Fight Holiday Blues

Holiday Depression?

It’s sad to read social media posts of friends and acquaintances who have emotional troubles around the holiday season.

I used to be one of those people but now look forward to this time of the year and embrace it for everything it’s worth.

There has been great tragedy in my life’s history and for a bunch of years I would basically hide, rehash, and sulk for a good solid month.

Holidays are rich in family tradition and it’s very easy to remember all of the good times from our childhoods and how all of our family members were alive and now, perhaps, they are not.

Coupled with any other sort of negative experience many people simply associate the loss of family members and those other associated tragedies with the Christmas season and fall into a funk.

So how does someone overcome these negative feelings, particularly right now?

It takes effort, pure and simple. It takes a conscious decision to make a change. Traditions are habits, after all, and to change a habit, particularly one which is associated with negativity or one which is simply a bad habit, one must do something different.

Believe me…everyone, and I mean every one of your friends, acquaintances and associates would rather see you happy and would rather not have you drag them in to your cauldron of misery.

It is time to pull your own self out of your hole, move forward, be happy and spread happiness.

Here are some of the steps I took when I finally decided that I was no longer going to hibernate for that month between Thanksgiving and Christmas and stop being such a drag on anyone else who came across my path. Pick and choose anything or simply get the main idea and make some sort of change that will help you improve your well-being. (This list is filled with the word “I” too much, but I can only write about my own experiences and what worked.)

-        -  I took vacation for the last two weeks of the year. I stopped, slowed down everything, and took off time. No, I did not get paid for the time off. I took it to help save myself and it was worth every dollar I lost.

-        -  I had a Christmas party every year for a while. I invited close friends and made food and bought food. I told everyone not to bring anything except a personalized ornament of some sort for my Christmas tree. I still have those ornaments today and value them greatly.

-        -  I went to Christmas shows…didn’t care what they were; anything from a high school play to a Broadway show, I made sure to see something every year.

-        -  I took drives to look at decorated homes. There are some people out there who out incredible displays. That spirit is infectious.

-       -  I saved and saved and went to Disney World the week before Christmas one year (and am leaving tomorrow for there as well.) It is impossible to not have one’s whole attitude change at this place. Again, it’s costly, but my mental health is worth every penny. Go SOME place which embraces the fullest extent of the season’s spirit.

-        -  I took dogs of mine to have pictures taken with Santa (I don't have any children.) It then became impossible to frown when looking at those pictures…particularly one in which my dog, Brother, was red rocketing and I knew it and had to do what I could to cover it up in the shot.

With Sasha and Santa

-         - I went to Christmas Eve masses. I’m not even religious but I would go because I knew there would be people there who had a completely different faith and idea about the whole season. One year I even ended up at a Guatemalan mass in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the entire service was in Spanish. I didn’t understand a thing that was said, except the word Jesus, the whole evening, but had a blast and will never forget it.

-        -   I decorated the outside of my house with lights. I never really did that in the past and my parents didn’t either. Now, I do.

I think the whole point is that I decided to create new positive memories and even some new traditions. Some of those new traditions had to be scrapped because some other negative experience happened. But I knew I could just do something else and recall the best of those times when I did originally change what I did.

Everyone accumulates a list a heartbreaks and tragedies in their lives. We all walk down very well beaten paths and while we think we have some unique horror that keeps us down, we always eventually find out that, for the most part, we have things pretty good.

It is, by the way, OK to grieve a bit. Take a day and do so each year, if you wish. Take ONE day and do that. Hide in the basement under a blanket with a big ice-cream pizza if  you wish. Call it your grieving day or your memorial day, or what have you. Get it done in that ONE day and one day only.

We need to remain thankful and positive and while it certainly can be difficult it simply takes some work and that work and that change begins with a simple decision.

It is all up to you, though. No one else can take any step for you. At the very least take a step to do something that will make someone else happy.

But, perhaps, taking some action to help yourself IS that step that will make someone else happy.

Just take the step.

Some Post Election Thoughts

All politics are local and personal and one's perception is one's reality.

There is nothing anyone can write or say that will change anyone's mind about what happened in the election or what might happen in the future.

Certainly I am not someone who has great powers of persuasion outside the realm of my stage hypnosis show (HAHA...I hypnotized over 2000 people last year in my shows and told them all to vote for Trump!)

But besides that, no one pays any attention to anything I have to say.

I have been afraid to say, or write, much in the past 5 months as evidenced by the date of my last entry here.

Why is that? Why in the United States of America should I have been afraid to speak?

Hmm...let's see. Well, there were times that when I did comment publicly on Facebook, for example, I was called names...traitor and racist among the names. Why? Because of the person I supported in the election.

Because I knew the IRS was being used as a tool of intimidation for those who did not support the current administration. (Not that I had any money left to be of any concern to them.)

Because I knew that since in the economy of the past 8 years I was wiped out financially and because I needed to do things like...oh, I don't know...maybe...EAT...I had to toe the line, keep my mouth shut otherwise face the possible consequence of not getting work from a place which believed I had to believe the way they did or they wouldn't hire me.

There are even a couple of other reasons, but the point should be noted with those.

Eight years ago on the day after Obama was elected I happened to be in Union Square in NYC doing a show that evening. I had time to walk around the area and in the open-air market that was operating in the square there was genuine excitement. Lots of people were selling Obama merchandise and people were smiling and there was a sense of hope.

I wasn't happy at all. Some of my concerns were realized within the next two weeks as I had 8 corporate holiday shows I had booked cancel on me. That's right...8...not one because of some fluke, but 8. Businesses saw the writing on the wall right away. They knew that higher taxes and increased regulations that were going to cost them money were on the horizon. Christmas parties were one of the amenities that were easy to cut out or, at least, cutting out the entertainer for the party was easy to do.

Yet, at that moment in Union Square I thought..."well, good for them. Some of these people have finally seen something happen that they believed would never happen in their lifetimes...a black President." I'm sure that wasn't the only reason, but it was surely one of them.

I couldn't have cared less about that; I cared about his beliefs when it came to things like the economy, my most important concern. But, still, I was resigned to the fact of what happened and was glad for those who were happy, even though I didn't know any of them.

What I didn't do that day, or in any of the days and years after that, was take to the streets and riot and destroy shit. I spoke my mind for a while and everyone should have the right to do that...within the confines of accepted community standards...and not have to fear reprisal or consequence.

Fast forward 8 years to November 2016 in Union Square and the protests over what happened last week. Want to know what I noticed? No one there seems to be happy for me. Not that anyone owes me anything; no one knew I was happy for them, but there hasn't been the same sentiment I had for some people back then coming my way.

A couple of weeks before the election business was very slow for me, as far as getting requests for show proposals was concerned. I knew why...people were waiting to see what was going to happen. Individuals, groups and businesses were going to make decisions based on the results. See, it actually DOES matter who is President, for at least that much.

Sure enough, in the next two days after the election I received 8 proposals and booked two shows. I'll probably get a couple more by the end of this week.

Suddenly in this past week my phone started to ring again. I help people with hypnotherapy but insurance doesn't pay for any of it so clients have to pay cash. A few appointments were booked.

A small business I have run for 20 years will remain open and the couple of people who work with me part time will have that way to make some extra money.

I was asked to work for a new start-up business which was started based on the result of the election. The position is working at something I did for ten years but had to stop because the economy crushed it.

That doesn't mean that just because the Presidency changed that everything is going to suddenly be OK with the economy. Its still going to take a couple of years...and then HOPEFULLY, things will turn around here. I sit in rubble of what had been destroyed over these years. It will take time to rebuild. At least I know there is a businessman leading the way and will hopefully remove some of the legitimate obstacles which had been placed in my path. Sure, I had some successes along the way and I survived. I just didn't have resources remaining to thrive in spite of everything...like far too many people.

I have always thought that politicians needed to go and those with business acumen should run this place like a business.

Some people believe everything was just fine. Well, if you work for a government agency of some sort it probably was. If you didn't, like me, it surely wasn't. This is the major debate...should the government be larger and more powerful or should the private sector be larger and more powerful.

I believe that since our country was founded by people who fled from larger and powerful governments and people from all around the world have come here for the same reason that the private sector...and the people within it...should have the power; certainly not the government which has the most powerful army in the world and powerful tools such as the IRS at their disposal to use to keep the people in line.

That's just what I have come to believe after living here for almost 55 years now. I see those in the streets protesting who aren't happy for me (and for those who will benefit from jobs that I will create in the next few years) and know that they don't have that life experience. I believe that what they are learning about the type of government they seem to want is simply wrong.




Perhaps I will jot down some more thoughts in the next couple of weeks about this. Maybe not...who knows. I really just wrote this for me and the 4 or 5 friends who do read this. Hopefully, while they might not be happy about the results they might at least take a moment and be happy that I am happy about it.

Done

Sabermetrics and Soda

I promised baseball for the 5 people who read this blog so baseball it will be, at first.

There is a statistical tracking club for baseball called SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) which analyzes baseball and has come up with categories of statistics called SABERMETRICS over the past couple of decades.

While I am someone who appreciates baseball for its statistical compilations this club has come up with really stupid stat categories yet leaves out a couple very, very important ones; ones which I believe should be a couple of the most important measures of a players offensive importance.

Wins Above Replacement, or WAR, is the most asinine of these stats. 

Here is the definition of WAR : WAR attempts to measure a player's value - expressed in wins - over that which would have been contributed by a fictional "replacement-level player" (essentially a AAA-quality player who can be readily acquired by a team at any time for the league's minimum salary) in the same amount of playing time.

The framework is simple: start with a player's Runs Above Average in various categories - batting, baserunning, double play avoidance, and fielding (plus a position adjustment) on the position-player side, and runs allowed below the league average (adjusting for park, opponents, leverage, and defense) for pitchers. Then figure out how far, in runs, the average player would have been from the replacement level in the player's playing time, and add that to their RAA. The result is Runs Above Replacement, which can be converted to Wins Above Replacement by using a runs-to-wins conversion factor (usually 10 runs = 1 win).

Huh? Total nonsense. 

There are so many variables which are unaccounted in some of these areas that it makes this a complete fantasy. Yet, there are people who swear by this and this statistic, alone, was at the center of a major debate in the 2012 AL MVP race between Miguel Cabrera and Mike Trout.

Trout, who strikes out at least 150 times a year still gets called the greatest player in the game. No one can be called one of the greatest players in the game with that many strikeouts, I’m sorry to say. 

So WAR is dumb.

Here is the other one that drives me nuts…OPS. This one is On Base Percentage plus Slugging Percentage. They add two stats together and come up with this one.

On Base Percentage IS one of the more valuable measures of a players offensive worth. People need to be on base in order for a team to score runs. A homerun is measured as a time on base so it’s a great tool to use to measure an offensive ability. It doesn’t tell anyone WHEN a player gets on base, but even if a team is trailing by a large margin, it still needs players on base in order to mount any sort of a comeback.

Slugging Percentage has always been pretty much of a waste of a stat. Its totals bases divided by times at bat. So if a player is up one time and hits a homerun, that is 4 total bases (a triple would be 3, double, 2, single 1.) The highest someone could manage to get is 4.000. It’s a measure of a power hitter, more than anything else, but if you read a players statistical line and see that they have hit 30 or 40 homeruns a year that is already obvious. 

So since we have those two stats already, and they are telling two different stories, the stat of OPS is a complete waste of time. It doesn’t tell the whole story about a player anyway. If someone has an OPS of .800, what is the stat that is the highest contributor to that total number? If I am a GM and I want a power hitter, I want the Slugging Percentage (although I’m just going to look at the amount of extra base hits he has anyway) and if I want to know if the player gets on base I want to know the On Base Percentage.

There used to be a stat called Game Winning RBI. Now, that sounded like a good one but its now no longer officially kept. Well, they figured it out wrong and that's why it failed. If someone drove in a run to make it 1-0 and the team held the lead all game long but won 10-9, the guy who drove in that very first run got credit for the GWRBI. This scenario is a bit tricky since there is no lead change, but really the guy who drove in the 10^th run is the guy who should have received credit for the GWRBI.

Now, the stats that SHOULD be officially tracked are Game Tying RBIS and Go Ahead RBIS. These are rubs driven in, at any point in any game, which obviously either tie up a game or give a team a lead. These are measures of REAL clutch hitters.

A player could get one of each if he were to hit a 2-run homerun with his team trailing by a run and gave them a lead. If a team was down by four and he hit a grandslam that’s still just one game-tying RBI. That is how this stat would be compiled.

The stat of hitting with Runners in Scoring Position is a decent stat but a runner in scoring position means that a runner is either on second and/or third. If a guy hits a solo homerun, or drives in a run from 1^st base he doesn’t get credit for a positive RISP stat. Game Tying and Go Ahead RBIS handle all of that. 

If I was a GM for a major league baseball team I would hire a statistical tracking service to find out who out there drives in the most of those kinds of runs. It’s one thing to have 6 rbis in a game but they all came when the team was losing by 15 runs, or something. Its quite another thing to have a guy drive in one run in a game but that run tied up the game at some point during the game.

So I would find those true clutch hitters and the guys with the highest On Base Percentage and do what I could to get them on my team.

But, no one is ever going to hire me to run a baseball team.

However, I CAN become a member of SABR and officially pitch those two stats. I would have to make a case for it and just don’t have the time. But if one of you five people who have read this are looking for something to do, feel free to take on my cause.

On one of the next tapings of WoW with Marsh & Mike we are going to discuss the fact that the City of Philadelphia just passed a soda tax. Now there is going to be an additional 1.5 cents per ounce charged to each soda purchase, whether its regular soda or even diet soda.

This communist tax is one which is supposed to help keep fat people from staying fat and they are using the children of Philadelphia as an excuse to implement this tax.

The problem with these taxes, as is the case with tobacco taxes, is that revenues only go up for a short period of time, then decrease. Budgets will be made predicting all sorts of windfall revenues from these taxes. Then when the revenue begins to dry up the communist politicians will figure out something else to tax.

Yes, I’m going to continue to use the term communist, because that is only what this is. Deal with it.

I already heard the new communist mayor of Philadelphia say this morning that this is “just the beginning,” with my own ears. 

These people need to be defeated…at every level. Every. Single. Level.

That’s it.

Done.