Matt Micros's Blog: Rantings, Ravings & Remembrances , page 3

DESTINARE

After hearing the bad news, Joe Moretti found himself faced with a difficult decision.  He could either fight for his life, or peacefully accept his fate.  Unfortunately, his decision wouldn’t simply affect his life.  What if he wasn’t around in a year to save 3 year old Diana Doyle from falling onto the tracks in front of a moving train?  And what if she in turn wasn’t around to become a doctor with the ability to save lives?  Maybe even the life of someone Joe cared deeply about?  Destinare is a story that examines how each person’s life is connected in ways we don’t even realize.  One person’s life affects another.  Which in turn impacts another…and another…and another…until the circle is complete and we finally reach our destiny.

“The unexamined life is not worth living” is attributed to the Greek philosopher, Socrates, while he was on trial, and eventually sentenced to death for “corrupting the youth” of society and “impiety”.  From Socrates simple statement, Destinare was born.  All too often we go through life following a routine.  Work.  Eat.  Watch TV.  Sleep.  Get up and do it all over again.  When we don’t want to do something, more often than not, we don’t.  But what is the impact of those decisions?  How does what we decide to do (or not do) affect others?  Those that choose to take their own lives usually leave a swath of destruction behind.  Certainly they were suffering, but what about those they’ve left behind?  If they had somehow been convinced to take the time to see how their decision would impact others, would they have acted differently?  Or did their decision force others to examine their own lives, to be more introspective?  Then again, do we really control our own destiny or are we simply following a path that has been laid out for us?  From the Italian word, destino, meaning destiny or fate, Destinare is a fictional story of love, friendship, sacrifice and the never-ending battle to achieve self-awareness.  It examines how we arrive where we end up in life, and whether we are, in fact, the “masters of our fate, the captains of our soul”. (William Ernest Henley)

Arriving at book sellers everywhere in April.

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Livin’ the Dream with the Counting Crows…

When I was living in Los Angeles back in the 90’s, a band burst onto the scene with a different sound. Haunting at times. Melodic. Great lyrics. They soared to the top of the charts with hits like “Mr. Jones” and “Round Here”. Their lead singer dated TV and movie stars. But whereas some bands let fame go to their heads and disappear, never to be heard from again…24 years later, the Counting Crows have  persevered and prospered.  They’ve done so by staying true to what made them popular in the first place, while at the same time, not being afraid to step out of their comfort zone.  Some bands are known for one or two songs, and you spend an entire show waiting for them, barely listening to the songs before them.  If they don’t play them, you leave disappointed.  But the Counting Crows are one of those rare bands that play a different set for virtually every show.  You could see them ten times on the same tour and see a different show every night.  And it doesn’t really matter what they play, because if you like their music, you like them all.

The Crows have always had a special place in my heart, first in my 20’s living in California, later as one of the songs in our wedding, and most recently, as a reference point in a crucial moment of my newest novel, The Music Box.  Needless to say, the opportunity to see them in concert (again), catch their sound check, and meet the band, was a dream come true.  As a friend said, when you get to meet your heroes, it can go one of two ways.  It can either ruin the mythical imagery you have of them, or it can make it stronger.  Happily for me, it was the latter.  My wife and I had the opportunity to sit in on the sound check before the concert and it was a surreal experience watching them interact with each other as if they were getting ready for a school concert in high school.  It was like having a private concert in your basement–if your basement held 10,000 people but there were only 25 there.  Enjoy a snippet from it below…

CountingCrowsSoundCheck

What I liked best is that these guys seem to genuinely like each other after all these years, and it shows in their performances.  Great sound.  Great lyrics.  Great music.  Full of energy and creativity.  They played a nice mix of classics (Mr. Jones, Rain King, Omaha, A Long December) along with songs from their new album (Palisades Park, Scarecrow, Dislocation, Earthquake Driver, God of Ocean Tides).  Sadly on a personal level, they didn’t play Mrs. Potters Lullaby (the song referenced in The Music Box) in last night’s show at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut, but they’ve played it when I’ve seen them previously, and I’m sure they will when I see them again–which I most definitely will.

The Music Box is the story of Nick Reynolds, a dying man who has one final wish–to spend his remaining days with his estranged 12 year old son, Josh. As his ex-wife brings their son over to see him, and at her son’s urging, she stops at a seedy pawn shop in an even seedier part of town, so Josh can purchase a music box for his father. What he doesn’t realize is that every song it plays has the ability to transport both father and son back to the time when his father first heard the song. Through their visits, Josh begins to finally see who his father really is, as well as learn some valuable life lessons along the way. Is it the magic of the music box? The sway of the music itself? Or the sheer power of the human mind at work?  There have been a number of bands and solo artists over the course of my life that have had an impact on me, but none more so than the Counting Crows. Their songs have always had the ability to take me back in time and were in no small part the inspiration for the story behind the story.

And that’s about the best compliment I can give.

 

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Remembering Tony Micros

Who is Tony Micros you ask? He didn’t find a cure for Cancer or run for President. He wasn’t a neurosurgeon who saved hundreds of lives. He wasn’t a billionaire. He was just a smart, honest, decent, family man in a world in desperate need of more of them.

My father has been gone for nearly six years now, but a day rarely passes where I don’t think of him. Unfortunately, as I wrote in Five Days, time has a way of fading even some of our most cherished memories to the point where it is difficult to tell if something actually happened that way, or is more the product of a vivid memory that remembers things as we want to remember them. So before my memories of my father faded any further, I decided to put them in writing. The Music Box is my 6th novel, but without question, my most personal.  It is the story of Nick Reynolds, a dying man who has one final wish–to spend his remaining days with his estranged 12 year old son, Josh. As his ex-wife brings their son over to see him, and at her son’s urging, she stops at a seedy pawn shop in an even seedier part of town, so Josh can purchase a music box for his father. What he doesn’t realize is that every song it plays has the ability to transport both father and son back to the time when his father first heard the song. Through their visits, Josh begins to finally see who his father really is, as well as learn some valuable life lessons along the way. Is it the magic of the music box? The sway of the music itself? Or the sheer power of the human mind at work?  The Music Box is a story about a father and son, but it is for everyone who believes in family and second chances.

The character of Nick Reynolds is like my father in many respects, and many of the stories within this novel were straight from his life.  They were both honest, fiercely loyal, and kind. But unlike Nick, my father never put work before family. He never missed an event either my sister or I ever participated in. And he treated my mother with love and respect for nearly 50 years.

Quite often I find myself wondering what my dad would say in a certain situation if he was still here. If he would be proud of the man I’ve become. I strive each day to be more like him, knowing that I will probably never fully achieve that, but the thought of him encourages me to relentlessly pursue it nonetheless. This story is for him. I hope you enjoy it.

The Music Box is now available at www.mattmicros.com, www.amazon.com, and www.barnesandnoble.com, as well as a number of other book outlets.

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Tim McGraw Got it Right

Move over baseball.  America, it seems, has a new pastime:  Ripping to shreds any person who has an opinion different than your own.  From the moment Tim McGraw announced that 100% of the proceeds from his July 17th concert in Hartford, Connecticut were going to benefit Sandy Hook Promise; a group whose purpose is to try and find ways to prevent tragedies like Sandy Hook from ever happening again, the internet exploded.

Gun rights advocates criticized McGraw for supporting a group that allegedly supports gun control (Interestingly, the Sandy Hook Promise mission statement seemingly says nothing of the kind).  Gun control advocates criticized him for being a gun owner himself.  It appeared as though no good deed could go unpunished.

Personally, prior to the concert I would have described myself as a casual McGraw fan, which is to say I knew 5 or 6 of his songs and enjoyed watching him in the films, Friday Nights Lights and The Blind Side, along with thinking he seemed like a decent person in every interview I had read or seen.  Full disclosure is that I am also a die hard Mets fan and used to emulate McGraw’s father, Tug McGraw, by pounding my glove off my leg and screaming “You Gotta Believe!” during neighborhood baseball games.  I also live in Connecticut and have spent plenty of time in the Newtown/Sandy Hook area, having even taught in the high school many years back.  So you can imagine the Sandy Hook tragedy hit pretty close to home.

However, on the topic of gun rights/control, I don’t have much of an opinion because I try to make it a habit to not have one in areas where I am lacking expertise or knowledge.  Without concrete evidence one way or another, I would tend to fall on the side of not interfering with basic human rights as provided in the Constitution, but I can’t say as I have strong feelings as to how best to accomplish the goal that I think all sides would agree on–human safety.  Apparently, evidence was not a concern for those who were vocally critical of McGraw.  To his credit, when the excrement hit the fan, most people ran for cover (i.e. Billy Currington.  Who IS Billy Currington anyway?), but McGraw (along with the energetic and charismatic Chase Bryant) stood his ground.  “As a gun owner, I support gun ownership,” he said, “I also believe that with gun ownership comes the responsibility of education and safety–most certainly when it relates to what we value most, our children.  I can’t imagine anyone who disagrees with that.” Who in their right mind would argue against gun EDUCATION and SAFETY?  I suppose that is a rhetorical question.

McGraw played last night to a packed house in Hartford and got it right by doing so.  Not because he sounded terrific.  Or because his band was amazing.  Or even that he was charismatic without once preaching to the audience, with females aged 10 to 70 swooning every time he smiled.  No, he got it right because by playing he stood up for something even greater than the 2nd Amendment–the FIRST Amendment–“freedom of speech”.  When did the land of the free become so intolerant of varied opinions?  In the end, it matters not which side of the issue you fall on.  You can agree, disagree or agree to disagree.    But to ridicule someone who views things differently than you do is not only counter productive, it seems to go against the very grounds on which this country was founded.  Yes, Tim McGraw got it right, and in doing so, turned a casual fan into a lifelong one.

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When Did Losing Become Ok?

It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.  That’s an adage as old as sports.  But what if you played the game to lose?  Sound crazy? Unfortunately, in the world of professional sports of all places, that’s become more the norm than the exception.  Tank Mode.  The technical definition is–“a team that loses on purpose after determining they have nothing to play for in the current season, in order to help their chances of drafting the next savior of the franchise”.  There are a couple of problems associated with that way of thinking.  The first is that for every Lebron James, there is Andrea Bargnani, Kwame Brown, Greg Oden, or Anthony Bennett.  Who you say?  Exactly.  And those were all #1 picks!  The list of failed draft choices grows with each spot down the draft board.  The NBA, for its part, has attempted to mute “tanking” games by instituting the ping pong ball lottery.  Based on how you finish, you have a higher percentage chance of obtaining the #1 pick, but certainly no guarantee.  In fact, this year was the first time in a while that the team with the worst record actually won the #1 pick.  But this system hasn’t really been the deterrent that the league perhaps thought it would be.  Teams played the percentages.

Football your thing?  The NFL doesn’t have a lottery.  They are all about parity.  Worst record gets the #1 pick.  Eric Fisher, Sam Bradford, Matthew Stafford, JaMarcus Russell, David Carr, Tim Couch and Courtney Brown.  You might recognize a few names on this list, but none of them have ever made a Pro Bowl, much less turned a franchise around.  In fact, 8 of the last 15 Number One picks HAVEN’T made a Pro Bowl.  Which begs the question; without a guarantee of success in the draft, why tank?

Most teams will proclaim innocence like OJ Simpson trying on a dried bloody glove.  We aren’t “trying” to lose.  “We are just getting a look at our younger guys”.  “_ _ needs a rest during a long season”.  “The calf muscle pull is taking longer to heal than expected”.  “We are shutting him down for the season”.  The list of cliched excuses forms at the left and wraps around the building.  It is as if professional sports teams completely missed Kevin Costner’s message in the immortal baseball movie Bull Durham.  “Never @$%# with a winning streak.”  Except they’ve replaced winning with losing.  At what point did this become ok?  Teams don’t charge less for losing.  They don’t apologize for it to their fans.  They simply explain that they have a long term plan.  What is it?  Be as bloody awful as possible in hope of securing a top draft pick that may or may not help the team improve, but not enough to keep said draft pick from leaving the franchise for greener pastures as soon as his rookie contract expires?  Great plan guys.  Speaking of fans….they might just be part of the problem.  Many of them flock to message boards after each game happy to see their team “tank” another game.  “Tank you very much!” they scream, as if part of some strange cult.  Meanwhile, the purists shake their heads in disgust.  Competitors long since taken from us roll over in their graves.  What would Ernie Banks say???  The Hall of Fame baseball player for the Chicago Cubs famous for saying “let’s play two today!” out of his sheer love of the game, never won a World Series.  In fact, he never even played in a playoff game!  But he showed up every day, ready to play–ready to compete.  I’m pretty sure he would have a few choice words for his manager if he tried to “rest” him during a lost season.

But don’t worry.  I haven’t just identified the problem.  I’ve got the solution, and it has nothing to do with ping pong balls.  How about rewarding winning?  I know.  I know.  That’s crazy.  And the sheer financials of it all won’t allow for teams to endure decades of losing (even though some teams do anyway) without the hope of being saved.  Fair enough.  So here is what I propose.  Give the #1 pick to the team with the best record that DOESN’T make the playoffs and work your way down.  You’d see some epic battles then.  Last day of the season and the Knicks and Lakers are playing to determine the 17th best record in the league with the #1 pick on the line!  Think of the ratings.  What if two teams are battling to get into the playoffs on the last day?  Would they lose on purpose to get the number 1 pick??  Not to worry, I have that covered as well.  Make the playoff shares for making the playoffs large enough that the number 1 pick would be a distant thought.

What about the poor worst team in the league?  They would still get the #14 pick.  Tim Hardaway, Thunder Dan Majerle, and Clyde Drexler were all #14 picks.  Ok, so were Mateen Cleaves, Troy Murphy and Michael Dickerson.  But hey, win some games then and you won’t have to worry about it.  Tank you very much.  Or tank you very little.  Losing is NOT ok.

 

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All Good Things to Those Who Wait…

How often does something you are looking forward to arrive EARLY? Well, that’s exactly what has happened with the sequel to The Chameleon. The Greatest Mann in the World–originally set to launch Memorial Day Weekend, will take its inaugural bow this Friday, May 1st instead. Yes, Christmas has indeed come early!

The latest installment of an ordinary man’s extraordinary life has nearly arrived. Andy Warhol once said, “Everyone wants to be famous”, to which photographer, Nat Finklestein responded, “Yeah, for about 15 minutes, Andy.” The implication was that fame wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. That was certainly true for John Mann, who after skyrocketing into the national spotlight as “The Chameleon”–a man who obtained and succeeded at five different high profile jobs all within a year–decided to drift back into a life of relative obscurity as a high school athletic director in a small Connecticut town. But whereas most people find fame as elusive as a shadow on an autumn day, for some people, fame seems to always find them.

In the sequel, we fast forward 8 years to Americans waking up one December morning to find it is snowing in Southern California, sunny and 80 degrees in our nation’s capital, and pitch black in Seattle in the middle of the day. All are the result of a freak tilt in the earth’s axis that is unlikely to correct itself anytime soon. The resulting environmental shift throws an already weak economy into further disarray during a Presidential election year. Unhappy with both major political parties, a billionaire businessman springs onto the scene and funds a party that will accept nominations for the highest office in the land from any U.S. citizen. All eyes suddenly settle once again on Yale educated, high school administrator, John Mann. There’s only one problem–he doesn’t want the job.

If you enjoyed The Chameleon, you’ll love The Greatest Mann in the World. Many of the same cast of characters from the first one return in this humorous, mildly political, character driven story about an average person thrown into an extraordinary circumstance following the belief that sometimes you don’t need to win, to win.

Available at booksellers everywhere tomorrow.

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Hindsight Really is 20/20

Kurt Vonnegut said, “Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, it might have been…”.  But what if it could be again?  What if you had the opportunity to go back and re-live any five days of your life?  Would you choose days that were so precious to you that you would give anything to be able to experience them again?  Or would you choose days in which you had regrets, and with the benefit of hindsight, change the course of your life?  Or maybe you would go back to a day that you did nothing and said nothing and because of that, lived with a lifetime worth of regret and wonder?  The conversation had sprung from an evening over several pitchers of beer, when someone posed the question, “If you had to rank the best days of your life, which one would you choose?”  From there it morphed into something far greater.

A quick glance at one’s life and for most, it would appear that choosing five days would be an easy task.  Precious few of us lead lives that are that exciting.  But a closer look might dissuade you from that way of thinking.  A middle-aged person has lived more than 15,000 days.  Choosing just five of them isn’t all that easy.  It would take a thorough examination, which is fine because after all, is the unexamined life really worth living?  It would be difficult to fly in the face of Socrates.  Who was I to argue with him?

So I sat down and created a chart with five columns:  Best Days, Days of Regret, Days of Inaction, Days that Affected Friends and Family, and finally, Days that Affected History.  Under “Best Days” I listed obvious ones like my wedding day, my high school and college graduations, the 1980 Winter Olympics hockey game against the Soviet Union, Notre Dame football winning the National Championship my senior year of college, and of course, as a die hard Mets fan–games 6 and 7 of the 1986 World Series.  Others were less obvious.  Birthday lunches with my favorite aunt.   She and I celebrated birthdays one day apart from each other and always celebrated them together. Family holidays back when we still had a large family.  Winning State Championships while coaching with great friends.

“Days of Regret” were a little harder to categorize as I am one of those people that believes the mistakes we learn from best are often the ones we make ourselves.  Sure there were days I handled poorly, and people I should have treated better, but it was hard to pinpoint one specific day.  I decided whichever days I chose, to make sure I treated every person whose path I crossed with the same respect and kindness I would want to be treated.  “Days of Inaction” could be as simple as sensing something was wrong, and not going out of your way to help someone.  Or driving by someone stuck by the side of the road with a flat tire.  But how would you remember those exact days, since they probably happened more frequently than we realized?

How about “Days that Affected Friends and Family”?  I have encountered four suicides in my lifetime.  Two fathers of friends of mine.  One mother of a player in our soccer club.  And recently, a close relative in my wife’s family. Suicides are so complicated to understand, especially for a black and white mind like mine.  What could any of us have done differently to prevent them? Did we miss the signs?  The one thing I do know for certain is that I would give and try anything I could to prevent the people left behind from suffering the pain they did.  But what if I was able to prevent them from happening on that particular day, only to find out they went through with it on another day?  Could I use one of my five days for a greater good?  Which brought me to “Days that Affected History”.  In my lifetime, 9-11 jumped out immediately.  Along with the Oklahoma City Bombing.  And the tragedy of the Challenger space shuttle in 1986.

Armed with my list of days, I painstakingly paired it down to five, taking a combination from each of the columns, and from that list the novel Five Days was created.    What about you?  Would you choose to have one last day with the person you loved the most so that you could say everything you’d always wanted to say?  Would you elect to try to reverse a mistake that you once made–maybe a decision that was made on the spur of the moment and wouldn’t ever be a choice you could defend or would repeat?  Or would you simply opt to have the experience of the most blissful day imaginable to enjoy one more time?

A naysayer might ask what the point is.  We won’t have the opportunity to re-live five days, or even one day for that matter.  But what if we could?  The question is simple.  Which days would you choose?  Send them to me at www.mattmicros.com.  Under “Contact”, label it “FIVE DAYS”.  From the entries, I will select five people to receive paperback copies of Five Days along with a copy of my most recent release, Nick Nelson Was Here.  The deadline is March 1st.

There are no right or wrong answers.  Only inspirational ones.  Inspire me!

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Thinking of Robin Williams

I think what I will remember most about Robin Williams, was his ability to make other people laugh whose “job” was to make people laugh. Whenever he would go on Letterman or one of the other late night shows, he had the innate ability to make the normally controlled and stoic host laugh in spite of themselves.

From his breakout role in “Mork and Mindy”, through his many varied and successful film roles–Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, Patch Adams, Mrs. Doubtfire, and of course, his Academy Award winning performance in Good Will Hunting, he brought earnestness and sincerity to every single role. It is the rare comic who can cross over into drama, but Williams managed to do it with aplomb. He could be funny one minute, and bring a tear to your eye the next. Sometimes he could do both at the same time.

What made him so successful is also most likely what haunted him. And I’m not speaking about his battles with substance abuse. I can’t escape the sadness in knowing that a person who made so many lives better; someone whose seemingly lifelong goal was to make others smile and laugh, was unhappy himself. Robin Williams was a comedic genius, a wonderful actor, and by all accounts a genuine and kind person. I didn’t know him personally, but I wish I had. And that is perhaps the greatest tribute I could give him.

Thank you for years of entertaining us at your own expense. I stand on my desk in your honor today, and wish you health and happiness in the afterlife. Rest in peace, good sir.

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Sad Day to be a Sports Fan

One of the most vivid memories from my childhood was the day the United States hockey team beat the Soviet Union in hockey at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. I had been outside playing football in snow covered Rochester, NY when we decided to try and find the game on TV. The network decided to wait to air the game until prime time, because they thought the ratings would be better, but a local cable affiliate tapped into the feed live. Before too long, 3/4 of our neighborhood was in our living room, camped around a 12" Sony Trinitron TV set as the boys pulled what has to be the greatest upset in sports history.

Sadly, it will most likely remain that way too. I say sadly, because the Olympics now allow professional athletes to participate--millionaires who view it as more of an obligation than an honor. Witness Kevin Durant's withdrawal from the upcoming World Basketball championships as an example. The apocalypse has even invaded college sports, the last bastion of amateur athletics. Just this week, the NCAA decided to allow the Big 5 conferences to handle compensation of their student-athletes. Yes, college sports make big money. Well, some of them. But since when is a $200,000 scholarship to get a degree that most people would kill to get, not good enough? We are setting these young men up for failure in life by treating them as nothing less than Greek Gods for four years before spitting them out into the world where less than 5% of them will make a career at it. All they will have left at that point is to try and adjust to life after adulation--hopefully having attained their degree in the process.

Rather than worrying about stipends and compensation, how about focusing on making sure these men get their degree. Compensation for signing an autograph will last a few weeks. A degree will last a lifetime.

Why write?

Everyone has a purpose for writing. Some use it as a release. Others to push a political agenda. Others still want to make people laugh. I want to make people smile.

To me, there is something cathartic about creating characters that are human and yet, so heroic you wish you could be just like them. Something interesting about taking ordinary people and dropping them into extraordinary circumstances or situations. The reverse of that is also true. Something interesting about taking extraordinary people and dropping them into ordinary situations.

In my opinion, the best stories are character driven. Interaction between characters that are opposites but find a common ground. That is the basis for many of my stories. Does that mean a crime thriller can’t have elements of that? Of course not. The best ones have well developed characters that find themselves in extraordinary circumstances as mentioned above. The Firm comes to mind as an example of that. Most of Grisham’s work for that matter.

Pet peeve? Would have to be the ANTI-Hollywood ending. Or the thought that a story can only be original if it is sad. As if that is the only way a story can be thought provoking. Completely untrue in my opinion. Life can be depressing enough at times. Turn on the news at night. The first ten stories before the weather are undoubtedly about rape, murder, theft, stabbings, bombings, and kidnapping. In New England, even the weather can be depressing! Why on earth would you want to read a story that is? Overcoming obstacles? Of course. The key word being “overcoming” them. Some critics have panned stories such as “Silver Linings Playbook” for being overly sentimental. But isn’t that what life is all about? Persevering in the face of adversity?

So if you are looking for the anti-Hollywood ending; the shock for the sake of shocking the reader, you won’t find it in one of my books. But if you’re looking for something to make you reflect on life, smile, laugh a bit, and make you feel a little bit better after you’ve read it than before—look no further. Welcome aboard. I’m your man.

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