For reasons unknown

Ivan found himself outside
of his home in the dead of the night
doing bare-knuckle push-ups
in the middle of an asphalt driveway.

Unsure of the why and the how,
Ivan was equally unaware
as to the when of his start.

Nevertheless, there he was,
powering effort-fully through the nineties,
certain only of a burning desire to stop.
But then when?
Ninety-five? Ninety-nine?
Could Ivan meet the century mark?

Just another push or three.

Sweat trickled from the hairline
about his ears and traced dual paths
along both of his jaw-lines.
Leaking from his fauceted chin,
it puddled on the cool concrete below.

His fists were warm.
He was bleeding. Ivan’s form
was abandoning him. His head
was leading
his neck, his shoulders and his arching back
towards the moonlit sky-night.
The wave of his motion
loosed his foreknuckled grip
of the ground. They slid
with each rep now.
Granules of dirt dug deep into his skin and mixed
with his blood. His calves
quivered at the peak of his push.
Ivan's arms were mush.

His heart beat faster
and he started to cry.

Ivan was losing control.

-Raphael Armand


STILL UP NEXT: TIGER VS. FEDERER "Who's the GOAT?"

TOP 10 REASONS WHY THE NY FOOTBALL GIANTS ARE GANGSTA!

10. We invented the "endzone celebration."

Wide Receiver Homer Jones had seen players such as Giants teammate Frank Gifford celebrate touchdowns by throwing the ball to fans in the stands and wanted to come up with his own post-touchdown maneuver. In a 1965 game, he scored a touchdown and threw the football down hard into the end zone. He called the move a "spike" thus spawning the modern "endzone celebration."

The original "Spike" Jones


*Forty-three years later a young RB named Brandon Jacobs would take the concept of the to a whole new level!

9. We invented the "Gatorade-Shower"

The tradition began in the mid-80s. According to several sources, including Jim Burt of the Giants, it began on October 28th, 1985, when Burt performed the action on Bill Parcells after being angered over the coach's treatment of him that week. The phenomenon gained national attention in the 1986 Giant's season. Parcells was doused after 17 victories that season (count 'em!), culminating with Super Bowl XXI.

The "Shower" done correctly, complete with
Harry Carson in Security "disguise."

8. We were the first to Disney World.
Disney began a new campaign for the Walt Disney World and Disneyland resorts on January 25, 1987. Immediately after winning Super Bowl XXI @ The Rose Bowl, MVP Phil "22-for-25" Simms was asked what he planned to do afterwards. His reply, "I'm going to Disney World!" remains a Super Bowl MVP tradition to this very day.

7. Then we flipped it on 'em!
Super Bowl XXV MVP Ottis "Uppercut" Anderson was the first to deviate from, what was by then, the conventional script . When asked,"OJ, You've just won the Super Bowl. What are you going to do now?" Anderson replied, "I'm dedicating this one to our troops," referring to Operation Desert Storm which had begun a week and a half before the game. (This was also the Super Bowl featuring Whitney Houston's classic "National Anthem" rendition)

6. We brutalize Super Bowl QBs (Pt 2: aka "Steve Young should be kissing our collective hairy asses")
During the 1991 NFC championship game vs The Giants, Joe "Big Sky" Montana was hammered by DE Leonard Marshall, knocking the future Hall-of-Famer out of the game. The Giants went on to win one of the greatest Super Bowls ever played, while Montana missed the entire 1991 and majority of the 1992 season with an elbow injury. In the ensuing years Steve Young revealed himself to be "the Super Quarterback from Planet Mor-Mon" and manhandled the NFL for the next 8 years (whoops!). Joe, "The #1-Stunna", having lost his starting job in San Francisco went on to play his remaining years, productively for the Kansas City Chiefs.

Leonard Marshall excuses himself to go participate in the Super Bowl
while Young Steve begins "flowing futuristic."

5. We brutalize Super Bowl QBs (Pt 1: aka "I never blamed LT")
Redskins QB Joe Theisman had his career come to an ignominious end on November 18, 1985, when he suffered a gruesome compound fracture of his leg while being sacked by LT and Harry Carson (shudder) during a MNF game telecast. The Redskins had been trying to pull flea-flicker and, of course, the defense was not fooled. As they blitzed, Taylor sandwiched Theisman into Carson and inadvertently landed his hip on the QB's lower right leg, fracturing his tibia and fibula and bending the entire lower leg in a reverse-L or "flamingo formation." Video footage of the play remains one of the most famously gruesome injury clips ever. Theisman never played football again.

Ironically, his "thigh" was left undamaged.

4. The DBs can get it too!
a. During the 2008 NFC Championship Game, on 1st & 10 from his own 18, Brandon "Big Baby" Jacobs ran right off-tackle. Five yards later Charles Woodson squared up to make a solo-tackle (stupid). Big Baby lowered both head AND shoulders to deliver a bruising blow to the former-Heisman Trophy winner, leaving him flattened on the 23yrd line ("That's the spot!"). Check out this link for "Big Baby's" account of the play!

b. During the 2002 Hall of Fame Game against the Houston Texans, Jeremy Shockey announced his arrival to the NFL by running over an entire defensive secondary. Turning a simple "5yd-out" from his own 35 into a 50yd-gainer, Shockey broke two consecutive solo tackles before turning up the sideline for a 1st down. DB Kevin Williams, in "hot pursuit" from across the field, was looking to intercept Shockey at the Houston 30yd line. Shockey, deciding against tiptoeing out the sideline or trying to juke it inside, slowed down, squared-up, and delivered a BOOMING shoulder-blast, leaving Williams sprawled out on the 30. Shockey continued for ten yards before finally being tackle by the two remaining Houston defenders. Here's the link. (Play it from the 1:45 mark.)

c. During the 3rd quarter of Super Bowl XXV, Ottis Anderson decided to cap a 24yd Giant run by winding up his right arm to deliver a punishing forearm uppercut to the face of Bills DB Mark Kelso. The entire Giants sideline, the thousands in attendance, and the millions of fans watching around the world all erupted in violent unison. At the conclusion of the run, play was stopped while Commissioner Tagliabue came out to award the Super Bowl MVP trophy to Anderson, though there was still 22 minutes left to play in the game.

3. Hall-of-Fame Coach Factory
Vince Lombardi: Offensive Coordinator 1954-59

Tom Landry: Defensive Coordinator 1956-59
Bill Parcells: Head Coach 1983-90
Bill Belicheck: Special Teams & Linebackers Coach, Defensive Coordinator 1979-90

2. The "All-IN"
Say what you will about Jim Fassel, the man coached his team to a Super Bowl and did so with one of the boldest proclamations since "Broadway" Joe Namath admitted to being a cross-dresser in the late 1960s. After losing back-2-back regular season games to the Rams and Lions, the Giants found themselves on the wrong side of the playoff bubble. Jim Fassel, having had his fill of all the negative media-talk, issued the following statement during the wk 11 post-game press-conference:

"I am raising the stakes right now, ... If this is a poker game, I am shoving my chips right in the middle of the table. I am raising the ante. Anybody who wants out, can get out. This team is going to the playoffs. OK? This team is going to the playoffs."

The Giants then proceeded to run the table, clinching the #1 seed in the NFC, then beating the Eagles 20-10 in the divisional playoffs and shutting out the Vikings, 41-0 for the NFC Championship.

1. #56

Murder. Mayhem. Chaos.

To put it simply, the man changed the game. An absolute terror at the OLB position, LT revolutionized pass-rushing schemes, offensive-line play and offensive formations, often requiring double and TRIPLE teams. LT produced double-digit sacks seasons consecutively from 1984 through 1990, including a career high of 20.5 in 1986...AS A LINEBACKER!!! He also won a record three Defensive POY awards and was named the league MVP in '86. LT is universally considered the Greatest Defensive Player of All Times. But between the cocaine use off AND ON the field, sending hookers to the hotel rooms of opposing RBs the night before a game, owning two rotweilers named "Kick" and "Ass", and the aforementioned extinguishing of a HOF QBs career, Lawrence Taylor is , in a word, GANGSTA!

Honorary Mentionable facts:

• Bill Belicheck's Super Bowl XXV defensive playbook is enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame (right where the Jim Kelly's "K-Gun" manual would have been).
• Giants fans invented the "De-Fense!" chant.
  
• Wellington Mara became a controlling owner of the Giants at the age of 14.
• Giants do not employ cheerleaders because Wellington once said, "It lacks class. This is a professional football organization not a tittie-show."
  
• Bill Parcells' real name is "Duane".
• Harry Carson, drafted out of South Carolina in 1976, was an animal who the Giants wanted to start immediately but they didn't know what to do with starting LB Andy Selfridge. So Carson ate him. True story.
  
• Not a single Conference Championship point has been ever scored against The Giants @ Giants Stadium.
• The Jets initially balked at moving into a stadium named after another NFL team but did so under the assumption they would negotiate naming privileges later. When the time came to renegotiate the Giants simply said: "Nah."
• The Jets are expecting that the proposed new stadium, scheduled to open in 2010, will bear a sponsor's name. It probably won't. It will most likely be called: Giants Stadium
• Oh yeah, one more thing. The future owner is pictured below.
  

Kate Mara: "WE MUST PROTECT THIS HOUSE!"

The Rising Tide

I don’t read anymore.
Sleep is plumped
With fitful streams of wandering dreams
of past, of tomorrow, of realities gone
long unlived.
My eyes open in a sunset-stare.
Emotions of an afterlife
reeling by in a blinding slog.
Breakneck.
Weighting.
Meaningless words create wordless speech.
The body starts and stops in aching pains.
My gaze is moon-lit;
My hands, sea-soaked, parting darkened waters.
Their shallow dips leave wakes by and by.
Don't want to need anymore.
I can only bleed.
Bone and flesh and blood
are all that I can become.

-Raphael Armand

The Library

From time to time I'll post some of my writing. Short stories. Poetry.
Much of it stuff I'm still working on. I put it out for the sake of input and constructive criticisms, so feel free to comment.

Here's a piece I just came across. I think I wrote it when I was supposed to be studying for something or other.

"The Library"

It’s an upturned cheek that kills me.
That hurts and steels.
Presses my ass into the seat.
My feet grab, desperately, the firmament.
I keep from falling.

The crimson carpet starts beneath me,
extending infinitely away.
Dozens of computers, meter evenly about,
while quietly humming their anthems.
Crisp-quiet sentinels.
They frenzy into the cyber-vast,
With stillness.

Three little robots spew artificial life from their jaws.
Printed pages for lifeless lives
Fitfully stationed in front of their drones.
The room winks and puzzles in constant spurts,
Bordering on regularity, on organism.

My breath is here, too.

My body plays just
As still and lifeless as the rest
While beneath my skin flex muscles and corpuscles.
Tics of nerve and elation alternate
With pulls and tugs of stress,
Of release,
Of hurt so good.

My heart beats.

The walls tell the story.
The ebb of life is bounded
In 'lefts' and 'leaves'.
The mere hint of blush colors its white,
Running out towards a horizon
hidden by the oblique.
It too blushes.
It too keeps flow close.

And there she is killing me
With upturned cheeks.

-Raphael Armand

Unapologetic

My philosophy on life, though formed and shaped by my personal experience, can be said to have been focused by my readings of the French essayist, Michel de Montaigne. My view on the condition of man and my mode of analysis has been directly influenced by my reading of his essay: Du Repentir (Of Repentance).

OTHERS form man; I only report him: and represent a particular one, ill fashioned enough, and whom, if I had to model him anew, I should certainly make something else than what he is: but that's past recalling. . . I propose a life ordinary and without lustre: 'tis all one; all moral philosophy may as well be applied to a common and private life, as to one of richer composition: every man carries the entire form of human condition.

In this essay he explores, not just the concept of repentance, in fact his treatment has less to do with the conventional understanding of the concept, but in a more general way he engages in an exploration of the constitution of man as an active moral being.

Ultimately this is all that we are. Our actions, whether consistent or at odds with them are functions of our personal or societal mores. And everything that all we know and experience of this universe is a result of our actions, directed towards scientific advancement, philosophical understanding, or the simple perpetuation of our contemporaneous existence. Active morality entails the entirety of human existence.

Now what does any of this have to do with the constitution of a man, or more specifically, with repentance? Well, to answer that we need to understand what repentance truly means.

Montaigne in his essay talks about the formation of man as an imperfect being and attempts, at various points in life, at re-forming this being. This use of vocabulary is not arbitrary. To talk about a man, as he exists, is to talk about a man as he was formed or created. This implies the existence of a creator whom, for the purposes of simplicity, we'll just call "god." This god bore the task of forming these imperfect beings at the beginning and to a certain extent continues to bear the responsibility for the imperfection of these beings. Now imperfection in this context is not meant to have a negative connotation. It is a descriptive term. It is a simple fact of the universe that things exist as they are. It is a simple fact of the universe than people exist...FLAWED!

Now we get to the good stuff. Repentance is not a simple matter of reciting three words and continuing the business of life with no true moral, and therefore, existential consequence. Repentance is synonymous with reformation as in fact the term is often used in the various contexts where repentance ostensibly has a practical consequence (religion, penal system, etc.).
The act of repenting is the act of reforming something that was not originally of your creation. It is the re-forming of a constitution that was admittedly, and unabashedly imperfect. Therefore a decision and intention to repent is tantamount to an intention to re-sculpt the shape of a rock cliff. The imperfection of the previous form did not preclude its possible beauty. Nor does the act of reformation assume the creation of a more perfect form afterwards. The point here is there needs to be an understanding of what the act of repenting is and what it entails.

Repenting is the act of creating a new being, not the simple statement of a new being, but an actual new being...at the core. A creative act. A godly act. This isn't something we should be claiming to do on a weekly or even yearly basis. (A friend of mine wrote a great article about a similar subject in his blog. Here's the the link.)

And this isn't to justify sociopathic or antipathetic behavior. Besides the implicit moral responsibilities we all have as members of civilized societies, there is a personal morality that we develop as we develop an identity beyond the original parameters of our creation. There is a certain personal code of conduct that we come to adopt that is largely a result of the sum total of our personal experiences. This code of conduct is individually specific (though we often want others to adopt it). It is when we violate THIS code, this self-formed morality that we should feel the need to repent.

As politically inappropriate as it might be, I am not genuinely apologetic about my tendency to stereotype people on cultural, racial, or gender bases. That's a natural human tendency (Another great article from the same author). Nor do I generally apologize for tardiness, property destruction or inappropriate sexual advances.

"That's what I DO, son!"

These acts are part of my character, for better or worse. Do I like it when ill comes to anyone as a result of anything I say or do? Of course not. But does that mean I will forswear future engagement in whatever activity resulted in that outcome? That's crazy. There's a reason I decided to do it the first time and it's probable that that reason had more to do with my own motives and inclinations than the unfortunate outcome. Unless I'm deciding to rethink my motives and change my inclinations I should never forswear that future action!

Again, this is putting aside the instrumental value of apologizing that comes out of our existence in a civilized society. I'm talking about genuine contemplation of repentance. I'm talking about rethinking who you are and what you want to be. That kind of change only happens a few times in a person's life and should only accompany deep introspection and speculation.

Introduction

Why must everything be so complicated?

Hello, everyone.
This is my new blog. The third of its kind. The style and content will be somewhat similar to some of my previous blogs (for those of you familiar with any of them). My hope is this will represent a more polished, structured and sophisticated account of the random thoughts, observations and happenings in the life of Smash. Let me begin by giving you some amusing background on "Smash."

"Smash" is a title/description first conferred upon me about 6 or 7 years ago. It came about during a discussion about the hilarity and fear-inducing quality of the names of the Sith-masters from George Lucas' Star Wars trilogies. They normally took the form of Darth-some menacing adjective or noun. Darth Vader. Darth Sidious. Darth Tyrannus. All terrifying monikers, to be sure. But what was interesting was the name of the main baddie of the Lucas' Episode I, Darth Maul.

Maul. A wonderfully simple yet imposing name but one that was also a verb. Not only was it an "action-word" but one that ostensibly described what its owner intended to do to you. The beauty (read: hilarity) of this name was that it simply yet fully captured the name, intention and overall modus operandi of this villainous character.

Darth Maul. Essentially, Darth Bash-your-skull-in, or Darth Render-you-lifeless-within-3-seconds, or even Darth Smash'em-and-Crash'em!

Ta-daaa!

Now many people think smashing and crashing are synonymous. They are not. There is plenty of overlap between the two and they often accompany each other. They both involve a high degree of destruction (the sudden ruination of what was once whole and structured), disorder (the rapid disintegration of what was once organized or systematized), and general mayhem (willful and/or meaningful implementation of all of the above); all of these qualities being highly characteristic of my life up until that point.

But where these two concepts differ is in their general approach to their end. The crash is more quick and decisive in its execution. It is, generally, a more impersonal engagement leaving its target wondering "what the hell just happened?" This is not so with the smash.

There is a deliberate and purposeful quality to a smashing. It is generally a much more intimate interaction. One knows one has been "smashed" (assuming one is left able to still formulate such conceptions). There is no question as to the source of , and in many cases as to the reason for, the smashing.

These are the main differences between the two forms. Neither is inherently better than the other. Sometimes one is required at the exclusion of the other while at other times both are required, as they often complement each other very well.

In any event, I represent the Smash side of things. This blog will serve to chronicle some of my actions, more of my thoughts and in a general way give an organized account of life viewed through a smashed lens...as inherently contradictory as that might sound.

Also, I'll probably be posting some archived posts from some of my previous blogs. So I hope you guys enjoy some or all of it.

Peace and blessings.

Smash