move though-that means he’s got a lot riding on his boy doing good.

Anyway, just as there are storybook, inspirational tales, like Michael Jordan getting cut from his freshman basketball team, then going on to become arguably the greatest player to step on the court, there are also histories of rising stars disastrously flippity flopping. Like Ryan Leaf who was picked ahead of Peyton Manning in the NFL draft and was recently arrested for breaking into someone’s house to feed his hydrocodone addiction. Yikes.

The point is, we can never tell what’s going to happen in the future. I’ve seen great high school wrestlers not even attempt to compete at the collegiate level and I’ve seen some end up doing terribly in it. But I’ve also seen great 13 year old wrestlers go on to win the national title in college, so I’m not saying it’s not possible. I’m just saying, actions speak louder than words.

Keep your eye out for Sills in the future. It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. Oh, and lets not forget, he has a little brother too who I just heard gave a verbal commitment to (insert your answer as a comment below).

zoe

Besides tediously applying to hundreds of jobs a week and hanging out with my favorite little black woman friend, Zoe-who, by the way, is so beautiful she makes Beyonce look like Queen Latifah and Queen Latifah look like Whoopi Goldberg-I’ve been writing for a newspaper, the South End News. I’ve written three articles and, already, it’s been so much more fun than I thought it would be. I really do love to write, but this is way more than writing. It’s conducting interviews, doing some internet research and meeting a lot of awesome people along the way.

The last article I wrote was about this new nonprofit in Boston, InnerCity Weightlifting. The proprietor, Jon Feinman, was so taken by his experiences working with at-risk kids-who were in or on their way into gangs-in a yearlong AmeriCorps program that he decided to start an organization around it. Going into my interview with him, I had no idea what to expect. I knew this guy was a  personal trainer who worked with gang members, so I was assuming it would be this big, bad ass dude meeting me at the gym. Twist. It was a skinny guy, a little taller than me.

I’d come to find out he was a competitive Olympic weight lifter at the 62kg (135.4lbs) weight class, a former collegiate athlete, and an MBA student at Babson. During the interview, hearing his genuine passion for helping others made me go from kind of excited to write this story up to feeling lucky I had the opportunity to do so. This guy is truly a great person who is really putting himself out there for the benefit of others and society. He hopes to take his small scale project and eventually turn it into something nationwide.

So good luck to InnerCity Weightlifting and Jon Feinman. Check the article out.

Concluding my business in the bathroom, I washed my hands, then walked out to the main dining room. I grabbed myself a complementary cup of coffee, danish and local newspaper. Thanks hotel. One of the headlines in this North Carolina paper was about unemployment. Its unemployment rate has been hovering over 10% for nearly a solid year and the article was about how the state may have to increase personal income taxes to both help cover the promised benefits and repay the loaned federal money. A lot of states are in trouble with this recession and while they’re trying to create programs to induce more spending, they’re also trying to boost government revenues in various ways. Ways which could really get on one’s nerves.

I got the ticket because even after I saw 2 handfuls of people pulled over, I continued to speed. People will always speed and since it’s illegal to do, no one can really justifiably complain about getting a ticket and consequently being targeted for increased revenues; it’s like a never-ending pool of money. Well played, government, well played.

Similarly, back home, in Boston, our state is in a bit of trouble itself. Large deficits leave the state’s congress thinking of new ways to get out of the hole and what a better way than to use some of their own sneaky revenue boosting tactics. Massachusetts recently imposed an alcohol tax hike from 0 to 6.25%. You may be saying, “Most people have alcohol taxes, deal with it, crybaby,” and I understand that, but what I don’t like is that they’re all of the sudden taxing a counter-cyclical good. Meaning that, despite an economic downturn or recession, consumption is not only unaffected, but it may have an inverse relationship. Plainly, people drink more during recessions. That’s no surprise; what a better way to cope with your sorrows than drowning them with a waterfall of bourbon, right?

So, it’s a very strategic move by the MA government. They’re not only capitalizing on the tax hike, but also on the increase in consumption. Double whammy!

A friend, Eddie, was discussing this with me not too long ago and what we concluded really shed some light the topic. I said that regardless of how much we dislike it, the government really does need to raise revenue somehow to pay for all these things they’re doing. To which he replied, with a great point, that the government is endlessly trying to generate revenue, but they are usually attempting to do so in the most diplomatic way possible. That “they can claim a moral mandate to improve society by taxing a frowned upon activity, which cloaks their simple effort to increase revenue.”

That makes perfect sense in both of these instances: ticketing people doing something illegal and adding a “sin-tax” on a traditionally frowned upon action. With that contemplation put into perspective, I felt somewhat at ease about my ticket, not happy, but at ease. I finished my coffee, danish and paper, walked out through the lobby, waved goodbye and said thank you to the hotel clerk. Time to get back on the road.

Before I left to go on this trip a few days prior, an experienced salesman gave me a tip: if you are driving and looking for a good, clean place with coffee to sit down and take a load off, just stop at a hotel for 20 minutes. Good trick.

Comment below please.

And Guess what, great news, cerebral driftwood readers and subscriptadors, my first publication! I was given an assignment, carried out 2 interviews and wrote it up. It was a lot of fun. Hopefully more to come in the future.

So starting this blog worked. Thanks for your comments and feedback. The following is the article from the South End News:

How to keep the weight off this holiday season

The pros offer their holiday tips

The good thing about family visiting during the holidays is that after sharing some good times, everyone leaves. If only all of those calories we ate followed grandma’s example. Though multiple studies have proven the dreaded holiday weight gain is often exaggerated, the reality is that this time period-between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day-is credited with the highest weight spike during the year. Personal trainer Mike D’Angelo from Revolution Fitness on Columbus Avenue and Boston University nutritionist Laura Thompson offer a few tips to help you avoid making yet another New Year’s resolution about dieting.

Basic weight maintenance arithmetic states calories in have to equal calories out. So, if you don’t want to work out for 19 hours a day during the holiday season, this can be done most easily through moderation and self-control. Easy to say, hard to do, right? D’Angelo, an ex-bodybuilder privy to weight maintenance secrets, noted, “When I’m looking at food, the first things I look for are the things that I need, not necessarily the things that I want.” Similarly, Thompson said to “take a step back, know what’s there, and analyze the buffet line, because a lot of times you fill up on things that aren’t very filling or satisfying.”

Rather than jump right in, survey the area, and make a plan. Redefine the concept of a buffet.

“People feel like they have to have it all, but those things aren’t going away or going out of season, they’ll always be there,” explained Thompson.

To avoid quickly racking up a couple thousand calories, the experts came up with some proactive tips. First, eat a little bit before you arrive. You don’t want to show up to the party starving-that’s like “going grocery shopping on an empty stomach,” according to D’Angelo. Second, drink a lot of water. Dehydration is often misdiagnosed as hunger. Third, you don’t have to deprive yourself of all those tasty treats. Eat smaller servings of the more fattening foods, but be aware of and refrain from eating the most calorie-rich foods (i.e. cookies, fruitcakes, pecan pie, etc.). Fourth, bring your own dish. Many of your favorite holiday treats can be slightly altered and made a healthier way. Lastly, utilize technology. Take out your smartphone and look up the nutritional information of questionable foods.

For example, “Eggnog with rum is a 360-calorie drink,” said D’Angelo. “That’s a small meal in and of itself.”

So what do you do if you happen to succumb to the blissful gorging? D’Angelo believes that strength training is the most important long-term investment you can make in your body. Not only will it keep you in shape, it will enhance your metabolism, which helps ward off weight gain from overindulgence.

“If you’ve got an enhanced metabolism, then you will be burning more calories while you are resting or sitting around,” he said.

However, for those of us that don’t have the means, ability, or time to commit to strength training, Thompson offers a simpler set of suggestions. Because “the more we move the more we get to eat,” doing little things, like parking at the end of the parking lot and walking all the way to the mall or taking the stairs instead of using the elevator, can really make a difference.

Both Thompson and D’Angelo noted that making it through the holiday season without gaining weight has to be a mindset-you have to be conscious of all your actions. It’s up to you.

“You don’t have to end up on a crazy diet,” said Thompson, but “you also don’t have to go on a crazy holiday cookie binge.”

If I don’t talk to you, whoever you are, have a good Holiday. We’ll be back soon with some more cerebral driftwood.