Born to a Barbadian carpenter and an Englishwoman, Tull was a renown professional soccer player (having played for Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town), and was the first black commissioned infantry officer in the British Army.  Upon the death of his parents, young Tull was sent to an orphanage along with his brother, who interestingly enough, became Great Britain’s first black practicing dentist.  Tull’s soccer career flourished, making many first team appearances for his clubs before he enlisted in the infantry at the outbreak of World War I.

Tull distinguished himself on the battlefield, and was commissioned as Second Lieutenant in 1917, despite the British Army forbidding persons of color to hold such rank.  He fought in 6 major engagements, was noted for gallantry, and was recommended for a Military Cross.  Tull was killed in France in 1918, just 8 months before the war’s end.

When The History Channel launched in 1995, I thought I was in heaven.  I remember seeing an advertisement for the channel some months before it first aired, and I about crapped my pants out of pure joy; an entire channel devoted solely to history?  It sounded like a dream!  And for a long time, it was.  At any given time, you could flip that bad boy on and spend hours watching specials on WWII, the Civil War, and all sorts of historically relevant goodness.  The network even launched History International, which focused more on world events.  It was a great time to be a history fan, no doubt, with all of those gems tucked neatly into one amazing channel.

Then the reality TV boom hit, and just like that, the fabled joy of historical television went the way of the passenger pigeon.  I was flipping channels this morning and happened to see a WWII documentary on- and I did a double take.  The History Channel was actually showing history?  Was my brain playing a trick on me?  What’s the world coming to?  The channel has gone the way of MTV (and seemingly every other channel, for that manner), and almost exclusively airs reality programming.  It’s all day Appalachian Outlaws (you’ve gotta me be kidding me on that one), Mountain Men, Ax Men, Ice Road Truckers, Swamp People (c’mon now), Pawn Stars, and a slew of absolute junk that has zero to do with anybody’s history.  It makes me wonder why the hell I don’t have a show…I couldn’t do any worse than The Legend of Shelby the Swamp Man, right?  Why even call it the History Channel, then?

I do think that it’s an absolute crime that kids today (and the majority of adults for that matter) know more about Snookie and the Housewives, Bieber, and the Kardashians than they do about the events that have shaped the climate of the world they live in.  And a channel like the History Channel, the ultimate platform for promoting the genre, only showing shock value garbage like Cajun Pawn Stars, is pure blasphemy.  It’s a testament to the consistent dumbing down of the American public at the hands of mainstream media.  As long as folks keep watching Duck Dynasty, networks will keep putting that meal onto our plates.  I’m not insulting anyone for their viewing tastes, mind you, but rather the lack of variety or intellectual fare available.  As it stands, no channel really shows much of anything anymore- it’s pretty much a steady stream of reality TV; channels like the History Channel (or Discovery, A&E, and other channels that have abandoned any attempt at relevance) have the power to fill a great void, but manage to maintain a viewer base with shows created purely for the wow factor (Honey Boo Boo, anyone?).  It says a lot when the American public knows more about who won American Idol than they do about who won the Civil War.  That’s just my take on it.

Hello there, post number 300!  I’m actually pretty surprised that I’ve posted quite so many times over the years.  It all sort of crept up on me.  This is my 300^th post, so I got to thinking about what I’ve learned as a result of all this writing.  I decided to forgo a poem, a movie review, a Distinguished Dude, or some Essential Egon; instead, I resolved to make a few brief points.

What I’ve discovered is that you truly can’t be afraid to reinvent yourself- you can’t be afraid to fail.  Failure is as common as anything that we’ll experience in life, but it should be viewed as a tool rather than a fear.  There is no effort without a bit of failure, and that failure will ultimately teach us how to tweak things next time.  We will hopefully learn from them, make the necessary adjustments, and move forward.  Realistically, we can’t be angry with ourselves, or with anyone for that matter, if we refused to even try.  Giving something a genuine shot is step one.  I spoke to an old friend over the weekend (and when a 95 year old gives you life tips, you’d better listen), and one of the things she said was “when you’re young, you can always start over; you can do anything.”  Those words hit home.  Time flies and goes on, yes, but one can always start again.  Life is full of second chances and new beginnings.  There are a bazillion cliches and Lifetime movies that coincide with that theme.  You can always overcome, persevere, and be the person that you’ve always dreamed of being.  It’s true.  Hearing her say that reminded me that it’s never too late, despite the rapid tick of the clock.

It’s true that time flies exponentially the older we get, but we’re lucky and blessed just to have made it this far; plenty of people whose time came and went would love to be in our shoes right about now.  Each day is the first word of a new sentence, a paragraph, a page, and we are the writer as well as the reader.  Don’t like the current page?  Write a new one.

What I’ve learned, essentially, is that you just keep going.  Plain and simple.  You keep on pushing.  Odds?  What odds?  Challenges?  Bring ‘em on.  Create your own fate, your own destiny.  People talk of destiny as if one is required to follow the path laid before us, cookie cutter style.  Fuck that; bulldoze your own trail if need be- steamroll that shit and construct a destiny that will satisfy you.  Defy the stereotypical norm; there are no expectations except those that society puts forth.  Buck the trend; all that matters, all the tools that we need, are inside of us.  We were born equipped with all of the things we seek externally.  We are like human Swiss army knives- capable, durable (and often full of a bunch of shit that we don’t need), and ready for any challenge that the universe throws at us.  It’s our choice though, to be ready for that challenge when it comes.  One day needs to be TOday, and TOmorrow just as often needs to morph into TOday.  Break that backburner…don’t relegate anything to that joint.  Whatever gets put back there inevitably gets scorched, torched, and destroyed.

Keep those dreams lucid, but make a solid plan to help them materialize.  Lay a foundation; no hefty idea is solid and robust without one.  Dreams do no good collecting dust in that old brain of yours, right?  A dream is just a random thought until you lay that foundation.  True resolve comes from DOING.

Go write.
Go draw.
Go run.
Go study.
Go to the bathroom.
Go do whatever – just do something.

The key is less sitting and more doing.  Don’t kick yourself for never having tried.  Try something old, or new, or different, and discover what it is that makes you happy.  Go find that happy; it’s out there right now, just waiting for you – you’ll know it when you see it.*

Frost on a summer day:
all I leave behind is water
that has washed my brush.
-Shutei

Cicada shell:
little did I know
it was my life.
-Shuho

How leisurely the
cherry blossoms bloom this year,
unhurried by their doom.
-Kin’U

Though I tarry
on the road my master took,
above us glows one moon.
Isaibo

You cannot tell
its taste to him
who never tasted blowfish.
-Daibai

Farewell-
I pass as all things do
dew on the grass.
-Banzan

Life is like a cloud of mist
Emerging from a mountain cave
And death
A floating moon
In its celestial course.
If you think to much
About the meaning they may have
You’ll be bound forever
Like an ass to a stake.
-Mumon Gensen

Life is an ever-rolling wheel
And every day is the right one
He who recites poems at his death
Adds frost to snow.
-Mumon Gensen

Autumn wind of eve,
blow away the clouds that mass
over the moon’s pure light
and the mists that cloud our mind,
do thou sweep away as well.
Now we disappear,
well, what must we think of it?
From the sky we came.
Now we may go back again.
That’s at least one point of view.
-Hojo Ujimasa

Whether one passes on or remains is all the same.
That you can take no one with you is the only difference.
Ah, how pleasant! Two awakenings and one sleep.
This dream of a fleeing world! The roseate hues of early dawn!
-Tokugawa Ieyasu

Even a life-long prosperity is but one cup of sake;
A life of forty-nine years is passed in a dream;
I know not what life is, nor death.
Year in year out-all but a dream.
Both Heaven and Hell are left behind;
I stand in the moonlit dawn,
Free from clouds of attachment.
-Uesugi Kenshin

Death poems
are mere delusion-
death is death.
-Toko

A face masked in blue,
and partitioned by the shadows of
midnight-
on hands and knees atop the crust of
winter,
warm breath was spewed into the
starlight,
there to mingle with the moon,
full and reflective and stern-
tears descended like lost raindrops
and burrowed into the snow-
all the caterpillar wants is
change,
the warmth of comfort,
and the peace of certainty and
understanding-
it is there, wrapped tightly beneath
unfurled wings*

The summit is for those who do not fear the perils of the climb.

It is the general whose mind remains squarely focused on the battles of the past whose tactics will be unprepared for the wars of the future.

When you want something more than you can comprehend, your motivation to succeed has got to be stronger than your motivation to quit.

What is the importance of a final day-
a farewell to the old?
the stereotypical hello to the new?
what does it mean to move forward
or back,
like the tick of the clock,
the sway of the wind,
the rising of the sun?
what must we make of it,
and do we have a choice?
what questions need to be asked of the past,
in order to give the present thought, and
in order to make the future think twice-
what is a last day but another attempt
at a beginning-
one turns to two,
night turns to day,
seeds blossom,
seasons blend,
life will flower,
thrive,
dwindle,
and then dim-
whatever tomorrow is, it will come-
whatever tomorrow brings must be accepted
with open arms-
whatever must be done, must be done
moving forward*

Sam threw open the doors and we darted in as fast as we could, and before we knew it, he was rigging them back up with the clinking heavy link chains.  Sally and I hurriedly chipped in and fumbled with the chairs and the tables, and did the best we could to re-create the makeshift barrier that those in the bar had created to shield themselves from the chaos of the outside world.  Sam weaved the chains in and out of the double door handles as securely as possible, and joined the whole steel pretzel together with that monster padlock.  He jiggled the whole thing a few times just to make sure, and it clanged and jingled with a low, ominous resonance; from the look of it, it was as drum tight as a bank vault.  And for whatever reason, we were now safer behind it.  Sam took in a long, slow breath, looked out the window, and then looked over at us.  “Frank Dorchester…fine time to finally make it in for a drink, huh?”  He reached out his arms and flashed me a frugal, tight-lipped smile, and pulled me in for a hug; he was a good friend, and it had been too long.  We clasped each other and he gave my back a few hardy slaps before he pushed back and took a look at Sally.  I introduced the two, and Sally shook his hand and thanked him for what he did…thanked him for saving us from those fucking thugs out there.

We both blurted it out at the same time before we realized that we’d spoken over one another, “What the hell is going on, Sam?”, Sally and I both asked in unison.  My hands were still shaking from the shock of what I’d done out there.  What the hell would the consequences be?  I was a fucking murderer now…I mean, I killed a man…men.  But wasn’t it self defense?  I had to do it, right?  Before I could finish the horror of that thought, Sam was offering us a drink, and walked us over to the bar.  We gratefully followed.  Five or six people spread out from the shadows and quietly greeted us from a distance, all patrons that had been drinking at the bar when it was attacked by the kids outside; now prisoners in this mess that we were all entangled in.  They all looked fucking shell shocked.  We greeted each one with a hello and a nod and took Sam up on that drink, and he twisted off the cap and took a long slug of whiskey.  He explained how the night began as a normal night…what night doesn’t begin as a normal night, right….and how a guy came in bleeding and screaming and frantic out of his mind.  Behind him were two or three friends that had carried him in, pleading for somebody to call the cops.  The guy was apparently pretty busted up, so Sam got on the line and dialed the sheriff, and two deputies showed up not long after.  “It was a mess, Frank”, he kept saying, then trailed off into silence.  “They um, they bit Bobby, Frank”, he said, before he trailed off once more.  “The sheriff, you mean?”, I had to ask, just to make sure we were on the same page.  “Yeah”, he replied…”Those kids out there…they…they uh….they ate him”.