Book #14 – American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham

8/30/09 – 9/28/09

I’m fascinated by individuals who have the ability to not only know what they want, but who also have the unique gift to carry out these desires on a regular basis.  You see this trait frequently in world leaders and that’s probably why I’m such a big fan of historical biographies (particularly those about former presidents).

Meacham’s AMERICAN LION chronicles the life of Andrew Jackson – exploring both the impressive and regrettable decisions of his life.  Regardless of how I felt about some of the positions he took – I couldn’t help but be captivated by the conviction and zeal he felt in carrying out the decisions he made.  Jackson was not a man who passively watched his young country develop.  He repeatedly grabbed the reins and expanded the role of the President to a place it had never been before.  And he did this, not (consciously at least) out of a hunger for more power, but for the good of a fledgling nation.

AMERICAN LION doesn’t forgive some of the awful decisions that Jackson made – but it does provide further insight into his perspective at the time and why he felt certain decisions needed to be made.  Like many historical biographies, there are extended sections that feel dry and lack the excitement that makes for fast reading – but it’s all good and important and necessary material.

Birthdaypalooza 2009

For the past two years, me and my roommate Greg have had joint birthday celebrations – a tradition we’ve since dubbed ‘Birthdaypalooza.’  Last year a group of us drove up to Valencia and spent an incredible day at Six Flags Magic Mountain.  For 2009, we took it to the desert – Palm Springs to be exact.  Bradley has some family friends who own a house out there, and in exchange for him periodically driving out and keeping the place in working order, they let him use it for the occasional weekend getaway.  The video below does an amazing job of capturing the spirit of a weekend filled with chick-fil-a(!!!), invented pool games, terrible tribute concerts and 118 degree heat.

Book #13 – Got Fight? by Forrest Griffin

8/23/09 – 8/29/09

A few months back me and Nate (friend and co-worker) were talking and somehow MMA fighting came up.  I told him how I’d watched a few of the Kimbo Slice CBS events from a while back and I’d seen a Chuck Liddell fight or two on youtube – but other than that my experience was pretty limited.

Nate is a true MMA aficionado and since that initial conversation we’ve probably had 50 or 60 talks about what’s going on in the UFC.  He took me under his wing and started by lending me a DVD called UFC: The Best of 2008.  Me and Greg consumed that in about 2 nights, so after that Nate lent me the 8th season of THE ULTIMATE FIGHTER (a reality TV show where 16 unsigned UFC fighters fight their way towards a UFC contract).  By this point, me and greg knew most of the big name fighters and were able to have a semi-intelligent conversation with Nate about who has a killer ground game and who I’d never want to fight standing up (Anderson Silva comes to mind).

So after watching The Best of 2008 and the 8th season of The Ultimate Fighter, Nate lent me a book that was recently written by his favorite fighter, Forrest Griffin.  GOT FIGHT? is part autobiography and part self-help guide to the mentality and training regimen of a UFC superstar.  Griffin earned his UFC contract by winning the 1st season of The Ultimate Fighter (starting its 10th season on Spike on September 16th) and since then he’s gone onto amass a huge following and even briefly held the Light Heavyweight title belt.

GOT FIGHT? is a fascinating, extremely fast read.  The anecdotes about Forrest (told by Forrest and several of his best friends) are entertaining and amusing – but the most interesting part of the book for me was learning about the mentality and training that goes into living your life as a professional fighter.  Forrest writes with a very grounded and approachable style which makes him both likable and more interesting.  If he had written with a ‘holier-than-thou,’ ‘listen to me because I’m awesome’ approach, GOT FIGHT? would have been miserable.  But he never takes himself too seriously or gives off any indication that you NEED to listen to what he has to say.  He’s much more interested in entertaining his audience than he is in teaching them.

If you have any interest at all in the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, I wholeheartedly recommend this book.  Although I’d definitely start by recommending UFC: The Best of 2008 first, just so you can get an idea of who these guys are and what they do.

I’m officially hooked and can’t wait for UFC 103 on September 19th.

Fantasy Season is Upon Us

For the past two years – Greg and I have had the honor of creating ‘Draft Videos’ for our fantasy football league with our old college roommates.  Making these videos and participating in the league is definitely one of our bigger highlights of the year.  Especially since we Overlookers now see each other so infrequently and compete against one another even less.

I doubt these videos will be of ANY interest to anyone outside of the 12 guys competing in the league – but I figured I’d throw them up on the blog in case I ever want to look back on these 15 years from now.

2009 (released today):

2008 (for last year’s season):

Book #12 – Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

7/29/09 – 8/22/09

“Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.” – Stephen King

Forgive me if I’m inclined to heartily agree with King.  I’m officially done with the Twilight series (or is it saga?) and I couldn’t be more thankful.  Perhaps it’s unfair to draw comparisons between Rowling’s work and Meyer’s, but their story telling abilities couldn’t be farther apart (especially when you look at how they both end their multi-volume stories).  In HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS, Rowling didn’t waste a chapter – didn’t waste a paragraph – didn’t even waste a word.  With virtually the same amount of pages in each final volume (~750), Rowling told more stories and left greater emotional impact in her last book than Meyer was able to do in all four volumes of the Twilight series. And I’m not even being hyperbolic!  If I objectively went through and broke down the number of arcs and story beats in HP&TDH and Breaking Dawn it wouldn’t even be close.

I continually found myself reading 30 or 40 pages at a time and wondering ‘what was accomplished with that chapter?  how was the story progressed in any major way?’  The entire book – including the “grand” finale felt like the wheels were spinning but it wasn’t going anywhere.  And that’s nothing more or less than proof of a weak story.

I still stand by the fact that TWILIGHT (book 1) was a great read set in an imaginative world.  But once Meyer created that world, the audience kinda needed her to take us somewhere exciting.  Unfortunately that was asking a little too much.  It does make me appreciate J.K. Rowling a little bit more though.  So some good came out of this experience.

Weezy Baby!

On Thursday night, Kristine and I drove up to Universal City for the Lil Wayne concert.  First rap/hip hop concert of our lives – and definitely NOT our last (well – I can’t speak for her, but definitely not MY last).  The crowd was having a BLAST, and with good reason.  LW was fun, energetic, extremely personable – and the guy knows how to entertain a large group of people.  Find a quick example of this below:

Book #11 – Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

7/13/09 – 7/28/09

Much like he did in THE TIPPING, Malcolm Gladwell’s second novel tackles a topic that we’re all aware of on same level (whether consciously or subconsciously) and throughout the course of the book he digs deeper as he seeks clarity and understanding on the issue.  I think that’s one of the things that I like most about Gladwell’s writing; it’s as if we’re joining him on this adventure as he explores these very human concepts.

In THE TIPPING POINT the topic was social phenomenons.  And now in BLINK – Gladwell’s exploring our intution and our gut feelings that form before we ever have a chance to rationally evaluate a situation.  Where do they come from?  How accurate are these ‘gut feelings?’  And is it possible to train these intuitions in the same way we learn our ‘normal’ decision making processes?  These are the questions that BLINK asks.

I have to admit that I didn’t find BLINK to be nearly as satisfying as THE TIPPING POINT.  It was still incredibly interesting and a very quick read, but for me the topic of social phenomenons was just more interesting and more appealing than cognitive response.  Some of the studies that Gladwell explored were incredibly fascinating (i.e. the study that analyzed facial cues between squabbling married couples, or the study that revealed our subconscious tendency to be racist and misogynistic) and some of the studies left the reader wishing there was a little more meat on the bones (i.e. the study where strangers proved to be more knowledgeable about someone than their best friends).

I’d recommend BLINK in a heartbeat.  But definitely not before THE TIPPING POINT.  And clearly I plan on checking out OUTLIERS before the end of the year.

Incredible

Last night, while celebrating my birthday with a small group of friends I was surprised with a music video that Bradley Hasemeyer created featuring a lot of my best friends in Los Angeles.  This was done all unbeknownst to me and I could not have been more surprised or overjoyed by the efforts of everyone involved.  Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who took part in this – and especially to Bradley who put it all together.  ***And to make it even cooler than it already was – after watching the video and laughing hysterically throughout – Kristine surprised me with tickets to see Lil Wayne when he comes to LA in August!!!!!

Book #10 – The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

7/4/09 – 7/12/09

I’ve read a lot of books in my life.  And I say that, not to pat myself on the back, but to add validity to what I’m about to say.  Of the hundreds and hundreds of books that I’ve read, I had basically come to the conclusion that for a story to  be successful its main characters must be likable on some level.  It doesn’t mean that they can’t be evil or make poor decisions – but I was convinced that you couldn’t engage an audience unless your primary focus was someone the audience admired… or was at least intrigued by.  And I’ve read several books that were failures (in my eyes) because the author made an intentional decision to tell a story with a main character that no one could possibly enjoy or relate to or root for on any level.

And then I read The Moviegoer.

Jack ‘Binx’ Bolling might be one of my least favorite literary characters… EVER.  To me, he is deplorable in just about every aspect of his life. He’s lazy, he’s passive, he hides behind vague notions that give him some semblance of meaning to his pointless life.  I despise Binx Bolling.  I hate Binx Bolling.

And for the first time in my life, I’ve read a book – I’ve ENJOYED a book with a deplorable protagonist.  Of course all of the credit here goes to Walker Percy (an author who I’ve never read before).  And maybe it’s at least partially due to my upbringing in the American South – but the conflicts of class and gentility were totally something I could respond to.  In The Moviegoer, Percy paints so many living, breathing characters like Aunt Emily, Kate Cutrer and Sam Yerger.

Even as I was loathing Binx, I was constantly looking forward to what would happen next or how the supporting cast would integrate themselves into the story.  And of course, there’s a whole other aspect of the book that challenges our notion of what life is ’supposed’ to look like – what value exists in the day-to-day monotony of building a career and finding success in your profession.  I don’t feel like Percy offers an answer to this question as much as he very eloquently poses it.  The answer is for us to figure out – and neither side is without its shortcomings.

In reading The Moviegoer, Walker Percy instantly became one of my favorite writers and I can’t wait to check out The Last Gentleman.

Book #9 – Moneyball by Michael Lewis

6/24/09 – 7/3/09

I loved reading Moneyball.  In fact, it’s the first book since The Tipping Poing  that I haven’t been able to put down.  Lewis takes the Oakland A’s front office as his subject (particularly A’s General Manager, Billy Beane) and explores how a relatively poor Major League Baseball team is able to compete with big market juggernauts like the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Moneyball is less a book about baseball than it is about running a business and how to be successful by thinking differently than the status quo.  While reading Moneyball, I couldn’t help but constantly be reminded of Malcolm Gladwell’s recent piece in the New Yorker, How David Beat Goliath.  But what made Moneyball so hard to put down was it’s primary characters; Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta. Lewis describes their actions and conversations in a way that’s both inspiring and entertaining.  Beane – the cavaliar boss with ceaseless amounts of courage and conviction, and DePodesta – always present with his laptop and statistics to confirm his assertions.

I have to admit that I occasionally lost interest when the story left the focus of Beane and DePodesta (the Bill James chapter seemed like it would never end), but the material focusing on young minor league players like Jeremy Brown and Chad Bradford were top notch.

I’ll definitely be checking out more of Michael Lewis’s work.  Now if Hollywood could just figure out who’s gonna pay to produce the Steven Soderbergh/Brad Pitt movie version (Sony/Columbia decided to walk away after reading Soderberg’s final draft).