Theology II

When I was a junior in high school I dropped out of classes second semester at Omaha Central High School. I developed my own academic discipline as the McCoy homeschool.

I had read in a book about different ways to homeschool a child and the options that I came across included unschooling.

This is a discipline of not having assignments for the child but rather allowing them to pursue their own education at their own pace in an environment that provide the resources to learn.

Other disciplines focused on classical education, eclectic studies and the general “buy your own textbook curriculum” sort that most homeschool families used including my own.

When I dropped out from Central high school I had become as popular as I would ever be.

In the span of a year of going to school there I had become president of the ultimate frisbee club instead of playing basketball in Coach Eric Behrens state title winning program that I had gone to training camps for since I was old enough to attend.

My popularity came naturally since I was friends with the most popular kids in school from attending Dundee Presbyterian church where I was a natural charismatic personality.

Living in Dundee at the time of my drop out put me in the dead center of the intellectual community that was left in Omaha.

I would read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Notes from the Underground” at Blue Line Coffee shop, F Scott Fitzerald’s “This Side of Paradise” in a tree at Memorial Park and buy books like “Naked Lunch” by William S. Burroughs and The Anti-Federalist from Jackson Street booksellers downtown and Pageturners bookstore down the street. 

In my room I had a type writer, a record player, a desk, a bookshelf and a bike. I worked at Homer’s record store and liked to go to music concerts at Slowdown, Sokol auditorium and underground and the Waiting Room including Wolf Parade, Broken Social Scene, The Faint, Vampire Weekend, MGMT, The Black Lips, Capgun Coup, Bear Country, Tapes n’ Tapes, Aqueduct and Cold War Kids. 

I would go to Film Streams and watch Joy Division’s “Control”, a documentary about Hunter S. Thompson, another about Chet Baker.

I would have friends over and we would talk about art and have impromptu jam sessions.

Camping and biking were hobbies of mine.

This was my education and it was an elegant one.

Then it hit me that I would need to produce something from this experiment at a crucial moment of my social development so I published a zine with my friends creations and my design. 

It was called Bad Taste.

Looking back and probably knowing at the time subconsciously that my dropping out and freewheelin’ to create a shrine of hipster knowledge and a record collection that included Bob Dylan’s Freewheelin’, Rolling Stone’s Between the Buttons and the Flaming Lips “This is It” was actually a power move in the long term designed to attract myself and others to destruction.

I returned to Central my senior year in the second semester with McCoy homeschool credits in hand and taking classes from zero hour to ninth with an extra couple of early summer courses so that I could graduate in the eyes of my peers.

My charisma flew out the window my senior year. My quest for truth through studying existential classics on my own led me to realise that I would need a high school degree from an establishment in order to survive in society. My greatest strengths as a person is my ability to make people admire me and inspire myself. Without a high school degree it would be hard for people to admire me since I rely on my creative intelligence and if I didn’t have a high school degree it would mean that my inspiration was an idealised fraud. My senior year I became all business for my own journey to the truth and to get my degree.

When I went back I had two AP classes that actually allowed me to continue my classical education the way I had been on my own. In AP English I was in a group that read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”. This book really shook me and hit me in a deep place. In AP World History I read and made an essay on the book, “Aristotle’s Children.”

I got my degree by the hair on my teeth. In my pursuit of truth I had put my faith on the rocks. This journey was essentially my introduction to reason. The cold, hard kind that enabled the Union army to beat the Confederates. After I graduated I realised that my faith in Jesus Christ was who I was and that without pursuing my faith I would not get far with truth.

My integration of my new mode of reason and a recommitment to my Christian faith led me to finding Reason with a capital R. I came across this naturally but found that it was an idea that Thomas Aquinas established to bring the Catholic Church and Europe out of the Dark Ages by uniting the philosophy of reason through the senses of Aristotle and the Catholic Faith.

Poetry IV

You are hired.

When can you start?

And he’s off.

Out the door and into the light after his first punch in.

He is now turning the corner and he is in his place.

Meeting all of his wonderful new co-workers.

Some are young and some are old.

Some are boys and some are girls.

Some are women and some are men.

Some are underlings and some are managers.

There are customers.

We’ve got business.

Unending business.

He is off to the dock to get more product.

The product is out of the door and into the cars.

People are always buying.

The employees are always smiling.

I am making new friends with my co-workers.

What’s this?

Adoration?

Huh, and the forklift is zooming down the road.

The pretty girl is talking to me.

The pretty girl went to the same middle school as me.

The pretty girl was born the year I went to Beveridge middle school.

The fork lift is back zooming down the road with more product.

The customers keep coming.

Sadly it is time to clock out.

You are hired.

You start next week.

I am speeding through a blizzard to get to work on time.

There was some snow and ice on my windows and some snow I had to shovel out of the street to start but I made it to punch in.

Was I late?

I think so.

I am off to the jets.

I am inside of a cargo jet.

I am marshalling tugs. 

I am marshalling planes.

The people seem to like me.

I am now a permanent employee.

You are hired.

This is where you work.

This is who you work with.

“I am the manager.”

I was once a manager but I left that job.

I ran out the door when no one was looking.

Now I am here and this is a mighty big place.

Would you like another job?

Let me think about it?

Yes.

I can start next month.

And he is off.

Here we have a promotion for you.

We would like you to play the lead.

Ok.

We have a promotion for you.

We would like you to play the lead.

Ok.

Hello.

It has been an honour to work here but I no longer have time in my schedule.

I am going to have to leave.

Sports II

 Driving through the ice storm to Lincoln.

The Huskers are playing the NCAA playoff game in the middle of an ice storm.

We have to drive from Omaha to Lincoln.

I could have canceled the job.

The owner of the business was begging me to not drive.

The client and myself had to make the drive.

Driving on the edge of my nerves we took the back roads and didn’t run into any trouble.

Huskers won.

Murray carried the team.

The next day Tik-Tok was full of videos of cars drifting down neighborhood roads with no control and kids speeding down drive ways on their stomachs.

Who was that against?

DePaul?

Some Big East team right?

That was the sweet sixteen?

No.

Elite eight.

Then in the final four they lost to Penn state.

That was the end of Coach Cooks career.

I got to see Coach Cooks last season as coach.

I would listen on the radio to Coach Cook discuss the volleyball team.

AM 590.

Greg Sharpe had a voice that I would get mixed up with Coach Cook.

I was thinking, “man, they have this guy on the radio all of the time.”

At least I think it was Greg Sharpe that was speaking.

The other guy with a personable point of view who was outspoken, full of witticisms and iconic.

Greg Sharpe passed away to cancer.

Bergen Reilly just “boops” the ball over the net for a kill.

That killed me.

A lady behind me in the crowd comments, “I love her.”

That killed me again.

I realized Bergen was lovable.

She plays the setter position like one of the classically trained white boy point guards of the past.

Jason Kidd (half-black), John Stockton (abnormally white), Jason Williams (white chocolate) come to mind.

Team centered leaders who lead through hard work, selflessness, mastery and grit.

At the beginning of the 2024 volleyball season Reilly would wear her hair in this single long braid that was fastened by hair ties.

Something about this struck me as a sassy style from the sticks and the style of her game gave me the same impression.

She is from Sioux Falls and unlike it’s classless and formless twin, Sioux City, the town has a very from the absolute middle of nowhere could be a bad place but most certainly formidable place as far as being in the middle of Denver and Chicago kind of place.

Bergen never lets you know her next move.

If she needs to kill for herself she will like a member of the weasel family, think Wolverine, but her main gig is to assist the kill with ease to Murray, Jackson, or the other six foot amazons with ridiculous vertical leaping capabilities.

A killer will leap into the air to spike the ball only for the ball to be passed in an opposite direction for another player flying through the air.

This single brunette rat tail that went down to the volleyball players shorts struck me as a signifier of an individual personality.

I thought that it meant someone who was faithful, possibly catholic.

Someone who wanted to keep her hair but keep it out of the way, a pragmatic thinker.

She is the only player on an elite showcase of players who is always in the game for the Cornhuskers.

I don’t know Volleyball.

I don’t know writing.

I learned a little bit about volleyball last year.

I am practicing a little bit of writing as I write right now.

2024 Cornhusker volleyball as a scratch pad for writing?

As good as any.

Also this is my first attempt to engage the Alcoholics Anonymous working of the steps that have to do with addressing trauma both as a victim and a perpetrator.

Now the story is not going to take a dark turn of “It Ends With Us” proportions, cross myself because I cannot afford the legal fees, but as always with anything full of light I see a darkness.

Oftentimes it is this darkness that rivals my love of the light. 

It has to do with the pure sexual force of the sport of organized volleyball.

Just like nude beaches, strip clubs, drug culture and worship services the initiated hardly notice the power of their happenings but to the newly initiated it can be a heavy dose that can shatter one’s view of the world.

Do I think volleyball is sexy?

If a vagina is sexy then volleyball is lit.

Volleyball slaps.

It is estrogen dominating estrogen.

Apparently women produce testosterone?

Apparently.

Also pheromones.

A volleyball game at Bob Devaney struck this Omaha boy as love at first buy.

Although I got into the game for free, the pizza and Mountain Dew still extract a toll.

With the potential genius of Bergen Reilly looming in my mind as a potential safe space for my obsessive personality I looked at the program.

Bergen Reily - six foot (six foot?) 

Sophomore.

Sophomore?

So if I keep this job of driving the old man in overalls back and forth between Omaha and Lincoln for Nebraska Cornhusker games I could continue to scout the genius of this prodigy for three years?

Not only a reason to commit to the driving gig but a reason to commit to volleyball, the Cornhuskers and women in general.

Let the obsession begin.

This individual personality locked in to my attention I start to take note of the other individual personalities on the team.

There is Andi Jackson

From Colorado

Six feet 

Blonde

Killer

Could do a promotional poster of a Most Wanted million dollar reward wanted dead or alive for her and Murray.

Murray

Michigan?

Six feet

Black woman

As people from the street say, “light skinded.”

Difficult to read this one.

However I have been having difficulty reading recently.

Is this because the reading is difficult or the reader is being difficult?

The read I got on Andi Jackson was loyal, fun loving and formidable.

The read for Murray was connected to her race.

Can I communicate what I am thinking?

You know the country song about a woman who is locked in on making it in her daddy’s world, she is an American girl?

Murray seems like a black woman who is locked in to making it in a white woman's world, she is an American girl.

Ok — I think I communicated that correctly.

Formidable.

These three girls are all sophomores and have enough going on between the three of them to make the sport of volleyball a thing.

Is volleyball a thing?

Volleyball is a thing if you are in the volleyball world.

New recruits come from social media.

Little girls who are looking for role models.

The inclusive athletic community.

Mothers and fathers of daughters who play volleyball.

Boyfriends and husbands of women who play volleyball.

Anyone who is inundated with sexual media in their algorithm.

There is the Caitlin Clark effect where the money is following women’s empowerment and then there is the Livvy Dunne effect where the money is following women’s sexual empowerment.

Volleyball is getting bigger, especially at Nebraska due to both of these factors that I did not make up but may be the first to address in simplistic and direct terms.

Lexi Rodriguez is a libero.

She plays for the Omaha Love now.

That’s not the team name, the team name is something like “the rebel yells, more, more, more in the middle of the night.”

No, that’s not right.

Well since I addressed Bergen Reilly’s catholic brunette hair from Sioux Falls, Andi Jackson’s six feet of leaping jubilant fierce Aryan from the mountains, Harper Murray’s black girl thoroughbred American from the Great Lakes I should speak about Lexi Rodriguez being .. haha, just kidding.

Lexi Rodriguez is the beloved libero who for some reason was not drafted into the pros although breaking dig records at Nebraska.

What happened?

Is it because she is short?

Coach Cook said he didn’t want her on the team because she was short.

Is that why she was overlooked by the draft?

Maybe.

Maybe it is because she has brown skin and a Spanish name.

Gasp.

Could be she didn’t want to play in the pros.

She does play in the pros!

Ok well is the volleyball love league a minor league?

Are the Omaha Supernovas a minor league team?

Professional volleyball is probably still trying to establish itself.

How long has it been around?

Pro volleyball?

It just recently became a thing in Omaha.

Billboards and ads everywhere.

Maisie Boesiger.

Another small.

Five foot Norris.

Ha!

See what i did there?

Good old Norris. The biggest town on highway 2 between Broken Bow and Alliance.

Where are those places?

I really don’t know I think I dreamed it up on my adventures in Slumberland with Nemo.

I wrote a blog about it.

Not a minute of playing time but she is the cute factor times ten on all social media posts and the local flavor.

My tone of writing is getting more mean girl as I go and I blame volleyball.

Just like football culture bringing the hallmarks of toxic masculinity to the forefront, volleyball has all the vices of women.

What am I saying?

Two things:

The Nebraska Cornhuskers volleyball though beholden to their fans must be a phantom plague of locusts to their competition. Like the Lakers of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal days or the Tom Brady Patriots, Mahomes chiefs or Trumps republicans these guys are real trouble to the opponent and I would imagine strikes a chord of fear and loathing.

The second thing I am trying to say is that this job of watching volleyball gave me the same sensation as being assigned to man the dressing rooms at Forever 21.

Meaning?

It is not exactly a sport that is appropriate for straight men to access.

How can I say that?

Watching women in tight pants is not a masculine activity unless men could potentially be killed in the process.

If we can turn volleyball into one of Ernest Hemingway’s blood sports where the men in the audience could potentially die from their male gaze on this feminine activity that will make it count.

Of course I died several times a game but that’s just because my shifts landed on volleyball days and the other driver goes to the football games.

Would I rather be talking about my experience watching Dylan Raiola?

SMH.

I did watch Dylan and the boys.

That was a level of trauma unique to itself.

The Tom Osbourne days were back for the first half of the season. We were undefeated.

Then Big Ten play happened.

I was at the Northern Iowa game at the top of the crest.

Social media couldn’t get over the smoke and lights show. 

The talk radio was all the rage of revival.

Raiola was likened to his cousin Mahomes.

Nebraska football was back.

Then through a scheduling conflict with the other driver I was at the Illinois game.

Big 10 play.

Things looked good and then the old ancient curse of Nebraska being unable to execute came marching in as a conversion was missed. Then the quarterback was sacked. Sacked further back. Sacked way further back. The game was over.

With those initial wins plus a win over Rutgers and Wisconsin the Huskers ended the season with a win over Boston College at Yankee Stadium during the Pinstripe Bowl.

The people want more trauma.

I will give the people what they want.

Nebraska Cornhuskers men’s basketball.

From the first game at Pinnacle Bank Arena I thought the team a living tragedy.

A Frankenstein of talent.

Each player played like an all star team with bad chemistry as though they were all just NIL recruits based off of what the school could afford.

Then they beat Creighton.

Then they did well in Big Ten play but when things went ugly with this team, they went an NBA legend in his last seasons traded to a different team and playing a reserve role type ugly.

“Williams scores.”

Moving on to the Aryan monstars women’s Nebraska Cornhuskers team.

No, I am kidding.

The Nebraska Cornhuskers basketball program for men’s and women’s have the chance to dance this March and that is atypical.

The Aryan jokes about blondes at UNL are also in poor taste but there are a bunch of picture perfect blondes at the school and in the town and on the women’s basketball team.

Not the least of which being Brit Prince who if I was to write a play about Hitler I would write the part of his girlfriend Blondie who he kept with him in his bunker hidden away in the mountains based off of her character.

Who wouldn’t conquer Europe and attempt mass genocide for a girl like Brit Prince?

Ok. Enough camp.

In tonight’s big ten tournament loss against UCLA I heard a big ten network reporter say that it seemed like Brit Prince was smiling with her eyes after nailing a three late in the fourth quarter.

She is certainly a clutch player and controls the tempo (FAST) and her talent does shimmer after her like a smile.

Husker men’s wrestling at Bob Devaney is the only antidote to the residue of estrogen and pheromone bombs detonated during Nebraska Cornhusker volleyball home games at Bob Devaney.

The atmosphere of wrestling is of a different era.

Everyone is on the floor yelling at the wrestlers on the mat like a crowd in some burrough of New York at the turn of the twentieth century during a cock or dog fight.

Spartan masculinity rules and the uniform is just as tight on the short ripped men as they were on the toned and athletic forms of the volleyball girls.

If I found the volleyball to be sexualized was the wrestling homo-erotic?

Great question.

I was asking myself that while I was there.

I would say yes except the event transported one to an epoch before things were sexualized. 

No one gets horny looking at Michelangelo’s David.

No one gets horny looking at

Leonardo Da Vinci spread eagle.

No one imagines Mona Lisa without her clothes on.

Until now.

You are welcome.