Dan Writes Things 500 Words at a time.

Over the course of the last six months, I have been taking time to reflect on how I can be a better ally to marginalized people. Minorities, women, the LGBTQA community, to name a few. Given the shape of our country and how more and more, the new normal is for the majority to actively push the minority back down, it is imperative that those of us, who live a life of privilege, whether we choose to recognize that privilege or not, to stand for those who are not.   Last night, the Sounders celebrated Pride Night during their match with Orlando City SC. There were gorgeous rainbow flags, people walking around with Pride scarves, even a lovely choreo display done by the Emerald City Supporters, prematch. The match went on, and the supporter section did its thing. Then the capo started “Take ‘Em All”.   If you aren’t connected to the Sounders supporter culture, or aren’t into British punk bands, you may not know the song. It’s been a tradition in ECS since the inception of the group, and an overwhelming favorite song amongst its members. The group sings the chorus of the song. “Take ‘em all! Take ‘em all! Put them up against a wall and shoot them! Short and tall, watch them fall, come on boys take them all!” The song was done once in the first half and once in the second half. I didn’t notice during the first half, but as the song spun up in the second, I saw a noticeable gap in the section. The members of Pride of the Sound, a subgroup of ECS dedicated to providing a safe space for soccer fans who identify as LGBTQA or as allies, were sitting down, not singing. I looked down from above them in the section and realized this was wrong. The section was singing a song about shooting people, during Pride, while our Sounders were playing the club from the city that suffered the tragedy of the Pulse Nightclub shooting. I left my seat and I went down to talk with them. I hugged friends, shook hands with those I didn’t know as well, and let them know that they were not alone. I looked into their eyes and saw pain that matched the agony in their faces. At the beginning of this year, I promised to be a better ally to friends who were in pain, scared, angry, or upset. It was time to make good on that promise. All that, was a lead in to this statement. The Emerald City Supporters, their leadership group, and their Board of Directors need to end the use of this song as a part of their match day activities. The argument you will hear, is that this song is tradition. Here’s a few other deeply offensive traditions. Southern states continuing to fly Confederate Flags. The Washington Redskins. The Cleveland Indians. You don’t get to claim that you are an ally, you are supportive, and you believe in equality in one breath, then cling to “tradition” as an excuse for something that is blatantly offensive to that group in the next. You don’t get to preach about Soccer For All and then continue to marginalize a cross section of people. To do so, you might as well walk right up to the Pride of the Sound members and slap them in the face. To continue to use this song, regardless of the fact that members of the group, are deeply affected by the song, is wrong. To spend time, money, and resources on a choreo display that celebrates “One Community United” and then turns around and to use a song that is deeply offensive to the members they are trying to include is hypocritical. 

It was raining in the city, the hard rain. The type of rain that makes other rainy days, look soft.  

Okay, that was a really bad beginning to this little essay. I’ve been thinking over the last few days about the story I’ve been working on for years, and by working on for years, I obviously mean, I started long ago, quit writing, and haven’t returned to it…yet. I watched a video today in which a mother and daughter systematically removed books that had no female lead characters, no female characters that spoke, all the way down to no female characters period. From there, they removed stories where the female is a damsel in distress that needed saving, stories where the female character needed the help of her brother, some other male figure, or some lovable pet, etc. By the time they were done, the three to four shelves that were packed full of books, were down to a small handful.

I have two nieces. One just started college, the other just starting preschool.  My elder niece loved to read growing up. She still does. My younger niece, who has all the makings of being her mother’s daughter, is already making up stories, and loves reading time. Today, as the skies of Seattle are gray and a light rain falls from the skies, I am thinking of them and how, quite truthfully, there are not a lot of strong female role models in media such as books, movies, and television shows. Before you protest and start rattling off how I am wrong, I will cut you off, and point out that I am aware of strong female characters. There just aren’t enough. For that matter, there aren’t enough strong minority characters in general.

When I was nine or ten years old, my parents let my younger sister, Lis, and I to choose between one of two gifts for our birthdays. We share our birthday, May 23, two years apart. Our choices were a Nintendo Entertainment System or a trip out to see our grandparents in San Diego. Lissie chose the trip. I chose the NES. Thus began the decades long relationship I have had with my first true love, video games. I remember unboxing my console, gleefully setting it up on our television in the family room, and pressing down the first Nintendo Game I ever played. That game was Bionic Commando. My father owned a grocery store, which in rural Minnesota, was synonymous with movie and game rentals. While Super Mario Brothers came with our console, Dad let me pick out a game to bring home, one day, and I chose BC.  I’m not sure why. It probably was because I was a preteen boy and I liked pretending to shoot things. At any rate, that was the game.  I was terrible at it. I remember it being ridiculously hard. I think I was only ever able to finish the first level, maybe two of them.

Many years ago now, in another life, I was a poker dealer. I dealt cards to poker players, professionally. I really enjoyed my time in the gaming industry, the casino gaming industry to be exact, as I am now in the video gaming industry.  I enjoyed seeing the same faces every night, flinging cards across the table, and pushing huge stacks of chips to winners. It felt like a very glamorous career in the middle of the American heartland. A place where the average home was $150 - $300 thousand, making $50,000 a year was a very VERY good living, and average hardworking people could feel like big shots, even if it was just for the night.

I’ve many memories from my time in the box. The box, being the term for the dealer’s seat at a poker table. One of my favorite memories was one single hand on a rainy summer night. This is the story of how I dealt out my first bad beat jackpot. For those who do not know, a bad beat is a poker term for having a very strong hand that should win 99% of the time, and still lose.  For example, you have four jacks in your hand, the odds say you are all but sure to win. Unless someone else turns over higher than four jacks like four kings or a straight flush.

So now that you understand what a bad beat is, the next step is learning how to win the jackpot. It’s commonly known, that the casino (or the house), takes a percentage of every pot that is played, and that is how they make money. This is called the rake. Many cardrooms will also rake a dollar for a progressive jackpot. In my cardroom, it was a Bad Beat Jackpot. In order to win the Texas Hold ‘Em jackpot, one must have a full house with at least three aces and two jacks, and that player must be beat by a player holding four of a kind or better. There’s more detail to it than that, but that will do for this story.

I was feeling sick that night, I really wanted to go home, but I needed the money. Dealers are randomly assigned a starting position in a poker room. You work a string of tables, typicaly four, for 30 minutes each and then have a break. Sometimes you start with a break. I walked in, praying to start the night off with a break. I won that draw, unfortunately, one of my coworkers called in sick, last minute, and I had to “push” his table instead of going on break.

I trudged over to the table, sat in the box, greeted the players, and pushed the button on the shuffle machine. Back in the day, I could have recounted the entire action, card for card, but now, all I remember, was dealing the final card, players betting, and turning their cards over. Bad beat jackpot. Now this jackpot was around $80,000. The winnings get split up between the players. Fifty percent of that jackpot money goes to the player who took the bad beat. In this case, I believe he had a full house with Aces over Queens (AAAQQ), roughly a $40,000 payday.  The winner of the hand had four Queens(QQQQA). They took home twenty five percent or roughly $20,000. The remaining seven players divided up the remaining twenty five percent, roughly $2,850 each, just for being dealt in the hand.

It’s also common knowledge that casino dealers survive on their tips. It’s “customary” for dealers to make tips on a jackpot, roughly ten percent. I didn’t quite receive that, nor will I say exactly what I made, but I will say it was a couple of thousand dollars for five minutes work. Once the jackpot was paid, and I collected the tips that the players generously gave me, I asked to be relieved from work. It was granted. I went home after working for thirty minutes that day. Best sick day ever.

There is an exclusive list in sports that nearly no professional athlete gets to be a part of. That thing is playing his/her entire professional career for one club. When I was younger, they were referred to as one club men. One club men are unicorns. They are the type of player that your friend’s brother’s cousin’s former college roommate swears they saw once, but has no verifiable proof that it actually happened. We, the blessed supporters and fans of the mighty Seattle Sounders Football Club, will be saying goodbye to one such individual, in five days. That man, of course is Zach Scott.

In many ways, Zach should never have played as long as he has. He had no business being out on the field in top flight American soccer. Except that he made it his business. I have no embarrassment when I say the following statement. Zach Scott is my hero. He got to do the thing he loved to do most in this world for fifteen years, and did it all while people continued to say he wasn’t good enough. Zach inspires me in ways that make the hair on my arms stand up as I write this.  Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t put in the hard work. I grew up on that phrase, and while I haven’t always been the best example of that in my life, it’s still something I believe in. Zach Scott is the only evidence I need for that philosophy. The man played on a broken foot in 2015, because the club needed him to. Sigi Schmid called him “a freak of nature”.  Brian Schmetzer called him “A Lion”. These are both very worthy descriptions of the man most supporters call “Mr. Sounder”.

The jump to MLS couldn’t stop Zach Scott. A broken foot couldn’t stop Zach Scott. Age couldn’t stop Zach Scott. So what would be the only thing that could? Same answer, Zach Scott. On Wednesday, March 1st, we will honor the only man in Major League Soccer, truly worthy of a proper testimonial match. The man who continued to take pay cut after pay cut to stay a part of a club that has been burning through cash on flashier players. Others have worn the captain’s arm band, there have been plenty of veterans who have worn our badge, but there has been only one leader in that locker room, and that, of course, was Zach.

Zach, I doubt you’ll read this. I was an average athlete at best when I played sports. You sir, were the epitome of the blue collar, humble man that every sports fanatic dreams they could be. Thank you for fifteen years of blood, sweat, and tears you gave this club. We’ll never forget it. And if the FO begins to, we’ll absolutely remind them. Forcefully and with full voice, if necessary. Thank you for being so gracious to the fan base. Thank you for every minute you played for us. Mahalo.

I’ve always been a story teller.

When I was a little boy, I often told stories, completely impromptu. I remember telling my parents about my first day of Kindergarten. I told my parents that we took a field trip to the Minnesota Zoo. My parents, obviously knowing that was not the case, continued to listen as I described the different animals I saw, I went on and on, riffing on that story, recalling the events of the day.

Another time, when I was in junior high school, I joined the speech team. My particular category was creative story telling. Given the previous example, you would think that I would have excelled in it. The truth is, I took time to write a story, build believable characters, and practiced that story for hours. Then, when it came to perform that piece, I found myself adlibbing in the middle of the story. I kept talking, even though I had no idea where I was going with my detour. It was exhilarating, though it was foolish as it probably cost me plenty of points in scoring.

A little known secret, is that many years ago, nearly ten if I am calculating correctly, I started trying to write the next great young adult novel. Think Harry Potter or maybe Alice in Wonderland. I got around 10,000 words in and stopped. People who have read what I wrote, really enjoyed it and asked me to continue writing it. I never have. This isn’t because I don’t know how to end my story, I have my ending. I even have milestones along the way. No, my problem is that while I have Point A, Point B, Point C, etc. I don’t have any idea how to get from one point to the next, until inspiration hits me. When that inspiration strikes, I often spew out paragraph after paragraph of details in that story. It doesn’t matter whether it was good or if it’s awful, what matters is that there were words where previously was only a blank computer screen and a blinking curser.

Where am I going with this ramble? Again, I’m not sure. I started out trying to come up with 500 words to start this adventure. I saw friends doing it, and decided, “Why not me?” I may do Twitter polls to see what people would like me to expound 500 words about. It really is a good exercise for those of us who wish to improve ourselves. The written word is extremely powerful. In today’s age it may be the most powerful tool around. So much good or so much damage is done with words every day. Perhaps I do need to try to sharpen my writing abilities, just in case I am forced to write an essay to save my life. Right now, I’m not so sure I would survive such an ordeal.

Thus, we begin a tale about improving my writing skills. This has been 500 words on writing 500 words.