The Gatorade Fairy of Eastern Avenue

How Lacrosse & Creative Writing Are basically the same thing

It was a hot day today.

I was driving around looking for a little magnetic circle to slap on the back of my cellphone because the one that came with the phone stand melted off in the 100 F heat the other day.

I do a lot of work in my car because my car is like a couch. Comfortable. Spacious.

A/C and sound system are awesome.

I can drive to any of the many beautiful nature locations around the area, park, and do some writing in my notebooks.

I always try to write down my posts anywhere by hand first.

It’s how I learned to be a student in school in the 1980s-1990s.

Plus, I’ve never used social media a lot for my business or past work, and while I really LIKE aspects of it, I can’t bring myself to be SUPER passionate about it because I guess being born in 1978, I am JUST OLD ENOUGH to have a foot in the Elder Xer vibe and being from a small town, I respected a lot of my Boomer Teachers and people know how they can be about social media sometimes, so…

All that isn’t just RAMBLE. It’s description of a creative process.

Mine’s a HYBRID ONE.

I’ve cultivated it over year of blending the tech I needed with the pen & paper approach from the Old School D&D games I loved in the 80s and 90s as a kid.

It works for me.

Let’s face it: We live in an era where “Selling” stuff to people is pretty much over.

Words and their context matter, so when I say “selling” I may be thinking of an entirely different set of interactions compared to someone born in say the year 2000 or 2005 is.

And while there are aspects of that Old School America I will always, and sometimes even painfully miss, I am not someone who is RESISTANT to change.

Heraclitus, the ancient Greek philosopher said - You can’t step in the same river twice.

I believe that’s universally true.

Forget technology for a sec, the world of 1980s and 1990s Boston went JUST AS FAST as it does today.

Frenzied parents driving kids to school with late homework and half-packed lunch bags were as common then as they are today.

I think one of the biggest mistakes anyone can make is to ASSUME that because the manufacturers of our world build all kinds of NEW TECH, that somehow the PEOPLE USING THE TECH change.

I know a lot of scientists, biotech folk, and biologists.

They’d agree with this blanket statement.

Erickson is a well-known educational/behavioral psychologist whose Stages of Development were benchmarks for measuring and evaluating human behavior back in the 1970s and are STILL in use today in Massachusetts Public Schools, which is still the #1-rank public school system in a vastly polarized nation going through what many people are praying are just growing pains.

So how does this relate to the sport of lacrosse?

Well, lacrosse is played outside when it’s hot out.

And it’s also an OLD game that goes way back into Native American history.

The IROQUOIS played it not as a game or sport, but rather as a form of DEADLY WAR.

Imagine instead of a rubber regulation lacrosse ball coming at you, there was a sharp, spiked rock.

It was intense.

Today, I saw this guy outside my car as I was driving home from Best Buy, my mission to find that little circular magnetic ring, thwarted by the fact that Best Buy did not carry them.

This guy was like 19.

He was a white guy. He had blonde hair and blue eyes.

No, I wasn’t being creepy.

I observe things about people VERY quickly.

He was holding a leaf blower and walking up and down the lawn of another yard, looking for more leaves to blow, presumably.

So I rolled up next to him.

(I know… a middle aged man INITIATING an Interaction. What came over me? Someone call the FBI. LOL.)

He looked hot.

Nope. You missed it again.

TEMPERATURE.

He looked like he MIGHT DEHYDRATE SOON.

And that can sneak up on anyone.

Good thing Pick here is the Gatorade Fairy of Eastern Avenue.

I had my cooler on the floor of the passenger side of my car.

So I pulled up a safe distance away and grabbed an ice-cold, label-sweating-with-cool-water lemon-lime Gatorade Zero.

And I rolled down my drivers side window and without a word, stuck my arm out with the Gatorade extended towards him in a friendly offering gesture while look sort of up to the right and away from him, with no sunglasses on.

I also took off my Tulane hat so my bald head and grey/brown hair was sparkling in the sun in a hairdo nobody wants.

He looked at me quizzically.

He had no idea what I was doing.

So I said “Hey dude. I used to be a lacrosse coach. Do you want this Gatorade Zero? It’s sealed from the store. It looks like it must be like 90 degrees out.”

He blinks at me twice.

My car was like 6 feet away, so from his perspective, there was no chance I was going to jump out the window to eat him.

He shakes his head, as if waking up from a bad dream and smiles.

He walks up as he turns off the leaf blower and says; “Hey. Sorry. Yeah, sure!”

So I didn’t move a muscle. I sat there and LET HIM take the Gatorade from my hand.

He said “Why are you doing this?”

I said “Old teacher habits die hard I guess. I used to be a Spanish Teacher for 14 years and I live right there…”

And I pointed at my house.

He goes: “Oh. Cool. Thanks.”

What’s the point of this story?

There are several:

• All of us need to DROP the whole “random people are terrifying” thing. For those of us who aren’t scared of people, it’s gotten kinda stale.

• Having your guard up is one thing. Paranoia is another.

• America wasn’t built, either by Democrats or Republicans, or people of any race/gender/religion combo, by cowards. We are not supposed to be COWARDLY people. To me, that’s the main “glitch in the matrix” out there I witness every day in my random travels.

• It would help to remember that BASIC THINGS connect MOST with STRANGERS. Dude was thirsty. I offered Dude a drink of a clean, safe substance that was purchased at a gas station minutes before. This is what was known as SHARING before social media existed.

• WHY did I share? Wanted to help the guy be less thirsty.

• WHY? Because if I was 19 and I was thirsty as hell from working out in the hot sun all morning, I’d appreciate it if someone brought me a Gatorade Zero.

Conclusion: We all know SCOLDING won’t FIX America. Plus, we all already had mothers, and whether they did a good job or a poor job raising us, she was the only mother we had. What’s that mean? It means we come from where we come from and we become who we become regardless of MOST of our efforts.

Famous Quote: A (hu)man usually meets his (hers/their) DESTINY on the road we take to AVOID IT.

No matter WHAT happens to me in my own personal life, I always end up being, behaving and acting like that teacher/coach I once was because helping people FIGURE STUFF OUT, watching the AH-HA moment on their faces was gold, and also serving others NEEDS.

Anyone seen that show The Bear on Netflix about the kitchen in Chicago?

Image: Richie from The Bear.

I identify most with this character from this show because Richie, for a long time, was CONFLICTED about his OWN VALUES.

Richie's Personal Journey —> Link to a great article on Richie’s Personal Journey as a character.

He thought he was as TOUGH GUY, didn’t he?

SPOILER ALERT

Richie was a BIG TEDDY BEAR who just loved SERVING HIS CUSTOMERS in the restaurant because, like most of us, Richie, at the end of the day, just wanted to feel NEEDED.

That’s not a FEMININE trait. Or a MASCULINE one. Or a TRANS one.

It’s a HUMAN ONE.

Awesome people like Richie are CALLED TO SERVE OTHERS, but our SELFISH CONSUMIST SOCIETY tells the Richies out there “You can’t do that. That’s WEAK.”

Wrong.

It’s WEAK to:

• Resist your own nature.

• Think HELPING someone with kindness is STUPID.

• Discourage an attitude of HELPFULNESS in any classroom, business setting, corporate team, etc.

So here’s my reflection question for anyone reading this today?

• Do you think helping others is WEAK?

• If so, why?

• Has that helped you? Or hurt you?

• Does a lack of general HELPFULNESS characterize our dark-ish modern era?

• If so, how?

My own personal take is that A LOT of problems America has right now can be solved if people were more like RICHIE from the BEAR.

• a go-getter

• safely intense about his beliefs

• loyal person

• hard worker

• open about his problems and asking for help when needed

• willing to do the work to expand his horizons and become the person he was meant to be

Image: Richie carefully planning some aspect of the family’s restaurant business in Season 2 of The Bear.

Right here. This shot.

THIS is the REAL RICHIE.

See those WORRY LINES on his forehead? He’s not SCARED. He’s CONCENTRATING. He gives a crap.

See how PAINSTAKINGLY he hangs up that picture? He puts CARE into everything he does.

Notice his t-shirt: It’s just a simple restaurant, but his shirt is CLEAN. That reflects his level of care for his work.

Richie ARGUES with people a lot, but they STILL listen to him and don’t throw him out of the social group or business partnership, right?

Why IS that, do you think?

My take is that it’s because even when he is up in their faces being upset, the fact that RICHIE CARES THE MOST about the entire brand, facility, menu, etc etc.

And this SHINES THROUGH LIKE GANGBUSTERS in the Character of RICHIE, a fictitious character, who if were a REAL PERSON, I would admire a great deal as a coworker and friend.

Also, his relationship with his daughter is amazingly depicted.

There is NO DOUBT in the viewers’ minds that Richie loves that kid with body/mind/soul.

Richie may be a pit unpolished and gruff, but he’s seen a lot in life.

He hasn’t had it easy at any twist and turn of his road.

Image: Professional Host Richie looking sharp with a sharp look on his face. Is he ANGRY? I don’t think so. Someone who looks INTENSE can just be someone who cares a great deal and works super hard to show other people that he is working hard to try and be the best example of how well things can go when we focus on HONORING OUR OWN VALUES.

Image: The Bear Cast.

The guy on the far left in the backwards baseball cap kind of looks like my brother Ryan who is General Manager of a (legal) Marijuana Dispensary in Maine.

These characters are called ARCHETYPES. From Scribophile (below - pardon the messy format.

Image: NOTICE MY ARROWS.

We were ALL taught one GIANT LIE back in high school and one that perpetuates itself throughout workplaces all over the world.

This LIE was one reason I founded Blaine & Gonzalez, LLC in 2010 and will keep on founding companies as opposed to work in any traditional workplace ever again for as long as I live, so help me God.

The LIE in America is that THERE ARE NO UNIVERSAL TRUTHS.

Instead, we have this culture where competing FACTIONS of IDENTITIES all VIE FOR SUPERIORITY.

It’s STUPID.

It’s TRANSPARENTLY DUMB.

And The Donald Trump vs. Joe Biden thing, no matter what side of that you come down on, pretty much meant that Americans FINALLY have a chance to just SHED THAT BROKEN PAST and all those LIES once and for all.

Which is nice.

I joined Substack a month ago, and at first I did not really realize what this place is.

And maybe I still don’t and maybe I never will. Don’t care either way.

But what I do care about is that it seems like there a LOT (20m?) of people who would VIBE on this point.

And that’s fucking awesome.

Cheers,

-Pick “The Gatorade Fairy of Eastern Avenue”

So look… I was born in 1978. I identify as Justin Pickering and that’s good enough for me.

BUT…

If I HAVE TO pick one thing to Identify with… It would be GATORADE FAIRY.

Image: ME telling you to HYDRATE.

And that has to be good enough, because that’s all there is.

Thanks for reading.