There will be no order to how and when I do this, just as I feel inspired.  There will also be a lot of catching up on things I love, in no particular order.

OK…time to post things I love…

I don’t know about you, but when I go to a new place, whether that place is on the other side of the world, or the town over, I like to ensure that I have sampled the local cuisine.

It’s a guilty pleasure, and I know I’m not alone.

Buddhism teaches us that forming unhealthy attachments will lead to suffering.  In the Dalai Lama’s teachings, he explains that food is also one of these vices that lead to suffering.  And he makes good points.  Obviously, there are eating disorders, which not only include anorexia and bulimia, but obviously gorging as well (with or without the purge).

Sure, we love the way the food tastes in the beginning, but what about when we eat too much?  Then we feel sick, whether immediately, or as we finish the digestive cycle.  So does that make food bad?

Woah…let’s not over-react.

When we travel, what do we really want to do?  Some people love to stay in a comfortable bubble.  If you are a fan of traveling in luxury, you do this quite a bit.  Your resort gives you a world within a new world, and your arranged tours will give you pockets of the local culture, but unless you take some serious ventures out into the wild, you are really just reliving your own life in a different pocket of this vastly diverse planet.

For others, the best parts of traveling are seeing vast landscapes that are different from where we live, see the historical sights and monuments, and if you are really a lover of traveling, you chat with the locals, behave like the locals (don’t over-do it!), and  eat where the locals eat.

The phrase “When in Rome” comes to mind, not the least because I write this as I am in the middle of my duration in Rome, the incredible capital of Italy, where love is palpable, history is everywhere, and food is a language.

I have always consumed more than the average human being.  At some point in my physiological development, the gag reflex that tells people to stop, went numb.  There have been numerous occasions when I am drinking 3-4 different beverages at a time.  Usually that beverage is tea, then water, then juice.  I have gone to parties (you know, the ones where people drink a lot of alcohol) with a 2-liter bottle of Japanese green tea, which I have been reminded all too often looks like a bottle of urine.  My food consumption is no different.  Some of my favorite personal anecdotes are based upon practices with food, like the time when I was in China and needed a taste of home, so we went to Pizza Hut and I ate a medium pepperoni pie by myself, then took one to go for the train ride.

For quite some time, I had wondered about why I had a big chest.  My waist is still a decent 32, my stomach is definitely not toned, but my chest sticks out like I am trying to pretend I am a body builder.  But I’m not.  At first, I thought it was a case of large lungs, which I now think is not the most accurate diagnosis, as I cough up grossness every morning.  My heart is very strong, but I am no Secretariat.  It’s not taking up my whole chest.  And then it all made sense.  My most faithful of organs (discluding the heartburn/acid reflux, of course…I have no clue why that happens), my stomach, had grown to allow me to keep it full at all hours of the day, in any situation.

No, I’m not thin.  But I’m not obese either.  I had one period in my life that I was vastly overweight (this is referred to as my “Fat Elvis period”, an allusion to John Lennon’s observation of his own weight in 1965), but I not only brought that back down within a span of 6 months, I dropped down to the same waist size as when I was 12 years old.  Consumption quantity never changed, just the quality of the ingredients and the state of mind of the consumer.  Hockey was also a significant catalyst.  When I re-started my love affair with the game, I spent many hours a week on the ice, using up as many calories as my body could hold.

But now is a different story.  Because of my extended travel, I haven’t been on the ice in well over 2 months, and that was only for 1 day.  My only withdrawal that I have experienced on this trip is from hockey, the impetus for the original destination on this voyage.

Sure, I was in India for over 3 months, where stomach illness and bowel movements become standard conversation with tourists who were strangers just 30 minutes before.  Most people inevitably lose weight, but not me.  I love Indian food.  I shoveled down Naan, Lassis, Butter Chicken, Samosa, Kathi Rolls, and Dosai.  Oh, and a few too many gulab jamun (fried milk-powder) balls.  When I finally parted ways with the Subcontinent, not only was my luggage overweight, but so was the passenger.

You would think that it would improve when I got to Germany, Munich to be exact.  But it’s quite possible that the situation worsened.

Bicycles are everywhere in the streets of Munich, and it’s a beautiful city to stroll around.  It seems like everyone is burning off the calories they consume, which is incredible, considering their staple foods are varieties of sausages and hot-dogs, cream soups, and beer.  The beer is provided in such large doses, that I am convinced people are chewing by the time they have finished their bucket.

Chicken and mutton (goat) are the primary meats of India, so coming across beef and pork concoctions was euphoric.  I used to refrain from eating pig products.  By the end of my stay in Munich, I had tried so many varieties of pig that all I needed was an apple in my mouth, and someone would’ve clubbed me over the head, tied me to a pole, and roasted me over a large fire.

This pattern has continued throughout Europe.  Every place I go, I not only try the local food, I consume it in heavy doses.  I made a very public announcement to people as I arrived in Europe, “My plan is to OD on the local food at every town I go to, to the point that I get sick of it when I leave, and then repeat the process over again at my next destination.”

With no ounce of pride do I announce that I’ve lived up to my promise.  It’s been 5 days since I arrived in Italy.  In that time, I have digested (in some part) 20 servings of pizza (that’s 4/day) and 15 servings of gelato (that’s 3/day).  The only quicker way to death would be an injection of heroine into my heart.

Fortunately, I walk a lot, and keep burning calories, fighting the endless battle between fit and fat.  In the two days I’ve been in Rome, I’ve walked almost 20 miles (yeah, that’s 10 miles/day).  Today, as I was walking while sucking in my abdomen (it’s actually a yoga practice to keep the abs engaged), I stopped off at a local pasticceria.  I passed up dozens of restaurants before picking the one packed in with locals, on some random street in an old part of town.

I asked the Italians next to me what I should order, and they recommended the amatriciana, which when it arrived, I discovered was pasta in a think tomato sauce with pecorino romano & dried pork cheek (fat).  I also ordered bruschetta, but was a bit confused when the pasta arrived first.  Naturally, bread came with the meal.

I easily handled the pasta, with a feeling of satisfaction that I didn’t have big eyes, and the bruschetta would be perfect, whether before or after the meal.  And then a new knife and fork arrived at my table, followed by bistecca 30 seconds later.  If that sounds familiar in your head, it should, it means Beef Steak.  And it was sitting in front of me, glazed with butter.  All I could do was say “wow”, and dig in.

I didn’t want steak.  I didn’t want meat all day.  I had abstained from meat the previous day, as an overload in protein was definitely dragging me down.  But I couldn’t refuse.  Especially in such a local eatery as this.  All I could do was guzzle down more water and red wine, and hope that the liquid would keep my system running in the case of a log jam in the digestive track.  I felt like Homer Simpson in his steak eating contest (or similarly, his feast on a life-time supply of Krusty Burgers).

So I sit here, half defeated, half motivated.  Sure, I feel gross and overweight.  If someone stabs me in the stomach, there is potential that the ASPCA would also come after the attacker for animal cruelty.  But I am also on vacation.  I am living up to the phrase “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”  I am following my passion for amazing food, and making sure that no cuising goes unsampled, and when I return home to New York, even more over the airline’s weight limit, I will ride the elliptical and stationary bike, or eat fresh arugula salad, and think back to the amazing times I had traveling around the world and gorging my face until it swelled.  And you know what?  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

We have a very ethno-centric mentality at times, especially in the English-speaking world. Our language has directly impacted the way we behave, and how we treat others. The double-edged sword of this fact is that while many Americans may travel around the world with the assumption that everyone needs to know English to get ahead in the world – a position that frequently outrages the inhabitants of those countries, English is the global language. It is used in Air Traffic Control around the world, at the United Nations, and the Olympics.

With 18 year olds being born in 1990, the era of transition into the global community is coming to a close. Today’s children have no experience with the Cold War, or typewriters, or institutionalized racism. NAFTA has been around most of their lives. The events directly impact the state of sports in the world today.

The significance of the USA beating the USSR in 1980 is not as impactful today as it was in the 80s. Many Russians are among the best and most popular players in the NHL. Alex Ovechkin is a superstar that has single-handedly made Washington, D.C. into a hockey-crazed town. Think about that…a Russian athlete is THE star athlete in the capital of the United States of America.

Wow. That gave me chills…in a good way.

Using the Berlin Wall as an example, on November 8 , 2008, the New York Times featured Ice Hockey Helps Raze Berlin Wall in the Mind. The article described how a team that used to be in East Germany is about to begin playing in an arena built where the Berlin Wall used to stand. This team has been a source of unification of former adversaries. Children in America weren’t born in the days of East Germany vs. West Germany, East Berlin vs. West Berlin, USSR vs. NATO, but neither were the German children. Those facts are nothing more than a history lesson, but for the adults who clearly remember those days, this is nothing short of a miracle.

This type of cultural progress is happening all over the world with different initiatives to help connect people. Non-profits have been established by people from all walks of life, interested in using sports to affect those in less privileged regions. Roberto’s Kids is an organization using baseball and the inspiration of Roberto Clemente to positively affect children in third world countries. Right to Play is another organization using sports and play as a means towards improving health, teaching life skills, and fostering peace in disadvantaged areas of the world. Sports, it seems, is the common ground we can all start from.

Some professional teams have also invested resources into this outreach. I had the unique privilege to be heavily involved in Project Hope, an initiative of the New York Islanders to develop youth hockey in northeastern China. Directed by Team USA star Angela Ruggiero, Project Hope was uniting children from China with kids from around the world. In 2006, Project Hope hosted its first youth hockey tournament on Long Island, comprised of a team from Qiqihar, as well as three teams from the New York area. The tournament was an incredible cultural experience, and a great success!

A few weeks later, Angela and I went to China to visit each school affiliated with Project Hope. Unfortunately, for reasons I don’t want to delve into, these schools were provided bare-bone outdoor rinks in the middle of their school yard, minimal equipment, and very little training. Together, Angela and I were dedicated to blowing this program out. We spent 45 minutes on the ice showing the players and the coaches the basics, reinforcing the foundation of the game, but more importantly, we preached the culture.

Hockey is a sport that thrives on teamwork, sportsmanship, trust, accountability, and fun. What we found was that because of the distinct differences in the Asian culture – in particular Chinese culture – as compared to the Western World, players were being worked too hard, too long, and without an understanding of those virtues that hockey is based upon. We also noticed that coaches relied on the best players to assume dominance, but in hockey, the best players succeed by being the best teammates, whether it’s Gretzky, Lemieux or Crosby. To fix this, we showed them drills to enhance creativity, worked on passing, and ran more scrimmages. I also attempted (and failed) to do a summersault on the ice, trying to impart that nothing was out of bounds when it came to being creative and having fun.Let it be known, I was not in full equipment, only a track suit. Anyway, It helped! They were much better the following year at the 2008 tournament!

A year after this visit to China, at the end of 2007, I ran the next international youth hockey tournament for the Islanders, and saw firsthand how much better the Chinese kids improved. They were more relaxed on the ice, had much better team skills, better puckhandling (we showed them a toe-drag drill), and were starting to understand the value of fun in hockey. This was reinforced by the teams from New York and Finland. The kids from all 3 countries bonded immediately, sharing gifts, cheering for each other when they weren’t opposing on the ice, and trying cuisines of the other culture. This is what it’s all about! These kids are going to grow up and always cherish the tournament where they had fun playing against others from around the world, interacting on a personal level, and not caring who won the game, and who scored the most goals.

For the children Project Hope has touched in China, I can take pleasure in knowing that some of the kids I worked with are going to become professional hockey players in China, a country with less than 40 indoor ice arenas, and some of those kids will represent their country in the Olympics. Guaranteed. I hope those kids remember the experience they had interacting with kids from other countries and share the warmth, friendship, and happiness that people are trying to spread around the world through sports.

This is the calling I have been waiting for…to share happiness around the world, one puck at a time, using the sport of ice hockey as the language and culture to bond over. My first destination is Ladakh, a region in Kashmir, India running on solar energy and eco-friendly practices. Phey is a rural, Buddhist village in the Himalayas, looking for volunteers to teach the kids hockey before the ice melts in early February. More information can be found on my website, The Hockey Volunteer.

Stay tuned for more parts of The Cultural Impact of Sports

I will save my Top 5-10 list of movies for another time (I’m going to need to start from the beginning, Dr. No, and watch them ALL again), but here are my rankings for Bond actors…then we’ll get into Quantum of Solace:

1. Daniel Craig – yes, I know, he’s the most recent, but he brings the every emotion and characteristic of the others Bonds, and makes them very much his own.  His Bond is emotional, raw, cocky, smart, aggressive, humorous, tough, strong, and charming.  Between Casino Royale (great movie) and Quantum of Solace (not so great movie), he gives more depth to a character known for being shallow, and I believe it.
2. Pierce Brosnan – again, don’t hate me for picking a recent Bond, but Pierce is just so damn charming!  Yes, he’s a great Thomas Crown, and he’s been in other movies, but they were more like Bond than anything else…admit it, when you picture Bond, you picture Pierce Brosnan, and vice versa!  He didn’t have the best scripts at times, but he made the most out of the movies, and brought the franchise to new heights.  He was funny, charming, witty, and fun!  Who wouldn’t want to be Bond if they were like Pierce!
3. Sean Connery – finally, you say…I’m not saying Sean Connery wasn’t a great Bond, and his impact on the franchise is undeniable, but I think his Bond was as much a reflection of the womanizer and sexist that Connery was (is?) and was not nearly as charming, or fun, or deep as Craig or Brosnon.  Connery’s Bond was a bad-ass, that trusted nobody, kicked the shit out of everybody, and used every woman he came into contact with.  In concept that sounds like the ideal man to most of us guys, but in the end, it’s too shallow and gets old.  From Russia With Love was an incredible movie, and Goldfinger was entertaining, but I am interested to see how they’d play out with Daniel Craig….remake?  Just kidding.
4. Roger Moore – his recent analysis of the franchise makes me want to knock him off the list, but being the reigning champion in most Bond films, I just can’t do it.  Bottom line, he was a funny Bond that had bizarre missions.  What can you do with that?  Live and Let Die and The Man With the Golden Gun were both enjoyable…worthy of a #4 ranking.
5. George Lazenby – why not last?  because it just wasn’t fair…Gets a unique script (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), produced like an LSD trip, right in the middle of Sean Connery movies.  How can anyone judge that objectively?  Bond marrying and losing his wife is definitely an intense moment, and after seeing Craig lose his love, I’m pretty confident he would’ve done a better job.  Nonetheless, Lazenby gets a bad rap, and I am making the executive decision to rank him higher than…
6. Timothy Dalton – bottom line: all-around average.  Movies (Living Daylights and Licence [or License for us Americans] to Kill) were average, and Bond was portrayed averagely.  I also strongly dislike the 80s.  By nature of the decade, Timothy Dalton gets dragged down.  The story of Bond losing his license to kill is interesting, and could be done better, and this is the one thing that makes Quantum of Solace better than it the Dalton movies.

That being said…Quantum of Solace…disappointing.

After the wild success of Casino Royale, arguably one of the best Bond movies ever made (the best in my opinion), Quantum of Solace feels incredibly choppy and poorly concepted.  Casino Royale left many questions unanswered:

1. Did Vesper really betray Bond?
2. Did Vesper really love Bond?
3. What’s the deal with Vesper’s Algerian boyfriend and how does he fit into the story?
4. Was Mathis really bad as Bond suspected?
5. Why was Mathis working both sides?
6. What is the organization Mr. White works for?
7. Does Gettler work for the same organization?
8. Will Bond learn from his raw mistakes as a new 00 agent?
9. Will Bond respond emotionally to losing his love?

With these open questions at the end of Casino Royale, I was anticipating at least another 2.5 hour movie to continue on the story.  When I saw that Quantum of Solace was 1:46, I instinctively knew this was going to fail (not financially, but plot-wise).  The reviews I read were less optimistic, bashing Craig, talking about the curse during production (people getting killed/injured/destroyed vehicles), and overall, criticizing the plot & storyline.

Long story short, I think there was a great way to make this movie amazing, and it didn’t happen.

• Brilliant marketing strategies businesses/people are using
• Not-so-brilliant marketing – aka STRATEGERY
• Sports
• Culture
• Interesting news
• books
• movies
• and anything else my heart desires

That’s it for now…more to come…