Paulie Anderson
  • Home
    • Wheby Dreaming
  • Paulie Sez
  • Photos
  • Art
  • Books & Writing
  • Poetry

High on the Hero List

3/6/2013

2 Comments

 
Growing up, I had a different set of heroes than most of my friends, or the rest of the world. My heroes were BMX flatland pioneers Mike Buff, R.L. Osborne and Bob Haro. When Matt Hoffman hit the scene, he was high on my hero list and I wasn’t even a ramp rider, but the things that kid could do on a bike were beyond belief. The drug of choice for these guys was 80’s chicks in Guess? Jeans, and they flaunted this in every issue of BMX magazine that I ever read.

I have never been a fan of mainstream sports like football, basketball or baseball. I still laugh when people refer to golf as a sport. I never recognized pro players as having anything particularly worthy of note, and therefore never had the love affair with them that so much of America seems to possess. I was always uneasy with the bully factor of sports players during my school years and seeing the special treatment kids received for having athletic talent made me a little sick. I frequently wondered why they weren’t held to the same social and educational standards that the rest of us were. They were a source of annoyance rather than entertainment.

The older I got, the dumber the pro players got. They became even less worthy of the money and status they received while their paychecks kept growing and their education kept dwindling. The class and etiquette that used to be required of pro athletes is a thing of the past. Rather than suits and an attempt at speaking well in public, it’s wife beaters, tattoos and public threats. The idea that a God would favor one team of idolaters over another because of a particularly pious hypocrite made me laugh every time Tebow would open his mouth.

You have Michael Vick dog fighting; Lance Armstrong coming clean (pun intended) for his ‘roid use; Barry Bonds getting denied the Hall of Fame for PED use; Pistorius killing his girlfriend; Tiger and countless affairs. The disgusting list goes on and on.

This is a bit of a non-sequitur, but Sports Illustrated published a 2009 study that found 78 percent of professional athletes file bankruptcy or are reported as being “under financial stress” within two years of their career ending. It’s a sobering fact, isn’t it? Especially considering most pro careers end before the players are 40.

As I skimmed Google News the very morning I was writing this article, there were two of five sports stories regarding players who got caught doping. According to many of those who get caught, it’s not who is using, it’s just who gets caught, insinuating that most players use.

I can’t help but wish we could train our children to emulate people with a little bit more integrity. Or at the very least, end the drug testing and let people who want to be science experiments do it. Let them become the gladiators that they try to become in hiding. We could have two groups of athletes – one on drugs, and one clean group – so people could compete in a more balanced tier. That way we could study the effects of performance enhancing drugs in a controlled and honest environment on people who wish to test the results.

I don’t plan on mellowing my disdain for pro football anytime soon, so I will have to be content with the heroes I have in my world. As I have grown up, my heroes have morphed a little. They have changed from BMX pioneers to the people I interact with directly on a life or professional basis. I have grown deep admiration for people who live a life that honors their values, their neighbors and the earth. My heroes have their issues, too. They may work too much, or not make the money they deserve, or maybe they like their music a little too loud. They may have different beliefs from my own, but they generally accept people for who they are, and work towards making their world a better place.

I would like to give a huge, hero-high-five to my everyday heroes: The librarians who manage the books I love so much; the cooks, waiters, waitresses, bartenders and dish-dogs who feed me when I don’t cook for myself; my biking buddies, my business partners; my brother, David, the director of the Colorado Natural Heritage Program, who followed his love of all things living to place him in a career that helps keep Colorado the Colorado I know and love; my father, Keith, who taught me to love the question “Why?” and gave my brother and me the gift of music; my wife, Courtney, who lets me be me and supports my every whim and fancy.

2 Comments

A What?

5/28/2012

0 Comments

 
Welcome to Steamboat’s new, monthly newsgazine, Valley Voice. You read it right, a newsgazine; part magazine, part newspaper. We coined this term sometime in the last couple of months as we were trying to define what the Valley Voice truly was. This definition is an important aspect of the work when creating a new style of print media in a world of smart phone instant gratification and modern communication. How can we be unique and desirable dressed in vintage 27 pound newsprint? What will make people use this particular piece of print media to start campfires, wrap fish or swat flies over other available trash?  Oh, or to read?

The answer is simple: put lipstick on that pig by giving it a glossy cover, lots of color, and a couple of staples.  The end result is what you’re holding in your hands:  glossy on the outside, newsy on the inside, but with some meat in some of the articles that give it a more magazine type feel. The 32 pages you are currently reading (or using to pick up some doggie-do) are just the beginning. We plan on expanding the content and creating a user-friendly modality of expression and information to entertain the local and visitor alike.

Introduction

This inaugural issue of Valley Voice consists of over 20 writers and artists. Artist bios will accompany future editions, but for now you will have the bylines to stir memories of past (and some current) publications until we get all the bios of all the contributors. I don’t want to lose sleep feeling that someone is underrepresented, and that’s just the kind of thing that keeps me awake.

There are three key members of the contributing public who I need to introduce here, because it will be one of these three people who you will talk to when you call or email the office.

Matt Scharf is the man behind the lipstick. No, not the one wearing the lipstick; Matt is the artist who will be designing the pages, most of the ads and the fancy glossy map in the middle of each issue. You can see much of Matt’s work around town from logos to car wraps (think My Wireless) to signage at some of the parks. He also created the Whiskey Chronicles Comic that ran for many years in The Local, and a number of political cartoons that ran in the Pilot and Today.  You can reach him online at [email protected].

Scott Ford is our financial guru, esteemed “Office Dad” (even though he has his own office down the street from ours) and the man behind the statistics. He was the management ingredient that gave us the flavor we needed to create the best newsgazine bouillabaisse a lack of capitol could buy. Scott will be doing our billing, telling us if we can afford a new can of beans and guiding us through the fun world of the entrepreneur. Scott will answer your emails in order of statistical preference at [email protected].

And then me, Paulie Anderson. I am the glorified secretary with a column in prime real estate. I answer the phone, listen, talk and sell.  I fill in the blanks, apply liberal sarcasm, adjust with humor and appreciate the word vitriol. My qualification can be summed up as simply as this: I like people and I like paper. My newest cyber address is [email protected].

0 Comments

Let's Talk About Suicide

12/20/2011

19 Comments

 
Picture
Jon-o-thin Wheby high above Skull Creek overlooking his property
_ I am bothered by the fact that news organizations refuse to print anything about suicide, so I would like to give some space, and some of my life for that matter, to the topic. The purpose of this blog entry is to help me formalize a plan to create an arts endowment, or a trust of some kind for suicide prevention. But first, an explanation.

This past March, on of my closest friends, Jonathan Wheby, took his own life. The effect he had on me and many of his friends in life was so deep that my wife, Courtney, and I considered him to be blood. Family. As did many of his friends. He shared his love, learning, emotions and angst with all of us in a way that made the people close to him acutely aware of their own need to grow. His constant questioning of societal standards gave him an ability to justify breaking rules while holding others accountable to what he believed to be an acceptable standard.

And now, in death, his influence on my life is still as strong, or perhaps even stronger than it was when he was a part of my living family. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Wheby; where he is, what he did or why he did it.

The following paragraphs are a eulogy of sorts that I wrote for the celebration of Jonathan’s life that his custom built family held for him last March. I have deemed the “thank you for coming” part unnecessary, and therefore omitted the opening paragraphs. Skip the eulogy if you just want to find out what my hopes are for the trust.

Celebration of the Life of Jonathan Wheby

Jonathan left us all with a palpable amount of uncertainty. We are all questioning why he would leave us as he did, and whether or not there was anything we could do to help. Whenever anyone we love leaves this world, we want to hold ourselves responsible for not saying the right thing at the right time; not doing enough to help; not diagnosing a problem correctly or quickly enough or a host of other feelings we wish we could have projected or communicated to that person.  And when a friend, a friend with so much love as Jonathan, makes a conscious decision to depart from the physical world, these feelings are even stronger.

I address this foremost today because we all need to share our love together and know in our hearts that though Jonathan believed he was no longer necessary in our lives, we all did all we could to let him know that we loved him, needed him and wanted him in our worlds. We are human in our selfish need for answers to the question why, and our strange need for closure, though we can become selfless in sharing this need with each other, and combining our intellectual power to overcome these feelings of guilt. It is love that makes us human, and misguided love that drove Jonathan to his belief that he was a burden instead of a blessing.

Wheby truly was a blessing. As infuriating as he could be in his stubbornness, no person here can say that he didn’t do more with his huge smile as he would defiantly bounce forward and push the big, red INDEPENDENT THINKING button repeatedly than anyone who followed the rules with a blank stare.

Wheby, in fact, had such a unique way of working, loving and sharing, that the name Wheby became a verb with a more than a few definitions.

To Wheby while building something meant to overbuild it to the point that it either had to be totally destroyed to be rebuilt, or the plan completely altered to accommodate the Whebyed design. The Wheby Construction plan was to measure once, cut twice, begin swearing, buy a new piece of wood, measure again, cut again, smile, swear some more, glue it, nail it, then screw it together. Repeat until bomb-proof.

To Wheby in love, meant something different to each one of us. Sometimes To Wheby love hurt so much that forgiveness seemed unobtainable. Yet, somehow he would Wheby his way back into the broken heart using the glue, nail, screw method to leave a permanent scar, but mended beautifully. To me, Wheby Love meant that I never had to ask for help, never had to ask for understanding and never had to wonder, until now, if he would be there. In fact, many of us know that when Wheby adopted you as family, knocking on the door or ringing the doorbell became unnecessary. And why should he knock, he was a part of the family, right?

The negative definition of To Wheby is the one that even Jonathan had to use more than once, and one that endured him to our hearts through proof of his human faults.  He understood it as we all understand it. His cabin in the desert was the perfect example of Whebying something the wrong way. It stands today as a thing of beauty. Glued, screwed and nailed to perfection… 50 feet off the wrong side of the property line. To Wheby was to do something so well, so beautifully, so lasting and so… 50 feet off, that even he couldn’t help but laugh at the Whebyness of it.

 

The Idea

 

The last paragraph of the eulogy is the beginning of the plan for my idea. This is still in the planning stages, and there is plenty of room to alter or enhance the plan, so please respond if you have ideas or wish to help.

A little background in necessary first. Wheby purchased just under 50 acres in the desert outside Masadona, Colorado in the early 2000s. The land is in a valley called Skull Creek and lies about 20 miles east of Dinosaur National Monument. He constructed a cabin (on his neighbor’s property) as a sanctuary for him and his friends. He intended it as a communal cabin for inspiration, health, exploration and a getaway from the daily grind. One of the driving forces behind Wheby’s suicide was that he constructed his getaway on someone else’s property; someone who became unwilling to work with him in correcting this problem. He lost his sanctuary shortly after losing much more than he had been willing to lose. That is another story altogether, and I will write that story in book form in the very near future.

Before Wheby walked off into the desert to take his own life, he signed his property over to me. I have been trying to come up with a way to honor Wheby through this gift ever since Courtney and I received the quit claim deed in the mail last March. A plan has surfaced this week and now the process of making it a reality begins.

I would like to create an artist retreat in Wheby’s name on Wheby’s property that benefits suicide prevention and the families and friends who have lost loved ones to suicide. I would then like to put this land and structure in a trust for future generations to enjoy.

I choose to believe that Wheby left me the land because he knew I would fulfill his vision of a community asset, and I believe this to be the very best way to provide a testament to Jonathan’s love of art and life. And he did have a zest for life that was ever apparent to all whose lives he touched, and this is just one of the things that makes suicide so unpredictable and painful to those of us who have either attempted, thought seriously about, or survived someone who followed through with the act.

Please enjoy this poem, The Spiral, which Jonathan loved, and even quoted in his suicide note. I wrote it in a time when I was feeling a little suicidal but had a great group of friends and family to help me through the rough spots.

19 Comments

    Paulie Anderson

    Yes, it's time I continue what began way back in 2001 when Scott Glackman and I started Steamboat Springs' alternative paper, The Local. I miss writing my fortnightly column after selling the paper, so I'll continue to write it and print it right here.

    These are my opinions, rants, raves and ideas. If you don't like them, read them anyway and get pissed off. That's why I read Ann Coulter. Did I really just admit that?

    Want more? Find me on Facebook.

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    Archives

    April 2014
    March 2014
    March 2013
    May 2012
    February 2012
    December 2011

    Categories

    All
    Adam’s Apple
    Advertising
    Alternative Media
    Ann Coulter
    Art
    Beginning
    Comics
    Community
    Conservative
    EASY 941
    Forum
    Friends
    Friendship
    Help
    Hypocrisy
    Hypocrite
    Inaugural
    Jonathan Wheby
    Liberal
    Lies
    Life
    Living
    Love
    Magazine
    Media
    Metal
    Nightlife
    Opinion
    Participation
    Paulie
    Politics
    Prevention
    Sez
    Slayer
    Steamboat Springs
    Suicide
    Tease
    Valley Voice
    Wheby
    Yampa Valley

    RSS Feed