Daniel B. Kline's Page

By Daniel B. Kline

Lost in a sea of melancholy, crushed by responsibility and just generally overwhelmed, I sat listening to Bill Janovitz play a sparse, acoustic version of "Your Stripes," an obscure favorite of mine from Buffalo Tom's Sleepy Eyed. It was a Sunday morning and a rare off day had given me the opportunity to slow down, take stock and let the wave of everything left undone wash over me.

Whereas I once had little more than a computer, some clothes, a crappy car and a short-term rental apartment, I now have the mixed blessing of responsibility. In addition to my wife and son, I have a dozen or so staff members who look to me for both professional and personal guidance. I also have my boss' family which has shown enormous faith in me -- a faith which I want to reward -- as well as my parents who have needed more of me in recent years then in the past.

Add that to a just-high-enough-to-scare me-mortgage that seemed like a good idea in the ten minutes before the housing bubble burst, not to mention two car payments, plus a host of other bills and, well, sometimes I miss the simplicity of not having people rely on me. Normally, I never sit down long enough to listen to music ("Your Stripes," segued into Buffalo Tom's "Porchlight" and Janovitz doing a cover of The Replacements classic "Little Mascara") but for some reason the vast emptiness of Sunday mornings tend to make me reflective in a self-pitying sort of way.

Parenting and retailing share the fact that they never stop. Your child may sleep (a big maybe during the early years) and stores do shut down for the night and maybe the occasional holiday, but the demands of each never really recede.

Normally, I handle the complicated balance I have built between being a workaholic store manager, a reasonably involved parent of a fairly difficult (albeit incredibly endearing) child and an almost-successful, sort-of-known nationally syndicated columnist reasonably well. In the past few weeks though, my edges have started to fray a bit as a mix of professional and personal punches to the face have left me a bit shaken.

An optimist in the long run, I tend to see disaster in the short-term. I believe that with hard work everything always works out, but that has not stopped me from obsessively worrying about the journey. I know I'm going to get there, but I don't sleep at night because I'm not sure which rest stop to eat at along the way.

The current atmosphere in the country in general has made constant optimism a challenging attitude to maintain. I believe the nation on a grand level and my tiny piece of the world (consisting of my family, my friends and my store) will emerge stronger from this. But on this indulgent Sunday morning (Janovitz is covering Husker Du's "Hardly Getting Over It" now) the weight of the problem seems a little heavier than I'd like to carry.

If on Sunday I'm allowing myself to wallow in worry while my favorite musician plays in the background (he's doing Blondie's "Dreaming" now) then on Monday I'll be putting the acoustic interpretations away and turning the proverbial rock song up. You've only lost if you're behind when the final buzzer sounds and, well, we're not even at halftime yet.

(Soundtrack for this column courtesy Janovitz's excellent "Cover of the Week" project which can be found at PartTimeManOfRock.com.)

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.

By Daniel B. Kline

With the economy failing, unemployment rising and very little good news on the near horizon, I, of course, quit my job. More importantly, I quit my well-paying, pretty cool job where I work for someone I like and respect who treats me like family (and, yes, I mean that as a positive).

Admittedly, my work history has been varied to say the least. I've held approximately 11 full-time jobs and had one major stint as a successful freelancer in the past 17 years. Those numbers got somewhat inflated during my Internet years when the life cycle for various companies were very short.

Over the past ten years, I have held four jobs for three companies. I spent nearly three years as a newspaper editor at two different papers in the same chain, then I spent four working for my family's ladder and scaffolding company and I've spent the last two running a large toy and hobby store.

In each case until now, I left for logical reasons. I walked away from the newspaper world when we decided to have a child because the demands of being a newspaper editor were not compatible with parenting. I left the family business when it became obvious that if the family wanted me there at all, it was not in the capacity I wanted to be there in.

This time. though, I'm not quitting for any quite-so-obvious reason. Instead, I'm walking away from a situation I like to try to build one that I will love. And, I'm also not exactly walking away from one paycheck into another. Instead, I'll be casting myself into the world of consulting, freelancing and commissioned sales.

These are all things that I like to do, but they are also ways to make money while allowing me the time to become what I see myself as. In my view of myself, I'm a writer and a personality, a guy who not only creates a widely-read column, but someone who writes books and appears on talk shows.

I've only succeeded in a tiny bit of that (you are reading this column) and I won't get the rest of the way there from behind a cash register or on the floor of a retail store. I want to be famous -- at least in the small way that newspaper columnists and non-fiction writers can be -- and I want people to read, see and hear me.

Most importantly, I want to take my shot before I find myself looking back and wondering why I never did. The easy path would be to do my job, collect a paycheck and remain safe and secure. I'm choosing the road less traveled because I don't want leave any of my potential on the table.

I'm not a naive kid dropping out of school because his band's going to "make it." I don't expect that magically I'll get a six figure book deal or my column will get picked up by a major chain that decides to pay me boatloads of money for sharing my opinion.

I am, though, still naive enough to believe in myself. Of course, if you believe in me too, and know anyone looking for a pretty talented freelance writer/editor/personaility, well, I'm available.

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.

By Daniel B. Kline

Any footage involving the 1980 "Miracle On Ice," makes me cry. Whether it's the actual telecast complete with Al Michaels chilling "Do you believe in miracles?" call or any of the hundreds of television feature stories produced on the team, just the sight of Herb Brooks or Mike Eruzione brings tears to my eyes.

When that game actually aired, I was too young to understand its impact on our national consciousness. I knew nothing of the Iran hostage crisis or how Jimmy Carter performed as president, but I did know that our boys had beaten the bad guys and that made me proud to be an American.

As the years have passed I have gained perspective and the 1980 men's hockey team has come to symbolize the ultimate in hope and possibility -- the idea that anything can happen with hard work and faith. How can anything we face as individuals or as a nation be impossible when our boys showed us that, for Americans, the impossible was possible?

If the Miracle On Ice had been a movie, critics would call it hokey and unbelievable. A group of college kids simply cannot beat a team of older, more experienced professionals no matter how plucky they are. Reality suggests that hard work can only take you so far and that aside from the occasional lucky sling shot attack, Goliath pretty much always beats David.

Because of the 1980 Olympic team, though, we all know that what seems unattainable can happen. Miracles, even sports miracles, give us the faith to fight against impossible odds and the courage to rage against unbeatable enemies.

Every time a number 16 seed faces off against a top seed in the NCAA tourney and every time an amateur tees up against Tiger Woods, there's always the possibility for another miracle. More importantly, perhaps, every time one of us takes a risk for a dream -- whether it starting a business, writing a novel or anything else that goes against common sense -- we know that long odds do not mean impossible odds.

As a nation, we have always thrived in the underdog role. It's why we did better against the British in the Revolutionary War than we have done in any war where we took on a lesser opponent. As a people, despite our global dominance, we still envision ourselves as the 1980 hockey team -- the underdogs with barely a puncher's chance -- taking on the champ who should clean up the ice with us.

Our optimism where pessimism should be makes us great. Our ability to envision success when all signs point to failure strengthens us as a people and gives me the undying belief that no economic crisis can hold Americans down for too long.

Right now we might be down a couple of goals in the third period and, well, the economy figuratively has a pretty good goalie and a much better team. Still, I believe we have more Jim Craigs and more Mike Eruziones out there who can fashion our next miracle.

It happens every day on a small level where people reach for their dreams and manage to make them work. You, your friends, your neighbors and the people in your community live up to the spirit of the Miracle on Ice by trying to fashion your own miracles despite the odds or the opposition.

Our troubles may have a stronger lineup, but we're a nation fashioned in the vision of Herb Brooks where odds don't matter only hard work, faith and trusting in each other count for anything. Nobody on the sidelines or on the opposing bench needs to believe we can overcome as long as we do.

"Eleven seconds, you've got ten seconds, the countdown going on right now! Morrow, up to Silk. Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles? YES!"

I'm crying just reading it, because, yes, Al Michaels, I do.

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.

By Daniel B. Kline

With enough pomp and circumstance to make Lady Gaga raise an eyebrow, the Winter Olympics have returned to ruin television for two weeks. Once an eminently watchable sporting event punctuated by the occasionally dramatic real-life stories of its competitors, the Olympics has devolved into a made-for-TV event that plays like a Lifetime movie.

Because actual sports fans only watch the Olympics sparingly and most don't watch the Winter-Olympics-only events like luge or bobsledding, NBC must find a way to reach non-sports fans. That means that the competition takes a backseat to the melodrama of the competitors.

Not content to merely let real-life drama happen when it happens, NBC feels the need to shoehorn personality and back-story into every event. For NBC, every athlete offers a storyline whether or not they actually have a compelling history or are just some kid who managed to get incredibly good at something ridiculous.

Instead of sports laced with drama, we get "The Real World: Vancouver." Nobody ever bothers to explain how the made up scoring works in figure skating (extra points if you're famous seems to be the most peculiar rule) but we do get to hear about every faux dramatic stop on the major competitors' road to the Olympics.

Admittedly, sometimes an athlete has a story that makes them sympathetic. I might root for the Haitian bobsled team or get excited about a country that has no ice winning a medal in ice dancing, but mostly, I want the drama to come from the actual sport.

By building every event around the personalities and histories of the competitors we dilute the impact of the truly special stories. If NBC stopped trying to make every competitor a sports movie cliche (underdog, comeback, impossible odds, etc.) maybe we would become captivated by someone instead of bored by the whole lot.

Unfortunately (at least for NBC), for every figure skater whose cancer-stricken parents work nine jobs so she can skate we get a dozen rich kids whose folks shipped them off to private training facilities. Some athletes have incredible tales worthy of being made into movies where Dennis Quaid plays the coach who believes in them when nobody else will. Most don't and maybe the competition should sometimes speak for itself.

Whereas we once got Dan Jansen and his crushing failure to secure a medal for his five-hours-deceased sister followed by his ultimate redemption six years later, we now get downhill skiers who also manage to be good-looking. While we all remember the incredible triumph of the 1980 "Miracle On Ice" hockey team, nothing can make us deeply care about professionals barely interested in being there playing together after a few days of practice.

And, perhaps the most ridiculous pushed dramatic aspect of the Winter Olympics is the feature story done every four years about how captivating curling is. We get it, Canadians love their ridiculous non-sport because fat guys can play and you can drink beer during the game as a player.

There's a weird giant puck with a handle, lots of bad mustaches and people sweeping away with a broom. If this sport belongs in the Winter Olympics then Skee Ball should be in the Summer Olympics and I'd watch that because, well, Americans would always win.

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.

By Daniel B. Kline

Aside from wanting Congress to pass legislation deeming me too cowardly for the military, I find it absurd that we make laws keeping willing participants out of our armed services. As a nation, we currently have two ongoing wars and not enough soldiers to fight them yet we won't let openly homosexual people take up the fight.

Technically, we do allow gay people to join the military as long as they don't mention they are gay. This would be like if we banned women from voting but chose to not ask any touchy questions to women dressed up as men who attempt to cast a ballot.

"Don't ask, don't tell" was a compromise forged out of political necessity. Republicans could not be seen supporting gay rights (you know because god/the religious right would get mad) and Democrats could not be seen backing down on the issue (might anger Barbra Streisand).

So, instead of a common sense policy based on providing equal rights for all citizens, we have one that discriminates a little less blatantly. Like all political compromises, this one left neither side happy but it protected the status quo and did nothing to loosen any incumbent's grip on his seat in Congress.

We currently ban openly gay people from the military due to a mix of ignorance, prejudice and an overt willingness to stereotype (the Rush Limbaugh cocktail). Those who oppose letting homosexuals serve would have you believe that gays want into the service so they can paint the foxholes pink while seducing "normal" god-fearing soldiers.

They would also have you believe that if we let gay people into the military then they would ruin our wars by constantly having sex with each other instead of doing their jobs. Instead of attacking the enemy, our newly mixed sexual orientation army would then be distracted by Elton John songs and Broadway musicals or so the reasoning goes.

If we're going to let stereotypes govern our nation then why not keep blonds out of the Army because, well, everyone knows they're dumb? Redheads are out too because we all know you can't trust them. I'd probably keep black-haired people out as well because they might be of Italian descent and are most likely in the Mafia.

The argument to keep gays out of the military can only be made by people that consider being gay deviant behavior. These ignorant folks don't make a distinction between a same sex relationship and pedophilia or other illegal behavior.

This ignores that most sex crimes get committed by straight people (by a wide volume) and being gay makes you no more likely to commit a crime. That is, of course, unless your church forces you to deny your sexuality and repress it until you're a grown priest stuck with the sexual desires he denied as a teen boy.

Gays in the military -- like most soldiers -- would simply do their jobs. They would have no higher a percentage of sexual misconduct issues then we already have in our straight, co-ed Armed Services today.

I salute anyone willing to put his or her life on the line for our country. I also respect that same person's ability to follow the military's regulations while in the service and to act within those parameters.

We need to let the gay people already in the Armed Services stop having to deny their true selves. We need to stand up and welcome all Americans who want to defend our freedom the freedom to do so.

Daniel B. Kline's work appears in over 100 papers weekly. When he is not writing Kline serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby New England's largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachinehobby.com. He can be reached at dan@notastep.com or you can see his archive at dbkline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/dankline.