http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com. en Copyright (c) http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php Fri, 24 May 2013 02:04:28 +0000 360 no Copyright (c) http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php nonadult 0ec428f950c8454487fd289125caba57 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/cool-me My Dad is, and has always been, a joker, a real prankster. He was also my hockey coach, so he knew all my friends, and sometimes that led to situations in which I didn’t think he was as cool as he thought he was – or as cool as my friends thought he was. He was the guy who stuffed candy bars with salt and then gave them to kids on the team, or filled somebody’s pockets with a half dozen eggs when they didn’t pay attention. My friends still tell me stories like that of my Dad, and while I laugh at the stories now, I also know I didn’t always laugh at them then. It may be hard to be saint in the city , but I’m sure even The Boss would agree that it’s just as hard to be a cool Dad. It’s a moving target at best. L ast year, I went on a field trip with Son’s class. Son was a little nervous before the trip, though, because I kept telling him about my plans to show his buddies what a cool Dad he had. “I’ll even pull down my pants and wear my baseball hat sideways, like this!” I told him. He ran away screaming. I pulled my pants back up, and turned my hat backwards, the way the really cool kids used to wear hats when I was a kid. I promised Son I wouldn’t pull my pants down, and that I’d just make those funny comments I always make on the subway. “You don’t have to,” he said. “I can’t help it. You know how it is, I’m a funny guy,” I said. Son was quiet for a second, and just stared at me. “You know, you don’t have to try to be cool,” he said. “But I can’t help it,” I said. “Sure. Just don’t try so hard,” he said. We went to the museum, and it was all very exciting. The kids behaved well all the way through it, and I like to think I did, too because since that trip Son’s been a lot more tolerant with me speaking with his buddies. In fact, a few weeks ago, after I’d stormed into their classroom - after class - and shouted, “are you griefing everybody” to Son who was on the couch playing Minecraft with his buddies, I was a real-life viral hit in his class for about three days. That week, when I came to the school to pick Son and Daughter up, Son’s classmates asked me to yell, “are you griefing everybody here!” And I did. I was a little unsure at first, I thought maybe they were secretly laughing at me, but when I saw Son get the cool kid in the class, and asked me to yell that catchphrase to him, too, I got into it. I knew they were laughing with me. By next Monday, though, my act had worn thin. “We’re not doing that anymore,” Son told me. Y esterday, on our way home, Daughter’s classmates stopped her just outside the gates. The two girls were still on the schoolyard side of the fence, two young boys, maybe nine years old, were on the other side of it. When Daughter’s friends saw her, they yelled something about somebody being the cutest something in school. I kept on walking because I didn’t want to interfere. When Daughter caught up with me and Son, I asked her if I had heard right and that her friends thought I was, indeed, the coolest Dad in school. “No,” said Daughter, and snickered. “You sure, because I think I heard them talk about coolest something,” I said. Son put his arm around me. “Dad, you know, you don’t have to be the coolest Dad in school. It doesn’t even matter what the other kids think, the most important thing is that I think you’re the coolest Dad in the world,” he said, and gave me a squeeze. I laughed and tousled his hair. "Thanks, Son," I said. "You're right." Then we walked back to the car, talking about this and that, and I don't think Son even noticed that I flipped my hat backwards. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Thu, 23 May 2013 10:10:41 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no My Dad is, and has always been, a joker, a real prankster. He was also my hockey coach, so he knew all my friends, and sometimes that led to situations in which I didn’t think he was as cool as he thought he was – or as cool as my friends thought he was. He was the guy who stuffed candy bars with salt and then gave them to kids on the team, or filled somebody’s pockets with a half dozen eggs when they didn’t pay attention. My friends still tell me stories like that of my Dad, and while I laugh at the stories now, I also know I didn’t always laugh at them then. It may be hard to be saint in the city , but I’m sure even The Boss would agree that it’s just as hard to be a cool Dad. It’s a moving target at best. L ast year, I went on a field trip with Son’s class. Son was a little nervous before the trip, though, because I kept telling him about my plans to show his buddies what a cool Dad he had. “I’ll even pull down my pants and wear my baseball hat sideways, like this!” I told him. He ran away screaming. I pulled my pants back up, and turned my hat backwards, the way the really cool kids used to wear hats when I was a kid. I promised Son I wouldn’t pull my pants down, and that I’d just make those funny comments I always make on the subway. “You don’t have to,” he said. “I can’t help it. You know how it is, I’m a funny guy,” I said. Son was quiet for a second, and just stared at me. “You know, you don’t have to try to be cool,” he said. “But I can’t help it,” I said. “Sure. Just don’t try so hard,” he said. We went to the museum, and it was all very exciting. The kids behaved well all the way through it, and I like to think I did, too because since that trip Son’s been a lot more tolerant with me speaking with his buddies. In fact, a few weeks ago, after I’d stormed into their classroom - after class - and shouted, “are you griefing everybody” to Son who was on the couch playing Minecraft with his buddies, I was a real-life viral hit in his class for about three days. That week, when I came to the school to pick Son and Daughter up, Son’s classmates asked me to yell, “are you griefing everybody here!” And I did. I was a little unsure at first, I thought maybe they were secretly laughing at me, but when I saw Son get the cool kid in the class, and asked me to yell that catchphrase to him, too, I got into it. I knew they were laughing with me. By next Monday, though, my act had worn thin. “We’re not doing that anymore,” Son told me. Y esterday, on our way home, Daughter’s classmates stopped her just outside the gates. The two girls were still on the schoolyard side of the fence, two young boys, maybe nine years old, were on the other side of it. When Daughter’s friends saw her, they yelled something about somebody being the cutest something in school. I kept on walking because I didn’t want to interfere. When Daughter caught up with me and Son, I asked her if I had heard right and that her friends thought I was, indeed, the coolest Dad in school. “No,” said Daughter, and snickered. “You sure, because I think I heard them talk about coolest something,” I said. Son put his arm around me. “Dad, you know, you don’t have to be the coolest Dad in school. It doesn’t even matter what the other kids think, the most important thing is that I think you’re the coolest Dad in the world,” he said, and gave me a squeeze. I laughed and tousled his hair. "Thanks, Son," I said. "You're right." Then we walked back to the car, talking about this and that, and I don't think Son even noticed that I flipped my hat backwards. 288ebe2856014a5ca5f36938aa57d4fc http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/kings-of-sweden STOCKHOLM – Apparently there were a handful Swedes who had full confidence in their team before Sunday’s final. One of them was Carl Gustav XVI. The real king of Sweden. “I was pretty calm,” His Majesty told the players when the newly-crowned world champions paid a visit at the Royal Palace in central Stockholm just 12 hours after they had beat Switzerland 5-1 in the final. As the team presented the royal family with an autographed sweater, the players probably already heard the Poodles play their official tournament song - “En för alla för en”, or “one for all for one” - in the background because meanwhile, thousands and thousands of people gathered in Kungsträdgården, a recreational park that can be seen from the castle. Kungsträdgården, “King’s garden” has in recent years become the new place for such events. Back in 2006, when Sweden won both the Olympic gold and the World Championship, the Olympic team had their parade end at Medborgarplatsen, a square on the south side of town, and the World Champions in Kungsträdgården. The stage has been ready every year, but for seven long years, it’s stayed empty, sadly overlooking the two lines of Japanese cherry trees that surround the park. Except for that one night in January in 2012, when the under-20 team celebrated their World Junior Championship out in the cold. But on Monday, the sun was out, the cherry trees had bloomed and were already mostly green, with a shadow of pink still remaining there. Above the stage there was a big sign that said, “WORLD CHAMPIONS”, in Swedish. Not many experts had believed in the team before the tournament, and they did stumble in the early rounds. They lost to Switzerland, and they lost to Canada, and they squeaked by both the Czech Republic and Belarus, winning both games 2-1. In fact, Sweden scored only 17 goals in their seven preliminary round games, fewest of the four teams that advanced to the playoff stage. But they did score four in their last preliminary round game, which was also the first with Daniel and Henrik Sedin on the team. Sweden scored 14 goals - and one in the shootout in the game against Canada - in its four games with the Sedins. Henrik and Daniel were the architects for ten of them, including eight of the team’s ten goals in the three playoff games. “We watched a game on TV back home [in Vancouver], and what we saw was a hard working team in which everybody worked for each other. That’s the kind of team we love to play for,” Daniel Sedin told Aftonbladet before the final. There they were, wearing the yellow sweaters, lifting the cup, just to hear the crowd roar. So many of them finally getting their due, their day in the sun. There were the Sedins, while Olympic champions from 2006, still somewhat unappreciated in their home land, because they’ve had the big three - Sundin, Forsberg, Lidström - in front of them. There was Staffan Kronwall, the brother of Niklas, who was the team captain, and led his boys to a wild song and dance number on stage, and there was Joel Lundqvist, the hard-working brother of Henrik, and the only one of the 2013 team who had been on the Kungsträdgården stage in 2006. And there was Pär Mårts, the head coach of Team Sweden, who finally got the gold medal that has eluded him in his years behind the national team benches. And with it he got a car from Skoda, the long-time official main sponsor of the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. Two years ago he took his team to the World Championship final - but lost to Finland - and before that, he led the U20 national team to two silver medals and one bronze. This time, Mårts was a winner. “There’s no better place to get that gold medal than at home,” he said. “We’ve felt a great unity in the group since day one, when we got to together in April. The spark was ignited, and the fire has burned since then. We’ve always believed in each other,” he added. Mårts also noted that adding the Sedins to the team didn’t disrupt anything, as “the boys have been brought up in the Swedish system”. In the end, it was the Swedish system that came through, and came out on top. Good defence, excellent goaltending from Jhonas Enroth, a team that pulled together. And a couple of twins from Örnsköldsvik, the heartland of hockey. The World Championship final gathered an estimated three-million people TV audience. So did the Eurovision Song Contest from Malmö, Sweden, on Saturday. While the two audiences aren’t mutually exclusive, it’s safe to say the entire country came together on Monday, when Robin Stjernberg walked onto the stage with the championship team, and performed Sweden’s entry to the ESC: “You.” The crowd was dancing, and the players were hopping, as Stjernberg hit all the high notes: “Isn’t it crazy, yeah, isn’t it crazy? It’s all because of you-uu, all because of you-uuuooh.” The home-ice ghost was nowhere to be seen. From IIHF.com [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Tue, 21 May 2013 09:52:38 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no STOCKHOLM – Apparently there were a handful Swedes who had full confidence in their team before Sunday’s final. One of them was Carl Gustav XVI. The real king of Sweden. “I was pretty calm,” His Majesty told the players when the newly-crowned world champions paid a visit at the Royal Palace in central Stockholm just 12 hours after they had beat Switzerland 5-1 in the final. As the team presented the royal family with an autographed sweater, the players probably already heard the Poodles play their official tournament song - “En för alla för en”, or “one for all for one” - in the background because meanwhile, thousands and thousands of people gathered in Kungsträdgården, a recreational park that can be seen from the castle. Kungsträdgården, “King’s garden” has in recent years become the new place for such events. Back in 2006, when Sweden won both the Olympic gold and the World Championship, the Olympic team had their parade end at Medborgarplatsen, a square on the south side of town, and the World Champions in Kungsträdgården. The stage has been ready every year, but for seven long years, it’s stayed empty, sadly overlooking the two lines of Japanese cherry trees that surround the park. Except for that one night in January in 2012, when the under-20 team celebrated their World Junior Championship out in the cold. But on Monday, the sun was out, the cherry trees had bloomed and were already mostly green, with a shadow of pink still remaining there. Above the stage there was a big sign that said, “WORLD CHAMPIONS”, in Swedish. Not many experts had believed in the team before the tournament, and they did stumble in the early rounds. They lost to Switzerland, and they lost to Canada, and they squeaked by both the Czech Republic and Belarus, winning both games 2-1. In fact, Sweden scored only 17 goals in their seven preliminary round games, fewest of the four teams that advanced to the playoff stage. But they did score four in their last preliminary round game, which was also the first with Daniel and Henrik Sedin on the team. Sweden scored 14 goals - and one in the shootout in the game against Canada - in its four games with the Sedins. Henrik and Daniel were the architects for ten of them, including eight of the team’s ten goals in the three playoff games. “We watched a game on TV back home [in Vancouver], and what we saw was a hard working team in which everybody worked for each other. That’s the kind of team we love to play for,” Daniel Sedin told Aftonbladet before the final. There they were, wearing the yellow sweaters, lifting the cup, just to hear the crowd roar. So many of them finally getting their due, their day in the sun. There were the Sedins, while Olympic champions from 2006, still somewhat unappreciated in their home land, because they’ve had the big three - Sundin, Forsberg, Lidström - in front of them. There was Staffan Kronwall, the brother of Niklas, who was the team captain, and led his boys to a wild song and dance number on stage, and there was Joel Lundqvist, the hard-working brother of Henrik, and the only one of the 2013 team who had been on the Kungsträdgården stage in 2006. And there was Pär Mårts, the head coach of Team Sweden, who finally got the gold medal that has eluded him in his years behind the national team benches. And with it he got a car from Skoda, the long-time official main sponsor of the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship. Two years ago he took his team to the World Championship final - but lost to Finland - and before that, he led the U20 national team to two silver medals and one bronze. This time, Mårts was a winner. “There’s no better place to get that gold medal than at home,” he said. “We’ve felt a great unity in the group since day one, when we got to together in April. The spark was ignited, and the fire has burned since then. We’ve always believed in each other,” he added. Mårts also noted that adding the Sedins to the team didn’t disrupt anything, as “the boys have been brought up in the Swedish system”. In the end, it was the Swedish system that came through, and came out on top. Good defence, excellent goaltending from Jhonas Enroth, a team that pulled together. And a couple of twins from Örnsköldsvik, the heartland of hockey. The World Championship final gathered an estimated three-million people TV audience. So did the Eurovision Song Contest from Malmö, Sweden, on Saturday. While the two audiences aren’t mutually exclusive, it’s safe to say the entire country came together on Monday, when Robin Stjernberg walked onto the stage with the championship team, and performed Sweden’s entry to the ESC: “You.” The crowd was dancing, and the players were hopping, as Stjernberg hit all the high notes: “Isn’t it crazy, yeah, isn’t it crazy? It’s all because of you-uu, all because of you-uuuooh.” The home-ice ghost was nowhere to be seen. From IIHF.com c619d78879e44c2ea6d5185719d8c790 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/el-guano Right now, if I lift my eyes off the screen and stop typing this, I’ll see one of the most beautiful views over Helsinki. I’m sitting at an outside café on a hill, overlooking the bay, with the National opera, the Finlandia Hall, the National museum, the House of Parliament, the museum of modern art, and my old gym to my right. And one lonesome swan slowly swimming across the bay from north to south. It’s taken it a good ten minutes, so you it’s taking it easy, because one lap around the bay is two kilometers. The fact that it’s a swan is significant, because swan also happens to be the national bird of Finland. So seeing that national bird swim majestically across the bay puts a smile on my face, the same way almost riding my bike over a blonde Finnish teenage girl yesterday did. One, because I only almost crashed into her. Two, because it wasn’t really my fault, she just didn’t see me at all … because she was busy reading Väinö Linna’s “Unknown Soldier” - the great Finnish war novel - walking past the statue of Paavo Nurmi - a legendary runner - at the Olympic Stadium. So you see how a swam swimming from the National Opera to the Finlandia Hall could be a loaded Finnish moment. Except that I don’t much like birds. Son likes to chase pigeons at squares and while I may sometimes tell him to take it easy on the birds, I admit, I too like to see them fly away. I don’t find bids cute or attractive, except penguins, maybe. I think most birds are a little scary with their claws, and their beaks, and their crazy eyes. All birds have crazy eyes. Mostly, though, it’s the dropping. The guano. Bird shit. I hate it, I hate the look of those white droppings on a sidewalk, and there are few things that I think are more disgusting than getting bird shit in your hair. It’s happened to me twice. The first time I was quick to look up, and I caught a glimpse of the seagull, and one day, I will catch him. He can fly but he can’t hide. I never forget a face. The second time, it was a flock of birds, shitting down on me, Wife, Godfather and his wife, but I got hit the most. And frankly, swans are no better than other birds. Sure, they swim “majestically”, and yes, the one I just saw looked beautiful from a distance of about 150 meters. But I’ve seen swans from up close, too. Swans are everywhere in downtown Stockholm, swimming - majestically - under the bridges between the Royal palace, and the Grand Hotel. One time, when I was on my way to the gym during lunch, 15 years ago, a swan had apparently got lost, wound up on the street, and was now walking back and forth among the pedestrians - not majestically. As I got a little closer to the bird, it … crapped right in front of me on the street. There was nothing majestic about it. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Wed, 08 May 2013 09:41:37 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Right now, if I lift my eyes off the screen and stop typing this, I’ll see one of the most beautiful views over Helsinki. I’m sitting at an outside café on a hill, overlooking the bay, with the National opera, the Finlandia Hall, the National museum, the House of Parliament, the museum of modern art, and my old gym to my right. And one lonesome swan slowly swimming across the bay from north to south. It’s taken it a good ten minutes, so you it’s taking it easy, because one lap around the bay is two kilometers. The fact that it’s a swan is significant, because swan also happens to be the national bird of Finland. So seeing that national bird swim majestically across the bay puts a smile on my face, the same way almost riding my bike over a blonde Finnish teenage girl yesterday did. One, because I only almost crashed into her. Two, because it wasn’t really my fault, she just didn’t see me at all … because she was busy reading Väinö Linna’s “Unknown Soldier” - the great Finnish war novel - walking past the statue of Paavo Nurmi - a legendary runner - at the Olympic Stadium. So you see how a swam swimming from the National Opera to the Finlandia Hall could be a loaded Finnish moment. Except that I don’t much like birds. Son likes to chase pigeons at squares and while I may sometimes tell him to take it easy on the birds, I admit, I too like to see them fly away. I don’t find bids cute or attractive, except penguins, maybe. I think most birds are a little scary with their claws, and their beaks, and their crazy eyes. All birds have crazy eyes. Mostly, though, it’s the dropping. The guano. Bird shit. I hate it, I hate the look of those white droppings on a sidewalk, and there are few things that I think are more disgusting than getting bird shit in your hair. It’s happened to me twice. The first time I was quick to look up, and I caught a glimpse of the seagull, and one day, I will catch him. He can fly but he can’t hide. I never forget a face. The second time, it was a flock of birds, shitting down on me, Wife, Godfather and his wife, but I got hit the most. And frankly, swans are no better than other birds. Sure, they swim “majestically”, and yes, the one I just saw looked beautiful from a distance of about 150 meters. But I’ve seen swans from up close, too. Swans are everywhere in downtown Stockholm, swimming - majestically - under the bridges between the Royal palace, and the Grand Hotel. One time, when I was on my way to the gym during lunch, 15 years ago, a swan had apparently got lost, wound up on the street, and was now walking back and forth among the pedestrians - not majestically. As I got a little closer to the bird, it … crapped right in front of me on the street. There was nothing majestic about it. 87bbe02b4bf444f89e2c0b6f47927172 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/undercover-agent Had they not rebuilt the Joensuu rink the way they have, I’d be able to show you exactly where I was when I realized I wasn’t going to become a hockey star, down to an inch. It was the middle of the night, and my team had just got back from a road trip to the west coast of Finland. I had probably not played a lot so for me, it had mostly been a 12-hour bus ride across Finland, with Twisted Sister playing in my Walkman. I got my hockey bag from the trunk of the bus, and as I lifted it on my shoulder and started to walk towards the arena entrance. And that’s where it finally dawned on me. I wasn’t going to be the next Gretzky, or even Matti Forss, my big idol in the Finnish league. “Maybe it’s time for me to move on to the other side,” I muttered to myself. I had quit hockey at least once before, so when I sleepwalked to school six hours later - because I made it a point never to miss class after a hockey trip - I had no big plans for my hockey future, or any other future. But I had had a moment of clarity, and during that moment, I had made two decisions. One, playing hockey was a hobby. Two, I wasn’t going to quit the game, I was just going to move on, “to the other side” of things. It took me a couple of years to figure out what that other thing might be, but by my second year in the university, when it was time to pick my major, I had a half-baked plan. I was going to become a hockey agent. And so I majored in marketing, and minored in law, a combination I had decided was perfect for an agent. Back then, it was a new idea, because there weren't many real hockey agents in Finland. When I had thought about that combination, I had forgot about one thing: That the most important product I’d have to market was myself. I realized that fairly quickly when I graduated from the business school three years later, and had no clients. I had no job, and no money. No clients, and no plans on how to get clients. After graduation I had moved to my Grandma’s attic, and after two weeks, upgraded to an apartment upstairs of an old house in the countryside, with the downstairs being used as a kindergarten. I didn’t have a shower in the apartment, nor a real kitchen, and I had to do my dishes downstairs after the kids had been picked up. But I did do my dishes, and on weekends, I was allowed to use the sauna in the main building - a former piggery - in the same courtyard. O ne day, a former teammate, a former linemate, and a former best friend - that’s all the same guy, and still a good friend - called me. It was early afternoon, so I had just barely got up and had played Civilization 2 only for a couple of hours, but when I heard his voice, I was wide awake. He had played a couple of seasons in the Finnish league, but now he felt that he was treading water. It was time to shake things up. He felt he didn’t get the respect he deserved – so he asked me to represent him. “Sure. Sure thing,” I said. I pushed the Olivetti keyboard a little farther away, and then got up. “So, like, what do you want me to do,” I added and started to walk around the apartment, thinking. Thinking hard. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me that?” said my friend, and I could feel the blood rush to my head. I was quiet for a second, and just looked out the window. The kids were playing in the playground. It was a nice spring day. “Well, I was just wondering if you’ve had any talks with them,” I said, and then my friend told me that yes, and then he asked me to take over. The GM of his team was one of the most famous GMs in Finland. He was the GM of the biggest club in the country, and he was also the manager of the coolest hotel in town. All in all, that made him the most intimidating GM to deal with. Never in my dreams and half-baked plans had I come across the situation of actually negotiating with somebody. In my vision, I was talking to the players, and I was walking around carrying a light brown stylish briefcase, or sitting in the stands, deep in my thoughts. The only thing that matched my vision was my phone. It was cordless. That alone made it cool in the early 1990s. I had no idea of how much a good player should get paid. I didn’t know how I was going to get paid. For one of my previous hockey business gigs - writing copy for brochures of a hockey software and showing demos of it to coaches - I had got a set of golf clubs. None of that mattered, though, because I had a client, and I had a job to do. A couple of days later, I put on a shirt and a tie, and sat down at my desk next to the window overlooking an empty country road. I looked at my white mailbox that looked like a Moomin, the one that I had built and painted with my cousin, and I thought the world was a pretty fantastic place when I - a kid - could be pulling major strings from the upstairs of a piggery. “If they only knew,” I said to myself. And then I punched in the GM’s number. The phone rang once. Twice. I coughed. Third ring. “Hi, this is Risto Pakarinen…," I muttered. Four. The GM answered. I introduced myself. “… And the reason I call you today is that I’m actually calling for J,” I said. There was no reply. “You know, your player,” I added, thinking that maybe he was preoccupied with something or hadn’t heard me. The line was silent for a few seconds, and just as I was about to say something else, the GM spoke. “So, what are you, some kind of a fucking agent?” he said, spitting out the last word in disgust. Then he hung up on me. “I guess not,” I said. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:28:36 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Had they not rebuilt the Joensuu rink the way they have, I’d be able to show you exactly where I was when I realized I wasn’t going to become a hockey star, down to an inch. It was the middle of the night, and my team had just got back from a road trip to the west coast of Finland. I had probably not played a lot so for me, it had mostly been a 12-hour bus ride across Finland, with Twisted Sister playing in my Walkman. I got my hockey bag from the trunk of the bus, and as I lifted it on my shoulder and started to walk towards the arena entrance. And that’s where it finally dawned on me. I wasn’t going to be the next Gretzky, or even Matti Forss, my big idol in the Finnish league. “Maybe it’s time for me to move on to the other side,” I muttered to myself. I had quit hockey at least once before, so when I sleepwalked to school six hours later - because I made it a point never to miss class after a hockey trip - I had no big plans for my hockey future, or any other future. But I had had a moment of clarity, and during that moment, I had made two decisions. One, playing hockey was a hobby. Two, I wasn’t going to quit the game, I was just going to move on, “to the other side” of things. It took me a couple of years to figure out what that other thing might be, but by my second year in the university, when it was time to pick my major, I had a half-baked plan. I was going to become a hockey agent. And so I majored in marketing, and minored in law, a combination I had decided was perfect for an agent. Back then, it was a new idea, because there weren't many real hockey agents in Finland. When I had thought about that combination, I had forgot about one thing: That the most important product I’d have to market was myself. I realized that fairly quickly when I graduated from the business school three years later, and had no clients. I had no job, and no money. No clients, and no plans on how to get clients. After graduation I had moved to my Grandma’s attic, and after two weeks, upgraded to an apartment upstairs of an old house in the countryside, with the downstairs being used as a kindergarten. I didn’t have a shower in the apartment, nor a real kitchen, and I had to do my dishes downstairs after the kids had been picked up. But I did do my dishes, and on weekends, I was allowed to use the sauna in the main building - a former piggery - in the same courtyard. O ne day, a former teammate, a former linemate, and a former best friend - that’s all the same guy, and still a good friend - called me. It was early afternoon, so I had just barely got up and had played Civilization 2 only for a couple of hours, but when I heard his voice, I was wide awake. He had played a couple of seasons in the Finnish league, but now he felt that he was treading water. It was time to shake things up. He felt he didn’t get the respect he deserved – so he asked me to represent him. “Sure. Sure thing,” I said. I pushed the Olivetti keyboard a little farther away, and then got up. “So, like, what do you want me to do,” I added and started to walk around the apartment, thinking. Thinking hard. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me that?” said my friend, and I could feel the blood rush to my head. I was quiet for a second, and just looked out the window. The kids were playing in the playground. It was a nice spring day. “Well, I was just wondering if you’ve had any talks with them,” I said, and then my friend told me that yes, and then he asked me to take over. The GM of his team was one of the most famous GMs in Finland. He was the GM of the biggest club in the country, and he was also the manager of the coolest hotel in town. All in all, that made him the most intimidating GM to deal with. Never in my dreams and half-baked plans had I come across the situation of actually negotiating with somebody. In my vision, I was talking to the players, and I was walking around carrying a light brown stylish briefcase, or sitting in the stands, deep in my thoughts. The only thing that matched my vision was my phone. It was cordless. That alone made it cool in the early 1990s. I had no idea of how much a good player should get paid. I didn’t know how I was going to get paid. For one of my previous hockey business gigs - writing copy for brochures of a hockey software and showing demos of it to coaches - I had got a set of golf clubs. None of that mattered, though, because I had a client, and I had a job to do. A couple of days later, I put on a shirt and a tie, and sat down at my desk next to the window overlooking an empty country road. I looked at my white mailbox that looked like a Moomin, the one that I had built and painted with my cousin, and I thought the world was a pretty fantastic place when I - a kid - could be pulling major strings from the upstairs of a piggery. “If they only knew,” I said to myself. And then I punched in the GM’s number. The phone rang once. Twice. I coughed. Third ring. “Hi, this is Risto Pakarinen…," I muttered. Four. The GM answered. I introduced myself. “… And the reason I call you today is that I’m actually calling for J,” I said. There was no reply. “You know, your player,” I added, thinking that maybe he was preoccupied with something or hadn’t heard me. The line was silent for a few seconds, and just as I was about to say something else, the GM spoke. “So, what are you, some kind of a fucking agent?” he said, spitting out the last word in disgust. Then he hung up on me. “I guess not,” I said. 73421bb6469744e48a67fdad4404b413 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/this-man-s-best-friend I lay in the backseat of our car, seemingly sleeping, but secretly eavesdropping on my parents’ conversation in front. Back then, kids could do that, and I usually sat in the back, on my knees on the hump that runs through the middle of the car, but my head between the two front seats – if I wasn’t reading comics, that is. We were on our way home from my aunt’s place just outside Helsinki. We didn’t visit her often, and I didn’t really know her, which made me dread those trips a little, but that one time I almost didn’t want to go home, because in the back of her yard, behind a chicken netting fence, my aunt had a half a dozen German shepherd puppies. Did I want a puppy? Of course I wanted a puppy, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it because I knew it wouldn’t help anyway. I listened to the conversation, and crossed my fingers, and just as we stopped at the traffic lights in front of the main Post Office, I heard Mom and Dad decide that, yes, it’d be a good idea to take a puppy. They didn’t tell me about it just yet, but the next day Dad drove back to his sister’s place, and came back with a puppy. Of course, I would have to participate in the care of the dog, I was told, and I promised that I would. I’d take really good care of him. We’d be the best of friends, just like the Famous Five and Timmy. Or Lassie and the little girl. I guess one of the rational motives Mom and Dad came up with when they held their pow-wow in the front seat that day was that he’d be good company for me, who was just starting school, but Dad has always been an animal lover so it wasn’t that hard to convince him that it’d be a good idea to have a dog in the house. We already had a guinea pig, and before that, for maybe a couple weeks, maybe just a few days, I don’t remember, we had a bird that Dad had found hurt somewhere, and saved. It was either a crow or a magpie, and I remember it sitting in a shoebox in the back of our car, behind me, on our way to Grandma’s house. Maybe that was the trip when we let him free again. The guinea pig’s name was Roosa, the bird’s Roope. The puppy was named Riku. What can I say, we always liked names that started with R. When Dad came back, he told the story of how he had picked that particular dog out of the many, (almost) equally cute puppies. “When I walked up to them, they all ran towards me and barked and jumped up to the fence – except this one dog, who stayed a little behind the others, and looked shy,” he told Mom and me. “So I picked him.” And he couldn’t have picked better. B ecause he was a German shepherd, and a strong one at that, Dad wanted Riku to be trained properly so that Mom, and me - because at this point we still entertained the idea of my walking him - could control him. Riku was enrolled into a dog academy. Dad visited him a couple of times so that Riku would learn that he was his master, and by the end of the training, Dad was there all the time to make the transition smooth. We were very proud of him. Riku, that is. Dad then showed Mom and me how Riku should always walk on our left side, with his head next to our knee. He’d sit, lie down, and stay in place until given permission to move, on command. But he also learned to give his paw, to hold a piece of chocolate on his snout, and throw it in his mouth when we told him he could do that. And of course, he could play dead, one of Dad’s favorite tricks. I think he also could count. He couldn’t do algebra, but he did count to ten. I fully expected Riku to talk to me when we were at home in the afternoons after school, and when he didn’t, I made up his lines in our conversations. “Hey, Riku, I’m home.” “About time. Wanna do something,” he’d reply, wagging his tail against the hall cabinets, so that it sounded like a big drum. “Sure. Whaddaya wanna do? Want to play Tarzan?” “Only if I get to be the lion.” And he did get to be the lion – except when he was Cheetah, or an elephant, or a crocodile I’d have to wrestle with. Or maybe he was the Dog in my version of Enid Blyton’s “Five Find-Outers and Dog” called “One Find-Outer and Dog”. Unless we played soccer, and he was the goalie. All adventures always took place inside our apartment, because, while Riku was the smartest dog in the world, who graduated summa cum laude from the training academy and who also got trained by the police - when Dad’s policeman friend joined the canine unit - there was always the chance that something would happen, and I couldn’t hold back. After all, Dad used to let Riku pull him on the snowy sidewalks of Helsinki in the winter. Of course there were days when I found him lying in front of the balcony door, his nose pressed against the little crack between the threshold and the door, where cool air would get in, and when I got home, he’d just raise his head a little bit, as if to you say, “Oh, you” and then go back to his resting position. We all got what we wanted. Dad got a pet, Mom got company for the nights when Dad and I were at the hockey rink, and I - as planned - got a buddy. Mom likes to tell a story about my getting a pair of new skates for Christmas, and being so, so happy that I didn’t know what to do. So what did I do? I hugged Riku and whispered the good news into his ear. Then I grew up, and I didn’t play Tarzan (as much) with Riku, but he’d still be there for me after school, although, the days when he just lifted his head a little bit became more of the norm. But we played ball, and we talked and had each others’ backs. B y the time I was a senior in high school, Riku had grown old. At 84 (in dog years), he was a greybeard, and it wasn’t just as easy to get him excited about fetching those tennis balls anymore. At the end of high school, seniors in Finland dress up in costumes, and then get thrown out of school in February so they can study for the national exams in March. Riku had been with me from first grade, so I thought it’d be great if he’d be there with me when I finish high school. My plan was to dress up as The Phantom, and Riku would be my “Devil”. (For all you phantomaniacs out there, I know, “Devil is not a dog, he’s a wolf”). That winter, though, one weekend, he got very tired. He just lay on the floor, and didn’t want to get up. He whimpered a little, but mostly he just seemed to want to sleep. That wouldn’t do, so I tried to cheer him up. I teased him with a ball, and petted him, and talked to him, and he got up. Then I got him outside, and I started to throw snowballs for him to fetch. Of course, they disappeared into the snow, baffling Riku completely. And I stood there, and threw snowballs to him, underhand, just a little behind him, so he’d have to try to twist his body in the air if he wanted to catch it. And fifteen minutes later, he was back to his usual self, the happy-go-lucky dog that he was. I was happy to see that because I believed that it was me that had brought back his will to live. I thought that if only I could love him just a little bit more, he’d want to hang around a lot longer. Riku died a few weeks later, when I was on a hockey trip on the west coast of Finland. Dad had found him, and wrapped him up, and carried him to the car. And then he found him a spot at a pet cemetary, and a tombstone, and for years we’d go to his grave on our way to my grandparents’ graves at Xmas. A few weeks after Riku died, it was time for my last day of school. I wore red swimming trunks on top of my hockey one-piece underwear, Mom’s hood, Mom’s hat, Dad’s winter boots, and a plastic belt that Dad made and painted the Phantom’s skull on. On top of everything, I wore Dad’s long winter coat. I looked at myself in the mirror, checked that the skull logo on my belt was visible, and that my face was covered by my mother’s hat. I was happy with my costume. I looked just like the Phantom. It was perfect. If not for the empty space to my left. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:47:33 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no I lay in the backseat of our car, seemingly sleeping, but secretly eavesdropping on my parents’ conversation in front. Back then, kids could do that, and I usually sat in the back, on my knees on the hump that runs through the middle of the car, but my head between the two front seats – if I wasn’t reading comics, that is. We were on our way home from my aunt’s place just outside Helsinki. We didn’t visit her often, and I didn’t really know her, which made me dread those trips a little, but that one time I almost didn’t want to go home, because in the back of her yard, behind a chicken netting fence, my aunt had a half a dozen German shepherd puppies. Did I want a puppy? Of course I wanted a puppy, but I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it because I knew it wouldn’t help anyway. I listened to the conversation, and crossed my fingers, and just as we stopped at the traffic lights in front of the main Post Office, I heard Mom and Dad decide that, yes, it’d be a good idea to take a puppy. They didn’t tell me about it just yet, but the next day Dad drove back to his sister’s place, and came back with a puppy. Of course, I would have to participate in the care of the dog, I was told, and I promised that I would. I’d take really good care of him. We’d be the best of friends, just like the Famous Five and Timmy. Or Lassie and the little girl. I guess one of the rational motives Mom and Dad came up with when they held their pow-wow in the front seat that day was that he’d be good company for me, who was just starting school, but Dad has always been an animal lover so it wasn’t that hard to convince him that it’d be a good idea to have a dog in the house. We already had a guinea pig, and before that, for maybe a couple weeks, maybe just a few days, I don’t remember, we had a bird that Dad had found hurt somewhere, and saved. It was either a crow or a magpie, and I remember it sitting in a shoebox in the back of our car, behind me, on our way to Grandma’s house. Maybe that was the trip when we let him free again. The guinea pig’s name was Roosa, the bird’s Roope. The puppy was named Riku. What can I say, we always liked names that started with R. When Dad came back, he told the story of how he had picked that particular dog out of the many, (almost) equally cute puppies. “When I walked up to them, they all ran towards me and barked and jumped up to the fence – except this one dog, who stayed a little behind the others, and looked shy,” he told Mom and me. “So I picked him.” And he couldn’t have picked better. B ecause he was a German shepherd, and a strong one at that, Dad wanted Riku to be trained properly so that Mom, and me - because at this point we still entertained the idea of my walking him - could control him. Riku was enrolled into a dog academy. Dad visited him a couple of times so that Riku would learn that he was his master, and by the end of the training, Dad was there all the time to make the transition smooth. We were very proud of him. Riku, that is. Dad then showed Mom and me how Riku should always walk on our left side, with his head next to our knee. He’d sit, lie down, and stay in place until given permission to move, on command. But he also learned to give his paw, to hold a piece of chocolate on his snout, and throw it in his mouth when we told him he could do that. And of course, he could play dead, one of Dad’s favorite tricks. I think he also could count. He couldn’t do algebra, but he did count to ten. I fully expected Riku to talk to me when we were at home in the afternoons after school, and when he didn’t, I made up his lines in our conversations. “Hey, Riku, I’m home.” “About time. Wanna do something,” he’d reply, wagging his tail against the hall cabinets, so that it sounded like a big drum. “Sure. Whaddaya wanna do? Want to play Tarzan?” “Only if I get to be the lion.” And he did get to be the lion – except when he was Cheetah, or an elephant, or a crocodile I’d have to wrestle with. Or maybe he was the Dog in my version of Enid Blyton’s “Five Find-Outers and Dog” called “One Find-Outer and Dog”. Unless we played soccer, and he was the goalie. All adventures always took place inside our apartment, because, while Riku was the smartest dog in the world, who graduated summa cum laude from the training academy and who also got trained by the police - when Dad’s policeman friend joined the canine unit - there was always the chance that something would happen, and I couldn’t hold back. After all, Dad used to let Riku pull him on the snowy sidewalks of Helsinki in the winter. Of course there were days when I found him lying in front of the balcony door, his nose pressed against the little crack between the threshold and the door, where cool air would get in, and when I got home, he’d just raise his head a little bit, as if to you say, “Oh, you” and then go back to his resting position. We all got what we wanted. Dad got a pet, Mom got company for the nights when Dad and I were at the hockey rink, and I - as planned - got a buddy. Mom likes to tell a story about my getting a pair of new skates for Christmas, and being so, so happy that I didn’t know what to do. So what did I do? I hugged Riku and whispered the good news into his ear. Then I grew up, and I didn’t play Tarzan (as much) with Riku, but he’d still be there for me after school, although, the days when he just lifted his head a little bit became more of the norm. But we played ball, and we talked and had each others’ backs. B y the time I was a senior in high school, Riku had grown old. At 84 (in dog years), he was a greybeard, and it wasn’t just as easy to get him excited about fetching those tennis balls anymore. At the end of high school, seniors in Finland dress up in costumes, and then get thrown out of school in February so they can study for the national exams in March. Riku had been with me from first grade, so I thought it’d be great if he’d be there with me when I finish high school. My plan was to dress up as The Phantom, and Riku would be my “Devil”. (For all you phantomaniacs out there, I know, “Devil is not a dog, he’s a wolf”). That winter, though, one weekend, he got very tired. He just lay on the floor, and didn’t want to get up. He whimpered a little, but mostly he just seemed to want to sleep. That wouldn’t do, so I tried to cheer him up. I teased him with a ball, and petted him, and talked to him, and he got up. Then I got him outside, and I started to throw snowballs for him to fetch. Of course, they disappeared into the snow, baffling Riku completely. And I stood there, and threw snowballs to him, underhand, just a little behind him, so he’d have to try to twist his body in the air if he wanted to catch it. And fifteen minutes later, he was back to his usual self, the happy-go-lucky dog that he was. I was happy to see that because I believed that it was me that had brought back his will to live. I thought that if only I could love him just a little bit more, he’d want to hang around a lot longer. Riku died a few weeks later, when I was on a hockey trip on the west coast of Finland. Dad had found him, and wrapped him up, and carried him to the car. And then he found him a spot at a pet cemetary, and a tombstone, and for years we’d go to his grave on our way to my grandparents’ graves at Xmas. A few weeks after Riku died, it was time for my last day of school. I wore red swimming trunks on top of my hockey one-piece underwear, Mom’s hood, Mom’s hat, Dad’s winter boots, and a plastic belt that Dad made and painted the Phantom’s skull on. On top of everything, I wore Dad’s long winter coat. I looked at myself in the mirror, checked that the skull logo on my belt was visible, and that my face was covered by my mother’s hat. I was happy with my costume. I looked just like the Phantom. It was perfect. If not for the empty space to my left. c1c6dc388b3c4999bb0e5c830ab40ad2 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/ten-points-to-hufflepuff Tonight, I went to the gym wearing my brand new Paris Saint-Germain football team’s hat. Well, its not technically just mine, but Daughter’s and mine. We bought that one, and a Gryffindor hat from the Warner Brothers studios’ Harry Potter Tour in London last week, and the deal is that we’re co-owners of those hats. We both can wear those hats. As I walked up the stairs to the gym, I saw a dude say something to me. I didn't hear him, because I was listening to a hockey podcast, but when I saw that he said something to me again, I took the earphones out of my ears and said - as politely as I could - “What?" “Yeah, the game starts soon," he said. "What?" "The game. It starts. Soon." I had no idea what he was talking about and it must have showed, because the dude pointed to my hat and said, "PSG". The Paris team is popular in Sweden now because the nation’s biggest football star, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, plays there. The guys at the reception desk at the gym also seems to like it, because a couple of days earlier, as I was leaving the gym, he yelled “Paris” to me, and gave me the thumbs up. "Oh, oh, yeah, PSG, right," I said to the dude, still not really knowing what he was talking about, but at least I knew he was being nice, and talking about football, and my hat. (And Zlatan). I smiled and walked by him, and then turned around, because I felt I owed him an explanation. "I completely forgot that I was wearing a PSG hat. You know, I have a Gryffindor hat, too, and for a second I thought you were talking about Quidditch." He looked at me, and smiled politely. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Wed, 10 Apr 2013 20:24:12 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Tonight, I went to the gym wearing my brand new Paris Saint-Germain football team’s hat. Well, its not technically just mine, but Daughter’s and mine. We bought that one, and a Gryffindor hat from the Warner Brothers studios’ Harry Potter Tour in London last week, and the deal is that we’re co-owners of those hats. We both can wear those hats. As I walked up the stairs to the gym, I saw a dude say something to me. I didn't hear him, because I was listening to a hockey podcast, but when I saw that he said something to me again, I took the earphones out of my ears and said - as politely as I could - “What?" “Yeah, the game starts soon," he said. "What?" "The game. It starts. Soon." I had no idea what he was talking about and it must have showed, because the dude pointed to my hat and said, "PSG". The Paris team is popular in Sweden now because the nation’s biggest football star, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, plays there. The guys at the reception desk at the gym also seems to like it, because a couple of days earlier, as I was leaving the gym, he yelled “Paris” to me, and gave me the thumbs up. "Oh, oh, yeah, PSG, right," I said to the dude, still not really knowing what he was talking about, but at least I knew he was being nice, and talking about football, and my hat. (And Zlatan). I smiled and walked by him, and then turned around, because I felt I owed him an explanation. "I completely forgot that I was wearing a PSG hat. You know, I have a Gryffindor hat, too, and for a second I thought you were talking about Quidditch." He looked at me, and smiled politely. 8c8ab81eeb8d415dbe4e17097ff76054 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-most-gullible-man-in-the-world Aah, it’s springtime in Paris. It’s a little chilly, yes, but the sun has just come out, we’ve just wandered through and around the Louvre, and have seen the Mona Lisa, and we're just enjoying being right here, right now, with the Seine in front of us, and farther down the river, the Eiffel tower looming large over the city. Wife is a couple of steps in front of me, Son and Daughter just behind me, when suddenly an old lady crouches in front of us and picks something from the ground. I don’t see her at first - because I’m taking photos - but when I almost bump into her, I take notice. “Is this yours?” she asks, and shows me a gold ring. “Nope, not mine,” I say. Daughter’s right next to me, admiring the shiny ring in the old lady’s hand. “Keep walking,” says Wife, but I don’t. I’m looking at the ring, and I feel sorry for the person who’s dropped such a nice ring. The ring is big and it’s heavy. I know this, because the old lady has now dropped the ring on the palm of my hand. “Just give it back to her,” Wife says, now another three steps farther away from Daughter and me. “You think it’s gold?” the old lady asks me, and points to some markings inside the ring. “Is that a gold marking?” I squint, and try to see if there is a gold marking, but as I go through the motions, I remind myself that I don’t really remember what a gold marking looks like. “Tough to say, but it sure is heavy,” I tell her. She puts it in my hand, and tells me to give it to Daughter. “Give it back to her,” says Wife. Now I’m torn, but I walk away from the old lady, and put the ring on a stone wall by the street. Daugher and I walk a little faster to catch Wife, when we hear the old lady shouting behind us. We stop, and wait for her. “Just take the ring, just take it,” she says, and I can see her brown eyes, and her teeth with a matching color. “Then maybe give me something … for coffee,” she adds. And until that sentence I hadn’t realized it was a scam. I tell her I don’t have any money, she doesn’t believe me, and when I tell her that “honestly, I don’t”, she turns away, taking the ring with her. I’m a little surprised that I didn’t see the play. After all, I do call it “the oldest trick in the book” when I tell Wife what the old lady had said to me. Also, my legs have barely stopped shaking after two young men tried to rob my camera just four hours prior, before we entered the Louvre. A ah, it’s springtime in Paris. Son and Daughter are climbing on a bench, on one of the many bridges over Seine, Son wearing a red beret he bought - with his own money - about an hour earlier. They’re happy so I’m happy. We’re in Paris, and the sun is shining. The kids are facing the river, and I make them laugh when I tell them I’m going to take photos of their butts. That, of course, makes them turn, and then turn away again, and I stand there, cracking more jokes and snapping more photos. Suddenly, I see a young man to my right. He’s saying something to me in French, and he’s holding a clipboard with a white piece of paper on it. At the same time, another young man walks up to me from my left, and he, too, speaks French and waves a clipboard in front of me. Everything happens very quickly, but as I try to find a way out of the situation, I see that the man to my right has his hand around the strap on my camera. His hand is around it, but he hasn’t grabbed hold of it, not yet, and I leap backwards, and yell, in “French”: “Nooooon, no-no-no-non!” Both guys look at me, raise their arms in that French way, with their palms up, and look at me like I was the one who just insulted them, and then they walk briskly down the street. I check my pockets for my wallet and phone, and when I find both still there, I look up and see a young lady jump two meters after the two young men surround her. She escapes the attack, and the men keep on walking. W ith the ring episode behind us, I decide it’s a good idea to tell the kids of all the other times I’ve been fooled during my travels. Just so they know this is just something that happens in the world. So I tell them how Dad and I were in London, and wanted to buy a watch or bracelet from a guy outside Harrods. Just as I had given him the ten-pound or twenty-pound bill, somebody yelled “Police!”, and he packed up his stuff and ran in one direction, Dad and I the other. I still don’t know why we ran. I tell the kids how ten years ago, as I walked through Stockholm, two guys asked me if I wanted new speakers, straight off their van. Apparently, their company was moving, and they needed to get rid of them. I looked at the speakers, but decided that they were too big. I tell the kids how in Rome, when Wife and I were walking alongside the river Tiber, a car pulled up next to us and asked for directions to the Vatican. Having been in the city for just three hours, I was more than happy (and proud) to be able to point the man to the right direction. “In fact, if you look that way, across the river, you can see the St. Peter's Basilica, right there,” I told him. “Thank you, signor,” he said. “Thank you so much,” he added, “thank you. You’ve been so nice that I’d like to pay it back to you somehow. Let me give you a leather jacket.” He waved towards the backseat of his car, where there was a pile of leather jackets. He reached back and gave me one. It was a nice jacket, and had he given it to me for free, I sure would have taken it. Of course, he wasn’t going to do that. “I’m sure it’ll look good on you,” he said. “Oh, signor, I’m almost embarrassed to say this, but … my tank is almost empty, and I don’t have any money. I’m running on fumes here. Now, you get the jacket, and you give me whatever you can give me,” he said. “I don’t have any money,” I said. “Honestly,” I added then. He looked at me, and asked for the leather jacket back. I gave it to him, and he extended his arm, in a handshake. “Thank you,” he said. “Let me just thank you.” By now, the situation was a little strange, but I did walk up to the car, and took the man’s hand. And we shook hands. A little longer than I had expected. Or wanted. He just wouldn’t let go of my hand, and for a second, I was absolutely sure he was reaching for a gun. He wasn’t. He smiled, let go of my hand, and drove away. Then I tell the kids how on that same Rome trip Wife told a tourist playing the shell game with the cups and the pea that he shouldn’t wage any money on that because he had seen the guy remove the pea. The guy with the cups didn’t like that very much, and we had to run from the market. And just as I finish telling these stories, we turn a corner. Just then, a young lady walking towards us, seems to pick something up from the ground. She looks at us, shows us a big, shiny, golden ring, and asks: “Is this yours?” “Non,” I say, and we cross the street. “That must be the oldest trick in the book,” Son says. D aughter listens to my stories intently, her mouth and eyes wide open. She’s quiet for a while. She’s thinking. “Dad? Why do the tricksters always choose you when they try to fool somebody?” she asks me. “That’s a good question,” I said. “I don’t know.” She looks puzzled. “It’s because Dad looks like a nice guy, and he’s always helping others, of course,” Wife says. Daughter nodded. “I know," she says. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:41:33 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Aah, it’s springtime in Paris. It’s a little chilly, yes, but the sun has just come out, we’ve just wandered through and around the Louvre, and have seen the Mona Lisa, and we're just enjoying being right here, right now, with the Seine in front of us, and farther down the river, the Eiffel tower looming large over the city. Wife is a couple of steps in front of me, Son and Daughter just behind me, when suddenly an old lady crouches in front of us and picks something from the ground. I don’t see her at first - because I’m taking photos - but when I almost bump into her, I take notice. “Is this yours?” she asks, and shows me a gold ring. “Nope, not mine,” I say. Daughter’s right next to me, admiring the shiny ring in the old lady’s hand. “Keep walking,” says Wife, but I don’t. I’m looking at the ring, and I feel sorry for the person who’s dropped such a nice ring. The ring is big and it’s heavy. I know this, because the old lady has now dropped the ring on the palm of my hand. “Just give it back to her,” Wife says, now another three steps farther away from Daughter and me. “You think it’s gold?” the old lady asks me, and points to some markings inside the ring. “Is that a gold marking?” I squint, and try to see if there is a gold marking, but as I go through the motions, I remind myself that I don’t really remember what a gold marking looks like. “Tough to say, but it sure is heavy,” I tell her. She puts it in my hand, and tells me to give it to Daughter. “Give it back to her,” says Wife. Now I’m torn, but I walk away from the old lady, and put the ring on a stone wall by the street. Daugher and I walk a little faster to catch Wife, when we hear the old lady shouting behind us. We stop, and wait for her. “Just take the ring, just take it,” she says, and I can see her brown eyes, and her teeth with a matching color. “Then maybe give me something … for coffee,” she adds. And until that sentence I hadn’t realized it was a scam. I tell her I don’t have any money, she doesn’t believe me, and when I tell her that “honestly, I don’t”, she turns away, taking the ring with her. I’m a little surprised that I didn’t see the play. After all, I do call it “the oldest trick in the book” when I tell Wife what the old lady had said to me. Also, my legs have barely stopped shaking after two young men tried to rob my camera just four hours prior, before we entered the Louvre. A ah, it’s springtime in Paris. Son and Daughter are climbing on a bench, on one of the many bridges over Seine, Son wearing a red beret he bought - with his own money - about an hour earlier. They’re happy so I’m happy. We’re in Paris, and the sun is shining. The kids are facing the river, and I make them laugh when I tell them I’m going to take photos of their butts. That, of course, makes them turn, and then turn away again, and I stand there, cracking more jokes and snapping more photos. Suddenly, I see a young man to my right. He’s saying something to me in French, and he’s holding a clipboard with a white piece of paper on it. At the same time, another young man walks up to me from my left, and he, too, speaks French and waves a clipboard in front of me. Everything happens very quickly, but as I try to find a way out of the situation, I see that the man to my right has his hand around the strap on my camera. His hand is around it, but he hasn’t grabbed hold of it, not yet, and I leap backwards, and yell, in “French”: “Nooooon, no-no-no-non!” Both guys look at me, raise their arms in that French way, with their palms up, and look at me like I was the one who just insulted them, and then they walk briskly down the street. I check my pockets for my wallet and phone, and when I find both still there, I look up and see a young lady jump two meters after the two young men surround her. She escapes the attack, and the men keep on walking. W ith the ring episode behind us, I decide it’s a good idea to tell the kids of all the other times I’ve been fooled during my travels. Just so they know this is just something that happens in the world. So I tell them how Dad and I were in London, and wanted to buy a watch or bracelet from a guy outside Harrods. Just as I had given him the ten-pound or twenty-pound bill, somebody yelled “Police!”, and he packed up his stuff and ran in one direction, Dad and I the other. I still don’t know why we ran. I tell the kids how ten years ago, as I walked through Stockholm, two guys asked me if I wanted new speakers, straight off their van. Apparently, their company was moving, and they needed to get rid of them. I looked at the speakers, but decided that they were too big. I tell the kids how in Rome, when Wife and I were walking alongside the river Tiber, a car pulled up next to us and asked for directions to the Vatican. Having been in the city for just three hours, I was more than happy (and proud) to be able to point the man to the right direction. “In fact, if you look that way, across the river, you can see the St. Peter's Basilica, right there,” I told him. “Thank you, signor,” he said. “Thank you so much,” he added, “thank you. You’ve been so nice that I’d like to pay it back to you somehow. Let me give you a leather jacket.” He waved towards the backseat of his car, where there was a pile of leather jackets. He reached back and gave me one. It was a nice jacket, and had he given it to me for free, I sure would have taken it. Of course, he wasn’t going to do that. “I’m sure it’ll look good on you,” he said. “Oh, signor, I’m almost embarrassed to say this, but … my tank is almost empty, and I don’t have any money. I’m running on fumes here. Now, you get the jacket, and you give me whatever you can give me,” he said. “I don’t have any money,” I said. “Honestly,” I added then. He looked at me, and asked for the leather jacket back. I gave it to him, and he extended his arm, in a handshake. “Thank you,” he said. “Let me just thank you.” By now, the situation was a little strange, but I did walk up to the car, and took the man’s hand. And we shook hands. A little longer than I had expected. Or wanted. He just wouldn’t let go of my hand, and for a second, I was absolutely sure he was reaching for a gun. He wasn’t. He smiled, let go of my hand, and drove away. Then I tell the kids how on that same Rome trip Wife told a tourist playing the shell game with the cups and the pea that he shouldn’t wage any money on that because he had seen the guy remove the pea. The guy with the cups didn’t like that very much, and we had to run from the market. And just as I finish telling these stories, we turn a corner. Just then, a young lady walking towards us, seems to pick something up from the ground. She looks at us, shows us a big, shiny, golden ring, and asks: “Is this yours?” “Non,” I say, and we cross the street. “That must be the oldest trick in the book,” Son says. D aughter listens to my stories intently, her mouth and eyes wide open. She’s quiet for a while. She’s thinking. “Dad? Why do the tricksters always choose you when they try to fool somebody?” she asks me. “That’s a good question,” I said. “I don’t know.” She looks puzzled. “It’s because Dad looks like a nice guy, and he’s always helping others, of course,” Wife says. Daughter nodded. “I know," she says. 1b116da112994ae18abb0432957b1c7d http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/woulda-coulda-shoulda Another March day. The sun is shining, after some light snowfall. The snow in spring is so light it looks fake. “It’s like the snow in the movies,” said Wife when she took off with Son and Daughter this morning. I waved to them from the front door, until I saw Son’s red hat disappear behind the garage. I closed the door, packed my bag and went to the gym because while you can make a change any given day, sometimes you have to keep doing the same thing over and over again to really make a change. Although, I’m still doing the exact same weight program I used in 1995, and see no change. Anyway, I walked in, and got my lucky locker - number 2 - got changed and walked back into the main gym area. I was sitting on a bench, adjusting my hair, admiring myself in the mirror when a beefy man walked up to me and asked me if I was going to work out or just read the book I had in my hand. I said I had just finished, like I always do, and left the seat. As I got up, I glanced at the mirror again, and realized that I wasn’t wearing any pants. I had walked naked into the gym, with just my Dallas Stars hat on. Well, no, I didn’t. But I could have. I only did a shorter workout today, and skipped stretching like I always do, because I was in a hurry to turn a great idea I had got walking on the treadmill into reality. I ran downstairs to the grocery store - my gym is at a mall - and asked to get the biggest cardboard box they had. They said they didn’t have one, and I said that of course they had, and the guy at the customer service thought about it a second and said, “you’re right.” “One of thems has to be the biggest one,” he said, turned around and gave me a blue and white box with “Chiquita” on the side. “Perfect,” I said and ran up the escalator to the second floor. I tore a flap off a cardboard box, wrote “Stories bought and traded, 5 kronor” on it and put it up against the box, then sat behind it on the floor to wait for customers. And I sat there for hours, listening to people’s fantastical tales. Well, no I didn’t. But I could have. Instead, I walked home, and listened to music. I sang along as I always do, and I tap danced all the way to the tunnel when I saw two kids standing in the middle of it, facing each other. I saw clouds of smoke around them, but I wasn’t sure if it was from cigarettes or just air - in which case, strictly speaking, it wasn’t really smoke - but I decided to keep an eye on them as I got closer. The taller kid had his back towards me, the smaller one looked like he was ten or so. And he had something in his mouth. I stopped tap dancing. “Yo, man, kids, homesies,” I said, and they turned around. Well, the taller one turned around, the shorter kid just stared at me. “High-five, low-five, beetches,” I said, and the boys smiled. “Yo,” they said in unison. “Whatchadudes doin’?” “A little graffiti,” said the taller kid. “Hey, guys, can I help you?” I said. The kids looked at each other. The taller boy whispered something to the smaller kid - who, by the way had a lollipop, not a cigarette in his mouth - and his face lit up. “Are you really Paksy? The Banksy of Sollentuna?” the smaller kid asked me. “Yes, son. Yes, I am,” I said, and then painted my tag on the wall. Well. I didn’t. But I could have. That didn't happen. But it could have. Instead, I came home and worked for a few hours. Except that I didn't. But I could have. I should have. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Tue, 19 Mar 2013 16:38:00 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Another March day. The sun is shining, after some light snowfall. The snow in spring is so light it looks fake. “It’s like the snow in the movies,” said Wife when she took off with Son and Daughter this morning. I waved to them from the front door, until I saw Son’s red hat disappear behind the garage. I closed the door, packed my bag and went to the gym because while you can make a change any given day, sometimes you have to keep doing the same thing over and over again to really make a change. Although, I’m still doing the exact same weight program I used in 1995, and see no change. Anyway, I walked in, and got my lucky locker - number 2 - got changed and walked back into the main gym area. I was sitting on a bench, adjusting my hair, admiring myself in the mirror when a beefy man walked up to me and asked me if I was going to work out or just read the book I had in my hand. I said I had just finished, like I always do, and left the seat. As I got up, I glanced at the mirror again, and realized that I wasn’t wearing any pants. I had walked naked into the gym, with just my Dallas Stars hat on. Well, no, I didn’t. But I could have. I only did a shorter workout today, and skipped stretching like I always do, because I was in a hurry to turn a great idea I had got walking on the treadmill into reality. I ran downstairs to the grocery store - my gym is at a mall - and asked to get the biggest cardboard box they had. They said they didn’t have one, and I said that of course they had, and the guy at the customer service thought about it a second and said, “you’re right.” “One of thems has to be the biggest one,” he said, turned around and gave me a blue and white box with “Chiquita” on the side. “Perfect,” I said and ran up the escalator to the second floor. I tore a flap off a cardboard box, wrote “Stories bought and traded, 5 kronor” on it and put it up against the box, then sat behind it on the floor to wait for customers. And I sat there for hours, listening to people’s fantastical tales. Well, no I didn’t. But I could have. Instead, I walked home, and listened to music. I sang along as I always do, and I tap danced all the way to the tunnel when I saw two kids standing in the middle of it, facing each other. I saw clouds of smoke around them, but I wasn’t sure if it was from cigarettes or just air - in which case, strictly speaking, it wasn’t really smoke - but I decided to keep an eye on them as I got closer. The taller kid had his back towards me, the smaller one looked like he was ten or so. And he had something in his mouth. I stopped tap dancing. “Yo, man, kids, homesies,” I said, and they turned around. Well, the taller one turned around, the shorter kid just stared at me. “High-five, low-five, beetches,” I said, and the boys smiled. “Yo,” they said in unison. “Whatchadudes doin’?” “A little graffiti,” said the taller kid. “Hey, guys, can I help you?” I said. The kids looked at each other. The taller boy whispered something to the smaller kid - who, by the way had a lollipop, not a cigarette in his mouth - and his face lit up. “Are you really Paksy? The Banksy of Sollentuna?” the smaller kid asked me. “Yes, son. Yes, I am,” I said, and then painted my tag on the wall. Well. I didn’t. But I could have. That didn't happen. But it could have. Instead, I came home and worked for a few hours. Except that I didn't. But I could have. I should have. 3ee0e321bc6a4ca398548fc13ad9f887 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/top-of-the-morning For about six years, I’ve had a theory about what makes certain people sleepyheads, and what makes others get up early - way too early - in the morning. For my research, I have used human guinea pigs. Exhibit A, “Son”, gets up at the crack of dawn and refuses to go back to sleep, fearing that he will miss something while asleep. What that might be is a topic for another study for which I don’t have funding yet. Exhibit B, “Daughter”, refuses to get up at all, kicking and screaming everybody and everything within, well, a kicking distance from her bed. Once up, though, all sunshine. “Son” was born in the middle of the night, 2.58 am, and “Daughter” in the evening, at 6.30 pm. And my hypothesis goes like this: that’s how you know if you're a morning person or not. Son got out and about in the wee hours for the first time, and has always been a morning person. Daughter waited until the evening, and she’s always more of an evening person (because yes, she certainly doesn’t like to go to bed). The funny thing about Daughter is that as soon as she’s awake, she’s the happiest, funniest, loveliest person in the world, and it’s not just me saying that. Wife thinks so, too. It’s just that it takes a concerted effort to get to that happy place. That’s why, if we have to leave early in the morning, she gets to sleep in her clothes. Sometimes our household turns into a vaudeville show in the morning. A vaudeville show with an audience of one, and she doesn’t even have her eyes open. But there I am, with Krtek, a hand puppet of the Czech mole, in one hand, and Krtek’s buddy, the little mouse in the other. “Hey, mouse, wanna see something funny?” I’ll say and when the mouse says “yes”, as he most often does, I launch into a pretty elaborated song and dance number. Now, that was years ago, and doesn’t work that well anymore. Daughter’s seen all the Krtek shows and isn’t looking forward to new ones. Fortunately, just as Krtek’s magic vanished, Wife’s little monologue as “the Lion” worked and got Daughter up in no time. In just 15 to 20 minutes. We’ve joked, we’ve screamed, and we’ve carried her to the downstairs sofa for an extra five-minute nap. We’ve sang and we’ve danced, we’ve played her favorite tunes, and sure, every once in a while I’ve teased her, trying to get her to snap out a dream. We look forward to December because in December she likes to get up to watch the advent calendar on TV, almost on her own. We’ve played tricks, we’ve had treasure hunts, and we’ve done gymnastics to get her to wake up, and not be cranky. But cranky she is. It’s a fascinating transformation because by the time she then gets to the breakfast table, thirty minutes after the rest of the family, her hair pointing every which way, and her pajamas hanging on her, she’s all smiles and hugs, and full of life. T his morning, the three of us, Son, Wife and I, tiptoed into her room, Wife carrying a tray with a sandwich and a cup of tea, Son holding onto a small box, and me with a camera in my hand. And we sang. We sang "Happy birthday" to Daughter who turns seven today, and who’s been counting down the days since early February. She got up in a second, with a big smile on her face, and listened to us finish the song. Then she gave us big hugs, and her big hair was pointing every which way, and she blew out the candle that was also on the tray. After she had opened her presents - Son insisted on buying her jewelry on his own - she looked at Wife. “You know, I was already awake when you guys walked in," she said. That's how special a day today was. Tomorrow? Krtek, get ready. It's showtime. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Wed, 13 Mar 2013 13:38:14 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no For about six years, I’ve had a theory about what makes certain people sleepyheads, and what makes others get up early - way too early - in the morning. For my research, I have used human guinea pigs. Exhibit A, “Son”, gets up at the crack of dawn and refuses to go back to sleep, fearing that he will miss something while asleep. What that might be is a topic for another study for which I don’t have funding yet. Exhibit B, “Daughter”, refuses to get up at all, kicking and screaming everybody and everything within, well, a kicking distance from her bed. Once up, though, all sunshine. “Son” was born in the middle of the night, 2.58 am, and “Daughter” in the evening, at 6.30 pm. And my hypothesis goes like this: that’s how you know if you're a morning person or not. Son got out and about in the wee hours for the first time, and has always been a morning person. Daughter waited until the evening, and she’s always more of an evening person (because yes, she certainly doesn’t like to go to bed). The funny thing about Daughter is that as soon as she’s awake, she’s the happiest, funniest, loveliest person in the world, and it’s not just me saying that. Wife thinks so, too. It’s just that it takes a concerted effort to get to that happy place. That’s why, if we have to leave early in the morning, she gets to sleep in her clothes. Sometimes our household turns into a vaudeville show in the morning. A vaudeville show with an audience of one, and she doesn’t even have her eyes open. But there I am, with Krtek, a hand puppet of the Czech mole, in one hand, and Krtek’s buddy, the little mouse in the other. “Hey, mouse, wanna see something funny?” I’ll say and when the mouse says “yes”, as he most often does, I launch into a pretty elaborated song and dance number. Now, that was years ago, and doesn’t work that well anymore. Daughter’s seen all the Krtek shows and isn’t looking forward to new ones. Fortunately, just as Krtek’s magic vanished, Wife’s little monologue as “the Lion” worked and got Daughter up in no time. In just 15 to 20 minutes. We’ve joked, we’ve screamed, and we’ve carried her to the downstairs sofa for an extra five-minute nap. We’ve sang and we’ve danced, we’ve played her favorite tunes, and sure, every once in a while I’ve teased her, trying to get her to snap out a dream. We look forward to December because in December she likes to get up to watch the advent calendar on TV, almost on her own. We’ve played tricks, we’ve had treasure hunts, and we’ve done gymnastics to get her to wake up, and not be cranky. But cranky she is. It’s a fascinating transformation because by the time she then gets to the breakfast table, thirty minutes after the rest of the family, her hair pointing every which way, and her pajamas hanging on her, she’s all smiles and hugs, and full of life. T his morning, the three of us, Son, Wife and I, tiptoed into her room, Wife carrying a tray with a sandwich and a cup of tea, Son holding onto a small box, and me with a camera in my hand. And we sang. We sang "Happy birthday" to Daughter who turns seven today, and who’s been counting down the days since early February. She got up in a second, with a big smile on her face, and listened to us finish the song. Then she gave us big hugs, and her big hair was pointing every which way, and she blew out the candle that was also on the tray. After she had opened her presents - Son insisted on buying her jewelry on his own - she looked at Wife. “You know, I was already awake when you guys walked in," she said. That's how special a day today was. Tomorrow? Krtek, get ready. It's showtime. 343adde2a2d44279a524003508e6846d http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/culinary-time-travel Erik Haag and Lotta Lundgren went time traveling and spent time in the 18th and 19th century, in the 1940s, and the 1970s. They didn’t use a DeLorean. They used food. Maybe this is the last year we all walk around carrying takeaway coffee cups, sipping our lattes, and using coffee shops as our offices away from our home offices. It doesn’t seem likely, but surely there must come a time when our nutritional habits have changed so much that even an idea of somebody eating on the run seems odd, let alone that they would carry hot, addictive liquids with them. “Food is culture,” says Lotta Lundgren, a Swedish food writer, and one of the two stars of “Historieätarna”, a TV show about Swedish food - and culture - in different eras. And since food is culture, it’s apt to change. Back in the 1970s, people smoked in movie theaters, on airplanes, and in their offices. Not anymore. Just like the 18th century Swedes probably never imagined food that would be cooked and served warm, there will be something that changes the way we eat, the way we live, and, then, like Bruce Springsteen sings in “Rosalita”: “We'll look back on this and it will all seem funny.” Erik Haag is a Swedish writer, comedian and a TV personality who’s been a regular guest in Sweden’s living rooms since the 1990s. Lotta Lundgren took the country by storm some five years ago when the then-advertising copywriter started a food blog called “If I were your housewife.” The blog turned into a book and a career in TV. Lundgren is now working on another book about cooking, and food. In 2012, Lundgren and her partner in crime, Erik Haag, spent a week in six different eras. They dressed they way people dressed then, they acted the way people did, and most importantly, they ate and drank the way people did. The six episodes were - on a timeline: 17th century, Sweden as a superpower 18th century, Freedom (freedom from absolute monarchy) 19th century, Oscarian time, after King Oscar II 1920s, the roaring 20s 1940s, the war years 1970s, the radical years “The reason we chose these six eras was that we wanted them to be different from each other so that it would be good television. Every era has its story, but we wanted to contrast from going from the 19th century to the 1970s,” says Haag. “It turned into a symphony,” he adds. The production company had a meal historian on their research team, and he briefed the duo on the characteristics of the different eras. He showed them how and when different drinks and food had been consumed, and how quickly they also disappeared. “Food says everything about that particular time, and we could potentially do something about every passing year,” says Haag. For six weeks, Haag and Lundgren were human guinea pigs, trying to reach back and live the life of their ancestors, or other selves in another era, in an attempt to remind people of what Sweden was all about, and how Sweden has come to be what it is today. “Everything creative has to have a starting point, something that you can hang other things onto. And with every endeavour you have to decide which stories to tell, and which not to tell. For us, in this show, food was the centerpiece. We began the story with food, and the rest came naturally,” says Haag. While the show was light in its delivery, thanks to the chemistry between Haag and Lundgren and guest appearances from Swedish comedians, the backbone is in science, and documented facts. Haag and Lundgren wore period clothes, all episodes touched on religion, architecture, and the social norm issues as well, and they had experts who could tell them about the period’s politics, and customs, as dinner guests. “There are a lot of recipe collections and cook books available, the first ones aimed at the masses date back to 18th century. Back then the upper class had servants to prepare their meal and women were dominant figures in Swedish households and that’s why the recipes are still with us,” says Lundgren. Recipes for the show were found, for example, in Susanna Egerin’s cookbook from 1733 and Gustafva Björklund’s cookbook from 1847. “I’ve wanted to do travel back in time since I was a boy and this experience comes as close as can be. So when we ate the soup made of a leather belt, it felt like a luxurious thing to do. I was privileged to get to do that. Somebody had researched everything, and then prepared the food. I remember the cook saying, tearing up, that some of those dishes hadn’t been cooked for 400 years, and will quite possibly never be cooked again,” Haag says. Food is culture, and food is communication. What we eat and how we eat are who we are. Food is a part of our social code, which is probably why the 1960s science fiction vision of the future man consuming food in the form of pills hasn’t happened. “Saying that food is fuel is like saying that sex is simply a matter of fertilization,” says Lundgren. “I think the idea of food as fuel is an idea that was born in our time. I think about what I eat, and watch my carbohydrate intake, but I think there’s also a placebo effect. If I got something that has little carbohydrates, but was told it was loaded with carbs, I’d probably still think I could run longer,” says Haag. For Lundgren, everything comes around to food. To her, food, and they way people eat, is a way to explain the world. “Humans can’t eat certain things because we literally don’t have the stomach for it, but if you can digest it, you can eat it. There is no right or wrong, everything simply mirrors our time,” she says. “Back in the 17th century, people were supposed to eat according to certain body fluids, and make sure they got food that warmed them and cooled them down and so on. There are people who say you should eat according to your blood group, which is silly, considering blood group is determined by just one gene out 20000-30000. “But we all want to eat better than others. Food is culture, and food is close to religion, so we want to know that our religion is better than yours,” she says. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, even all the way up to the middle part of the 20th century, people ate so that they could work. Well, for one part of Sweden, food was important as a way to entertain their dignified guests, but for the masses, food was a matter of survival. That became obvious for the history eaters as well. “I think I asked at some point when the food would be served warm, and the answer was '19th century',” says Lundgren. While there had been some sort of refrigeration machines in the 19th century - the first patent was given to Jacob Perkins in 1809 - it wasn’t until the 20th century that household models started to appear into the market. “Food was always kept in room temperature, which meant cold rooms, and it wasn’t until the 19th century that the idea of warm food really became prevalent. That surprised me,” says Lundgren. “I thought first that it was simply that food wasn’t an interesting part of people’s lives, that nutrition was the primary goal, and it was. Culinary experiences were a little too high on their hierarchy of needs. But not for the rich. They have always eaten well, with good spices and everything,” she adds. Being suddenly thrown from the GI-indexed world into the 18th century is a shock to the system. But not as bad as one might (want) to think. “We did get ill during the filming of the 19th century program, but I don’t know if it was the food or the fact that it’s mentally tough to work 14-hour shooting days,” says Lundgren. While Haag and Lundgren didn’t undergo any medical studies during the filming of the series, Lundgren did keep an eye on her weight - as she says she always does. “I gained weight during some weeks, and lost weight during others, but I wasn’t able to make link it to anything we ate,” she says. “I think you can handle more than you think, and changing your diet just like that isn’t that bad. It’s not the body that is affected, it’s the mind. Getting out of your comfort zone happens fast when you don’t get to eat what you want,” adds Haag. And not just that. There’s always the fact that the crew members do get to eat exactly what they want to. “Well, it was tough to see the crew drink coffee when we were shooting the 17th century show, and there was no coffee available for us then,” Haag says, smiling. The duo didn’t just eat the way people did in the different eras. They lived the life, and had small assignments to carry out. In the 1920s they were farmers, in the 1970s, Haag was a smoking journalist. They wore the corsets, the wigs, and the cotton long underwear with pride. “I think they were extra tough on us during the 19th century show and I wasn’t allowed to eat without Erik. One day I basically didn’t get any food because he was running errands elsewhere,” says Lundgren. “That was tough. I felt violated. So I supposed that was an authentic 19th century feeling, for a woman,” she adds and laughs. Another part of was the drinking. Back in the 17th century, water wasn’t the drink of choice because there was no fresh water so people drank other beverages, like beer. “It felt a little strange to start the day with a beer,” says Haag. “We drank four, five liters of beer, and hard liquor and some nice wines. Warm beer worked just as well as coffee once you get used it,” adds Lundgren. Every era had its surprises, and every era had its ups and downs. “The 1970s were just a fun show to make because we could goof around, and be silly. And our parents recognized themselves in the characters. “In the 19th century, we got porridge that was really bad. I don’t understand how people had the energy to work if that was what they ate. The 17th century was so exotic, it was so different from today that it might as well have been the Star Wars,” says Haag. One pleasant surprise was finding the roots of Swedish food culture. “The 18th century food comes back at certain intervals: At Christmas, midsummer. The drinks, the schnapps tables, those are ours. The rancid butter, the aged cheeses, the gravlax, all the dishes we’ve all eaten at every major holiday in Sweden comes from that era. That’s what midsummer and Christmas are supposed to taste,” says Lundgren. “I’ve always raved about the Italian food tradition, so it was really great to go to the 18th century, and be served the alcohol and the starters, and realize that that’s our tradition. It felt really authentic – and it’s ours,” adds Haag. Spreading that word was important to Haag and Lundgren. “I work with food and with people who work with food, and even they didn’t know that that’s where the roots of our culinary history are. We may think husmanskost, our home-cooked meals - like meatballs and pyttipanna - are that, but that is actually a very modern invention,” says Lundgren. “So it was nice to give people an intensive course on that,” she adds. “It was a cultural good deed,” adds Haag, and practically finished Lundgren’s sentence, as they often do. After their previous series, “Landet Brunsås”, “The brown sauce country”, they got angry messages from people who thought they were looking down on Swedish food. “People didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that Sweden had been so poor. But, that’s a fact, and we can’t rewrite history,” says Lundgren. Now that they’ve been to the 17th century, and back, they’d like to go back in time again. “It’d be fun to go back as far as possible. The challenge is that we can only go back to documented time, where we know things have been a certain way for sure. Even the viking era would be difficult to recreate, and we’d have to guess a lot, but I think we could do that,” says Haag. “There’s a company that has a sample of all the cultivated plants in Sweden and they can say whether the vikings ate this or that,” adds Lundgren. Haag says there has been talk about a new series, and about a faster-paced one at that. However, he thinks the fact that they were the guinea pigs for a week - “it felt almost like a nature program” - helped them pass on the feeling of being in another time better. “These days we could choose to eat anything, but we only eat a small part of what is available. Suddenly we got the opportunity to try something new, and in a way, leave our own personalities behind. It was like a vacation from myself,” says Lundgren. “I recommend doing that,” adds Haag. “Absolutely,” concludes Lundgren. Original article published in TreeFree Food #3 . [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:05:41 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Erik Haag and Lotta Lundgren went time traveling and spent time in the 18th and 19th century, in the 1940s, and the 1970s. They didn’t use a DeLorean. They used food. Maybe this is the last year we all walk around carrying takeaway coffee cups, sipping our lattes, and using coffee shops as our offices away from our home offices. It doesn’t seem likely, but surely there must come a time when our nutritional habits have changed so much that even an idea of somebody eating on the run seems odd, let alone that they would carry hot, addictive liquids with them. “Food is culture,” says Lotta Lundgren, a Swedish food writer, and one of the two stars of “Historieätarna”, a TV show about Swedish food - and culture - in different eras. And since food is culture, it’s apt to change. Back in the 1970s, people smoked in movie theaters, on airplanes, and in their offices. Not anymore. Just like the 18th century Swedes probably never imagined food that would be cooked and served warm, there will be something that changes the way we eat, the way we live, and, then, like Bruce Springsteen sings in “Rosalita”: “We'll look back on this and it will all seem funny.” Erik Haag is a Swedish writer, comedian and a TV personality who’s been a regular guest in Sweden’s living rooms since the 1990s. Lotta Lundgren took the country by storm some five years ago when the then-advertising copywriter started a food blog called “If I were your housewife.” The blog turned into a book and a career in TV. Lundgren is now working on another book about cooking, and food. In 2012, Lundgren and her partner in crime, Erik Haag, spent a week in six different eras. They dressed they way people dressed then, they acted the way people did, and most importantly, they ate and drank the way people did. The six episodes were - on a timeline: 17th century, Sweden as a superpower 18th century, Freedom (freedom from absolute monarchy) 19th century, Oscarian time, after King Oscar II 1920s, the roaring 20s 1940s, the war years 1970s, the radical years “The reason we chose these six eras was that we wanted them to be different from each other so that it would be good television. Every era has its story, but we wanted to contrast from going from the 19th century to the 1970s,” says Haag. “It turned into a symphony,” he adds. The production company had a meal historian on their research team, and he briefed the duo on the characteristics of the different eras. He showed them how and when different drinks and food had been consumed, and how quickly they also disappeared. “Food says everything about that particular time, and we could potentially do something about every passing year,” says Haag. For six weeks, Haag and Lundgren were human guinea pigs, trying to reach back and live the life of their ancestors, or other selves in another era, in an attempt to remind people of what Sweden was all about, and how Sweden has come to be what it is today. “Everything creative has to have a starting point, something that you can hang other things onto. And with every endeavour you have to decide which stories to tell, and which not to tell. For us, in this show, food was the centerpiece. We began the story with food, and the rest came naturally,” says Haag. While the show was light in its delivery, thanks to the chemistry between Haag and Lundgren and guest appearances from Swedish comedians, the backbone is in science, and documented facts. Haag and Lundgren wore period clothes, all episodes touched on religion, architecture, and the social norm issues as well, and they had experts who could tell them about the period’s politics, and customs, as dinner guests. “There are a lot of recipe collections and cook books available, the first ones aimed at the masses date back to 18th century. Back then the upper class had servants to prepare their meal and women were dominant figures in Swedish households and that’s why the recipes are still with us,” says Lundgren. Recipes for the show were found, for example, in Susanna Egerin’s cookbook from 1733 and Gustafva Björklund’s cookbook from 1847. “I’ve wanted to do travel back in time since I was a boy and this experience comes as close as can be. So when we ate the soup made of a leather belt, it felt like a luxurious thing to do. I was privileged to get to do that. Somebody had researched everything, and then prepared the food. I remember the cook saying, tearing up, that some of those dishes hadn’t been cooked for 400 years, and will quite possibly never be cooked again,” Haag says. Food is culture, and food is communication. What we eat and how we eat are who we are. Food is a part of our social code, which is probably why the 1960s science fiction vision of the future man consuming food in the form of pills hasn’t happened. “Saying that food is fuel is like saying that sex is simply a matter of fertilization,” says Lundgren. “I think the idea of food as fuel is an idea that was born in our time. I think about what I eat, and watch my carbohydrate intake, but I think there’s also a placebo effect. If I got something that has little carbohydrates, but was told it was loaded with carbs, I’d probably still think I could run longer,” says Haag. For Lundgren, everything comes around to food. To her, food, and they way people eat, is a way to explain the world. “Humans can’t eat certain things because we literally don’t have the stomach for it, but if you can digest it, you can eat it. There is no right or wrong, everything simply mirrors our time,” she says. “Back in the 17th century, people were supposed to eat according to certain body fluids, and make sure they got food that warmed them and cooled them down and so on. There are people who say you should eat according to your blood group, which is silly, considering blood group is determined by just one gene out 20000-30000. “But we all want to eat better than others. Food is culture, and food is close to religion, so we want to know that our religion is better than yours,” she says. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, even all the way up to the middle part of the 20th century, people ate so that they could work. Well, for one part of Sweden, food was important as a way to entertain their dignified guests, but for the masses, food was a matter of survival. That became obvious for the history eaters as well. “I think I asked at some point when the food would be served warm, and the answer was '19th century',” says Lundgren. While there had been some sort of refrigeration machines in the 19th century - the first patent was given to Jacob Perkins in 1809 - it wasn’t until the 20th century that household models started to appear into the market. “Food was always kept in room temperature, which meant cold rooms, and it wasn’t until the 19th century that the idea of warm food really became prevalent. That surprised me,” says Lundgren. “I thought first that it was simply that food wasn’t an interesting part of people’s lives, that nutrition was the primary goal, and it was. Culinary experiences were a little too high on their hierarchy of needs. But not for the rich. They have always eaten well, with good spices and everything,” she adds. Being suddenly thrown from the GI-indexed world into the 18th century is a shock to the system. But not as bad as one might (want) to think. “We did get ill during the filming of the 19th century program, but I don’t know if it was the food or the fact that it’s mentally tough to work 14-hour shooting days,” says Lundgren. While Haag and Lundgren didn’t undergo any medical studies during the filming of the series, Lundgren did keep an eye on her weight - as she says she always does. “I gained weight during some weeks, and lost weight during others, but I wasn’t able to make link it to anything we ate,” she says. “I think you can handle more than you think, and changing your diet just like that isn’t that bad. It’s not the body that is affected, it’s the mind. Getting out of your comfort zone happens fast when you don’t get to eat what you want,” adds Haag. And not just that. There’s always the fact that the crew members do get to eat exactly what they want to. “Well, it was tough to see the crew drink coffee when we were shooting the 17th century show, and there was no coffee available for us then,” Haag says, smiling. The duo didn’t just eat the way people did in the different eras. They lived the life, and had small assignments to carry out. In the 1920s they were farmers, in the 1970s, Haag was a smoking journalist. They wore the corsets, the wigs, and the cotton long underwear with pride. “I think they were extra tough on us during the 19th century show and I wasn’t allowed to eat without Erik. One day I basically didn’t get any food because he was running errands elsewhere,” says Lundgren. “That was tough. I felt violated. So I supposed that was an authentic 19th century feeling, for a woman,” she adds and laughs. Another part of was the drinking. Back in the 17th century, water wasn’t the drink of choice because there was no fresh water so people drank other beverages, like beer. “It felt a little strange to start the day with a beer,” says Haag. “We drank four, five liters of beer, and hard liquor and some nice wines. Warm beer worked just as well as coffee once you get used it,” adds Lundgren. Every era had its surprises, and every era had its ups and downs. “The 1970s were just a fun show to make because we could goof around, and be silly. And our parents recognized themselves in the characters. “In the 19th century, we got porridge that was really bad. I don’t understand how people had the energy to work if that was what they ate. The 17th century was so exotic, it was so different from today that it might as well have been the Star Wars,” says Haag. One pleasant surprise was finding the roots of Swedish food culture. “The 18th century food comes back at certain intervals: At Christmas, midsummer. The drinks, the schnapps tables, those are ours. The rancid butter, the aged cheeses, the gravlax, all the dishes we’ve all eaten at every major holiday in Sweden comes from that era. That’s what midsummer and Christmas are supposed to taste,” says Lundgren. “I’ve always raved about the Italian food tradition, so it was really great to go to the 18th century, and be served the alcohol and the starters, and realize that that’s our tradition. It felt really authentic – and it’s ours,” adds Haag. Spreading that word was important to Haag and Lundgren. “I work with food and with people who work with food, and even they didn’t know that that’s where the roots of our culinary history are. We may think husmanskost, our home-cooked meals - like meatballs and pyttipanna - are that, but that is actually a very modern invention,” says Lundgren. “So it was nice to give people an intensive course on that,” she adds. “It was a cultural good deed,” adds Haag, and practically finished Lundgren’s sentence, as they often do. After their previous series, “Landet Brunsås”, “The brown sauce country”, they got angry messages from people who thought they were looking down on Swedish food. “People didn’t want to acknowledge the fact that Sweden had been so poor. But, that’s a fact, and we can’t rewrite history,” says Lundgren. Now that they’ve been to the 17th century, and back, they’d like to go back in time again. “It’d be fun to go back as far as possible. The challenge is that we can only go back to documented time, where we know things have been a certain way for sure. Even the viking era would be difficult to recreate, and we’d have to guess a lot, but I think we could do that,” says Haag. “There’s a company that has a sample of all the cultivated plants in Sweden and they can say whether the vikings ate this or that,” adds Lundgren. Haag says there has been talk about a new series, and about a faster-paced one at that. However, he thinks the fact that they were the guinea pigs for a week - “it felt almost like a nature program” - helped them pass on the feeling of being in another time better. “These days we could choose to eat anything, but we only eat a small part of what is available. Suddenly we got the opportunity to try something new, and in a way, leave our own personalities behind. It was like a vacation from myself,” says Lundgren. “I recommend doing that,” adds Haag. “Absolutely,” concludes Lundgren. Original article published in TreeFree Food #3 . 591c6fa19a2547a787c95ea7ee9c8ea2 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/small-things-of-joy According to a Finnish proverb, “if sauna, tar and booze don’t cure the disease, it’ll kill you”. I’ve never had to try all three to feel better, so I’ve always simply assumed it to be true, which is why I keep spreading the words of wisdom to Wife, and Son and Daughter. Fortunately, those three aren’t at the top of the list of cures in our household. Fortunately, because we haven’t been sick very often, and because I’m not sure how to use tar as medicine. Anyway, at the first signs of a cold I turn to another holy trinity. When I was ten, going on eleven and home from school, I was home alone. Well, with our dog and our TV. Our dog was great company, TV not as much since there was nothing on during daytime, and while we did have a video recorder, there were no movies on video yet. So I read, and chatted with the dog. Some time during the day, Dad would come in to check up on me, and to make sure everything was fine. And with him, he’d always have orange soda, bananas, and a new comic book, most often a Donald Duck one. That was enough to make me feel better, but just to be on the safe side, Dad sometimes also brought some chocolate. He’d get in, see that I was fine, and then go back to work. One time, when I was ten, going on eleven, the soda and the comic book and the bananas got me up on my feet in no time, and I was lucky because the cross-country skiing world championships were on TV. I sat on the couch with a pad and a pencil, and two stopwatches on the coffee table, ready for me to take notes of the skiers split times as soon as the race got under way. Juha Mieto was Finland's big hope and my favorite as well, simply because he didn’t wear gloves when he skied. I sat there cheering for Mieto, when I suddenly got a little hungry. We lived across the street from a grocery store so I decided to get something to eat. I immediately also decided what I’d get. Lihapiirakka , the Finnish meat pie, a two-pack. I found some loose change in Dad’s jacket pockets and ran down to the store. That was our deal. If I needed something, I could check his pockets for change. For some reason, he always had some loose change in his jacket pockets. I still don’t know anybody else who keeps change in his pockets. I held the coins in my pocket, and with the key on a string around my neck, skipped down the stairs. It didn’t feel right to watch cross-country skiing and then be out and about like that, when I was supposed to be sick, but I figured it’d only take me three minutes to run to the store, get the pies and run back. I ran into the store, and picked up a two-pack from the fridge, and then ran to the checkout line. And there, in front of me was the mother of a classmate of mine. “Busted,” I said to myself. She placed her items on the belt, and as she put the basket down, she saw me. “Hello,” she said. “Hello,” I said. “I live in the house over there and I just ran down to get some pies but I’m really sick so I should be at home and I will be in a second, but I just needed to get something to eat, because I have already eaten the food that my parents left me, and….” “I see,” she said, and smiled. Then she paid for her groceries, and went home. I ran home with my pies, and cursed myself for being so stupid, and so greedy and weak, because now my hunger for meat pies had got me into trouble. Now the word was out. Surely everybody would now think that I had skipped school to watch Juha Mieto. I went to school the next day, but nobody said anything. N ow I’m a Dad with a son that’s ten, going on eleven, and who just happened to be sick today. Since I work from home, having a sick child at home doesn’t change things that much. Especially with a ten-year-old who can entertain himself with Minecraft and books and movies. Things have changed. However, there are some things I try to keep the same, so around noon, I left Son home alone to go the gym. I was going to be out for about an hour, and I knew Son was going to be fine, but I was happy not to run into anybody I know all the same. On my way home, I thought of Son, and how he was big enough to be just fine home alone, like I had been. I decided to get him the magic medicine: the soda, bananas, and a comic book. I knew we had raspberry soda in the fridge, and that Son would enjoy the pancakes I had promised to make him but I did need a comic book. I ran over the street, and hopped over the ditch, and ran into the gas station that was the closest store. I picked up a Donald Duck from the stand, paid for it, and walked back towards the main street when I took a look at the cover. The name of the pocket book was “Small Things of Joy.” And I thought it was perfect for the occasion. So did Son. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Mon, 11 Mar 2013 21:59:17 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no According to a Finnish proverb, “if sauna, tar and booze don’t cure the disease, it’ll kill you”. I’ve never had to try all three to feel better, so I’ve always simply assumed it to be true, which is why I keep spreading the words of wisdom to Wife, and Son and Daughter. Fortunately, those three aren’t at the top of the list of cures in our household. Fortunately, because we haven’t been sick very often, and because I’m not sure how to use tar as medicine. Anyway, at the first signs of a cold I turn to another holy trinity. When I was ten, going on eleven and home from school, I was home alone. Well, with our dog and our TV. Our dog was great company, TV not as much since there was nothing on during daytime, and while we did have a video recorder, there were no movies on video yet. So I read, and chatted with the dog. Some time during the day, Dad would come in to check up on me, and to make sure everything was fine. And with him, he’d always have orange soda, bananas, and a new comic book, most often a Donald Duck one. That was enough to make me feel better, but just to be on the safe side, Dad sometimes also brought some chocolate. He’d get in, see that I was fine, and then go back to work. One time, when I was ten, going on eleven, the soda and the comic book and the bananas got me up on my feet in no time, and I was lucky because the cross-country skiing world championships were on TV. I sat on the couch with a pad and a pencil, and two stopwatches on the coffee table, ready for me to take notes of the skiers split times as soon as the race got under way. Juha Mieto was Finland's big hope and my favorite as well, simply because he didn’t wear gloves when he skied. I sat there cheering for Mieto, when I suddenly got a little hungry. We lived across the street from a grocery store so I decided to get something to eat. I immediately also decided what I’d get. Lihapiirakka , the Finnish meat pie, a two-pack. I found some loose change in Dad’s jacket pockets and ran down to the store. That was our deal. If I needed something, I could check his pockets for change. For some reason, he always had some loose change in his jacket pockets. I still don’t know anybody else who keeps change in his pockets. I held the coins in my pocket, and with the key on a string around my neck, skipped down the stairs. It didn’t feel right to watch cross-country skiing and then be out and about like that, when I was supposed to be sick, but I figured it’d only take me three minutes to run to the store, get the pies and run back. I ran into the store, and picked up a two-pack from the fridge, and then ran to the checkout line. And there, in front of me was the mother of a classmate of mine. “Busted,” I said to myself. She placed her items on the belt, and as she put the basket down, she saw me. “Hello,” she said. “Hello,” I said. “I live in the house over there and I just ran down to get some pies but I’m really sick so I should be at home and I will be in a second, but I just needed to get something to eat, because I have already eaten the food that my parents left me, and….” “I see,” she said, and smiled. Then she paid for her groceries, and went home. I ran home with my pies, and cursed myself for being so stupid, and so greedy and weak, because now my hunger for meat pies had got me into trouble. Now the word was out. Surely everybody would now think that I had skipped school to watch Juha Mieto. I went to school the next day, but nobody said anything. N ow I’m a Dad with a son that’s ten, going on eleven, and who just happened to be sick today. Since I work from home, having a sick child at home doesn’t change things that much. Especially with a ten-year-old who can entertain himself with Minecraft and books and movies. Things have changed. However, there are some things I try to keep the same, so around noon, I left Son home alone to go the gym. I was going to be out for about an hour, and I knew Son was going to be fine, but I was happy not to run into anybody I know all the same. On my way home, I thought of Son, and how he was big enough to be just fine home alone, like I had been. I decided to get him the magic medicine: the soda, bananas, and a comic book. I knew we had raspberry soda in the fridge, and that Son would enjoy the pancakes I had promised to make him but I did need a comic book. I ran over the street, and hopped over the ditch, and ran into the gas station that was the closest store. I picked up a Donald Duck from the stand, paid for it, and walked back towards the main street when I took a look at the cover. The name of the pocket book was “Small Things of Joy.” And I thought it was perfect for the occasion. So did Son. 3b0ab5f2684a4c6b95ad90aa860622cc http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-one-that-got-away On the top shelf in our basement, there’s a brown cardboard box with dozens of baseball hats in it. I don’t know the exact number, but if I say forty, I won’t be off by more than five, either way. And those are hats that aren’t in active rotation, because those forty or so, are in a metal basket next to our front door. On my way out, I grab the one that matches my mood, if not always my clothes. Nobody needs close to hundred baseball hats, of course. I didn’t want a hundred hats originally. All I wanted was one. The one I really wanted was blue, and it had a mesh back, and a logo of a hockey team on the front. It was a logo I had never seen, but then again, I had only seen a few NHL logos, and the St. Louis Blues weren’t the hottest or the most iconic of teams around. But that was the hat a schoolmate of mine had. He had bought it on his hockey team’s trip to the US, something I hadn’t even dreamed of. Sure, I knew other teams had traveled to tournaments, too, and even my team had been in Sweden for hockey, but the coolest thing we found was a popsicle with two sticks. (Which was very cool). The hat haunted my mind. I wanted a baseball hat, too, and when I noticed a tiny classified ad in the paper, I persuaded my mother to order “a real baseball cap” for me. Unfortunately, while it was surely “ a real baseball cap,” it was also completely white, with no logos in the front, and even worse, no mesh in the back. It was just a hat. About a year after that disaster, a friend of Dad’s happened to play in an exhibition game against the New York Rangers and I guess the Rangers gave hats to the opposing team players because one ended up in our household, and on my head. I’ve collected hats ever since. I’ve walked miles and miles in rain in Rouen, France to find a store that sold hats with hockey logos. I’ve got lost in Vancouver trying to find the Canucks store. I have hats with NHL logos, I have hats with my name on them, hats with Swedish teams’ logos, and a hat with the Women’s Olympic Qualification tournament logo on them. But as with many other things, I’m often reminded of the one that got away. I n the mid-1990s, one of my teammates was a guy who had moved from Finland to Sweden as a boy, then back to Finland to do his military service, and then fallen in love and stayed there. He was a proud Finn, and an even prouder Gothenburgian. Every year, he’d take his family to Gothenburg to visit his parents, and to eat the world’s best pizza. One time, he came back from Sweden with a hat. For me. It was a red hat, with the word “FRÖLUNDA” in green letters in the front. It was a Frölunda Indians hat, all the way from Gothenburg, and it became my favorite hat. Those days, my gym was at a big sports center, the venue for boxing, gymnastics, and weight lifting in the 1952 Olympics. There are still basketball courts, and dozens of young gymnasts practice there so the weights and the workout machines are scattered around the arena. My workout always ended in the second floor, where the leg curl machine was, and where I’d do sit-ups and stretch. Well, not as much stretch as lean against the railing and watch kids play basketball. One evening, as I was leaving home, I couldn’t find my favorite hat anywhere, and after some serious thinking, I deducted that I must have left it hanging in a hook in the dressing room at the gym. While I wanted to stay carefully optimistic about the hat’s fate, I also quickly deducted that I might have lost it forever, and the next time I was at the gym, the man in the lost and found quickly confirmed my suspicions. “What? A Swedish hockey hat? Nope, haven’t seen it,” he said, without even looking at me. “That’s what I was afraid of, but … thanks, anyway,” I said and went to change into my gym gear. About 45 minutes later, I was up in the second floor, doing sit-ups and stretching, when I saw a kid on the basketball court wearing a hat that looked very familiar to me. I waited until he got closer so I could see better. He sank a three-pointer, and when he picked up the ball, I saw “FRÖLUNDA” in green letters on his hat. I stopped stretching and immediately walked to the stairs, skipped down, and took a left and a right and confronted the young boy who was two heads taller than me. “Hey, nice hat,” I said. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Where’d ya get it?” “My cousin.” “Oh yeah? From where?” “Um, Sweden.” “Where in Sweden?” “Gothenburg, dude.” I really thought he’d give it back to me once he realized that I was the hat’s obvious, real owner. Now the boy had passed my first three questions and had almost survived my inquisition. I had to nail him with my next one. “I like it. Nice … nice colors. What does it say there … Frrööö…?,” I let the rest just hang in the air. “Frölunda,” said the guy and bounced the basketball a couple of times. I could tell he was in a hurry to get away, but I had all the time in the world. All the time in the world. I smiled. “Frölunda? What is that anyway?” “It’s a hockey team,” he said and turned away. “Oh…” “I knew that,” I muttered. As I walked to the dressing room, I watched him jog slowly to the other end of the court and make a layup, then adjust the Frölunda hat on his head. On the top shelf in our basement, there’s a brown cardboard box with dozens of baseball hats in it, but no Frölunda hat. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Thu, 07 Mar 2013 09:42:08 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no On the top shelf in our basement, there’s a brown cardboard box with dozens of baseball hats in it. I don’t know the exact number, but if I say forty, I won’t be off by more than five, either way. And those are hats that aren’t in active rotation, because those forty or so, are in a metal basket next to our front door. On my way out, I grab the one that matches my mood, if not always my clothes. Nobody needs close to hundred baseball hats, of course. I didn’t want a hundred hats originally. All I wanted was one. The one I really wanted was blue, and it had a mesh back, and a logo of a hockey team on the front. It was a logo I had never seen, but then again, I had only seen a few NHL logos, and the St. Louis Blues weren’t the hottest or the most iconic of teams around. But that was the hat a schoolmate of mine had. He had bought it on his hockey team’s trip to the US, something I hadn’t even dreamed of. Sure, I knew other teams had traveled to tournaments, too, and even my team had been in Sweden for hockey, but the coolest thing we found was a popsicle with two sticks. (Which was very cool). The hat haunted my mind. I wanted a baseball hat, too, and when I noticed a tiny classified ad in the paper, I persuaded my mother to order “a real baseball cap” for me. Unfortunately, while it was surely “ a real baseball cap,” it was also completely white, with no logos in the front, and even worse, no mesh in the back. It was just a hat. About a year after that disaster, a friend of Dad’s happened to play in an exhibition game against the New York Rangers and I guess the Rangers gave hats to the opposing team players because one ended up in our household, and on my head. I’ve collected hats ever since. I’ve walked miles and miles in rain in Rouen, France to find a store that sold hats with hockey logos. I’ve got lost in Vancouver trying to find the Canucks store. I have hats with NHL logos, I have hats with my name on them, hats with Swedish teams’ logos, and a hat with the Women’s Olympic Qualification tournament logo on them. But as with many other things, I’m often reminded of the one that got away. I n the mid-1990s, one of my teammates was a guy who had moved from Finland to Sweden as a boy, then back to Finland to do his military service, and then fallen in love and stayed there. He was a proud Finn, and an even prouder Gothenburgian. Every year, he’d take his family to Gothenburg to visit his parents, and to eat the world’s best pizza. One time, he came back from Sweden with a hat. For me. It was a red hat, with the word “FRÖLUNDA” in green letters in the front. It was a Frölunda Indians hat, all the way from Gothenburg, and it became my favorite hat. Those days, my gym was at a big sports center, the venue for boxing, gymnastics, and weight lifting in the 1952 Olympics. There are still basketball courts, and dozens of young gymnasts practice there so the weights and the workout machines are scattered around the arena. My workout always ended in the second floor, where the leg curl machine was, and where I’d do sit-ups and stretch. Well, not as much stretch as lean against the railing and watch kids play basketball. One evening, as I was leaving home, I couldn’t find my favorite hat anywhere, and after some serious thinking, I deducted that I must have left it hanging in a hook in the dressing room at the gym. While I wanted to stay carefully optimistic about the hat’s fate, I also quickly deducted that I might have lost it forever, and the next time I was at the gym, the man in the lost and found quickly confirmed my suspicions. “What? A Swedish hockey hat? Nope, haven’t seen it,” he said, without even looking at me. “That’s what I was afraid of, but … thanks, anyway,” I said and went to change into my gym gear. About 45 minutes later, I was up in the second floor, doing sit-ups and stretching, when I saw a kid on the basketball court wearing a hat that looked very familiar to me. I waited until he got closer so I could see better. He sank a three-pointer, and when he picked up the ball, I saw “FRÖLUNDA” in green letters on his hat. I stopped stretching and immediately walked to the stairs, skipped down, and took a left and a right and confronted the young boy who was two heads taller than me. “Hey, nice hat,” I said. “Uh-huh,” he said. “Where’d ya get it?” “My cousin.” “Oh yeah? From where?” “Um, Sweden.” “Where in Sweden?” “Gothenburg, dude.” I really thought he’d give it back to me once he realized that I was the hat’s obvious, real owner. Now the boy had passed my first three questions and had almost survived my inquisition. I had to nail him with my next one. “I like it. Nice … nice colors. What does it say there … Frrööö…?,” I let the rest just hang in the air. “Frölunda,” said the guy and bounced the basketball a couple of times. I could tell he was in a hurry to get away, but I had all the time in the world. All the time in the world. I smiled. “Frölunda? What is that anyway?” “It’s a hockey team,” he said and turned away. “Oh…” “I knew that,” I muttered. As I walked to the dressing room, I watched him jog slowly to the other end of the court and make a layup, then adjust the Frölunda hat on his head. On the top shelf in our basement, there’s a brown cardboard box with dozens of baseball hats in it, but no Frölunda hat. 465265053f694ee0951a764761909b56 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/he-believes-he-can-fly Like many, or most, small boys, I, too, had ideas about the future, and what the world would look like when I grew up. Well, I had one idea. I thought it would be neat - that is the technical term for it - if the roads and streets of Finland were covered by a similar electric ceiling like the bumper cars at Linnanmäki, the amusement park in Helsinki. I also thought it would be neat if all the streets in Helsinki would freeze over so I could just skate to school every day. Yesterday, I went for a skate on a lake close to our house. I’ve been there before, of course, because it’s something of a must-see around here. Wife, who’s originally from the other side of the lake, took me there for the first time our first winter. That time, I wore my hockey skates, and I may have even worn my hockey gloves, even though you can’t really play hockey on that pond. But, I was a hockey player so I brought my stick and gloves. I know I had my stick, because on the home stretch of the shorter track, the three-kilometer one, after we had sat in the snow and drunk hot chocolate and eaten our sandwiches, Wife had some problems with her skates, while I was still going strong, or at least trying to look like it. So, I towed her back in. I helt on to one end of the hockey stick, Wife the other, and I picked up speed. And then I picked up some more speed. And then some more - “I’ve never seen anyone skate that fast,” said Wife - and then … my skate got stuck in a hole in the ice, and I fell, and I pulled Wife down with me. But we survived, and we’ve been back to the lake many times every winter. That first time, I remember thinking that it was just like my dream of skating on the streets. There are two wide tracks on the lake making it look like a street. I remember the wind on my face, and how fast I seemed to go - and did, ask Wife - and how that must have been the way we were actually supposed to travel here in the North. I had been looking at the other skaters jealously as they took one stride while I took four, but I simply took it as a challenge. Besides, I only skated around the shorter track anyway, and I could do three kilometers in my hockey skates any day of the week. But just as I always talk about running the New York City marathon, I kept talking about skating on lakes, and apparently somebody heard me because last Christmas, in 2011, that is, I got a set of long blades, and a thermos, from my brother-in-law. And last weekend, while rummaging through some boxes in the basement, I noticed a pair of winter boots on the shelf, and decided to see if they would fit in the bindings on my blades. And they did. Off I went. M y first few strides are a little cautious. My winter boots, while continentally stylish - since I bought them in Vienna four years ago - don’t have the same ankle support as my hockey skates, which is actually the way I like it, it just took some getting used to. I put my gloves on, adjust the backpack and take the first real strides, and by the time I reach the “start” sign, I’ve already adjusted my goal from skating around the short track to going for the full 14-kilometer lap. Double digits. The track is empty so I have all the space in the world. I pick up speed and by the time I turn around at the nook of the lake, up towards the end, I'm flying. I listen to the sound of my blade cutting the ice, and the rhythm of my skating was in harmony with the rhythm of the talk in my earphones. I feel the wind on my back, and I smile a little, until I realize I would have to skate against the wind on the home stretch. But I decide to worry about that when I get there. I step over and around a few big cracks on the ice, and then return to my steady rhythm as quickly as possible. Left, right, left, right, crackle, right, the signs says two kilometers, left, right, left, right, left, right, then suddenly another sign marking three kilometers. I feel like I’m actually traveling. I know that to get back home, I’m going to have to turn around, but I push that thought out of my mind again, and imagine going from one place to another because I have to get from here to there. Everything around me is different shades of white, mixed with some light shades of blue, and in some places, although these spots are few and far between, the ice is black and I can see down to the depths of the lake, reminding me of the fact that I am indeed skating on a lake, not a Zamboni-flooded artificial ice that’s painted white. This is real. Then I feel the smell of yeast, and without the signs or Google Maps, I know exactly where I am. I’m at the yeast factory, and I think of Wife and her stories of her old classmate who declared in classroom that in a case of war Sollentuna would be a target for bombs, because of the yeast factory. Just as I get to the turning point, I see a black dot in the horizon, and I assume it’s another skater. Even though I tell myself to just keep skating, and sticking to my rhythm, I accelerate and soon I’m a little out of breath, but I’m also just a few strides behind a man. I pass him and I keep pushing a good while longer so that I get a nice distance between him and me, so that he wouldn’t think I passed him just to stick it to him. I glance behind me and see him a few hundred meters behind me so I stop skating and just raise my fist for a second or so. 12 kilometers says the sign, and the wind, my friend just a half an hour ago is now my enemy, blowing against me. I remember being ten years ago and walking to school in a snow storm, with the wind on my face, and how I then imagined being Prince Valiant, and I laugh at myself, and then I imagine being a messenger with an important letter in my backpack and I accelerate so I can deliver it on time. The shorter track joins the longer track from the left and the two tracks merge into one, and right there the ice is soft. My blade gets caught in the slush and I ran a few steps across, and then keep skating. I can already see the red huts on the shore, and I now I decide to cut a few seconds from my time. And I skate as fast as I can, and I zig zag a little to go around the many cracks, and when I get to about thirty meters from the Start sign, I let up, and glide towards the benches, blow my nose, and when I get to the bench, sit down. I take off my blades, walk to our car, throw my blades in the trunk, and drive home. It’s not a bumper car, and I’d rather skate home, but it's as close to my dream as it can get. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:38:52 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Like many, or most, small boys, I, too, had ideas about the future, and what the world would look like when I grew up. Well, I had one idea. I thought it would be neat - that is the technical term for it - if the roads and streets of Finland were covered by a similar electric ceiling like the bumper cars at Linnanmäki, the amusement park in Helsinki. I also thought it would be neat if all the streets in Helsinki would freeze over so I could just skate to school every day. Yesterday, I went for a skate on a lake close to our house. I’ve been there before, of course, because it’s something of a must-see around here. Wife, who’s originally from the other side of the lake, took me there for the first time our first winter. That time, I wore my hockey skates, and I may have even worn my hockey gloves, even though you can’t really play hockey on that pond. But, I was a hockey player so I brought my stick and gloves. I know I had my stick, because on the home stretch of the shorter track, the three-kilometer one, after we had sat in the snow and drunk hot chocolate and eaten our sandwiches, Wife had some problems with her skates, while I was still going strong, or at least trying to look like it. So, I towed her back in. I helt on to one end of the hockey stick, Wife the other, and I picked up speed. And then I picked up some more speed. And then some more - “I’ve never seen anyone skate that fast,” said Wife - and then … my skate got stuck in a hole in the ice, and I fell, and I pulled Wife down with me. But we survived, and we’ve been back to the lake many times every winter. That first time, I remember thinking that it was just like my dream of skating on the streets. There are two wide tracks on the lake making it look like a street. I remember the wind on my face, and how fast I seemed to go - and did, ask Wife - and how that must have been the way we were actually supposed to travel here in the North. I had been looking at the other skaters jealously as they took one stride while I took four, but I simply took it as a challenge. Besides, I only skated around the shorter track anyway, and I could do three kilometers in my hockey skates any day of the week. But just as I always talk about running the New York City marathon, I kept talking about skating on lakes, and apparently somebody heard me because last Christmas, in 2011, that is, I got a set of long blades, and a thermos, from my brother-in-law. And last weekend, while rummaging through some boxes in the basement, I noticed a pair of winter boots on the shelf, and decided to see if they would fit in the bindings on my blades. And they did. Off I went. M y first few strides are a little cautious. My winter boots, while continentally stylish - since I bought them in Vienna four years ago - don’t have the same ankle support as my hockey skates, which is actually the way I like it, it just took some getting used to. I put my gloves on, adjust the backpack and take the first real strides, and by the time I reach the “start” sign, I’ve already adjusted my goal from skating around the short track to going for the full 14-kilometer lap. Double digits. The track is empty so I have all the space in the world. I pick up speed and by the time I turn around at the nook of the lake, up towards the end, I'm flying. I listen to the sound of my blade cutting the ice, and the rhythm of my skating was in harmony with the rhythm of the talk in my earphones. I feel the wind on my back, and I smile a little, until I realize I would have to skate against the wind on the home stretch. But I decide to worry about that when I get there. I step over and around a few big cracks on the ice, and then return to my steady rhythm as quickly as possible. Left, right, left, right, crackle, right, the signs says two kilometers, left, right, left, right, left, right, then suddenly another sign marking three kilometers. I feel like I’m actually traveling. I know that to get back home, I’m going to have to turn around, but I push that thought out of my mind again, and imagine going from one place to another because I have to get from here to there. Everything around me is different shades of white, mixed with some light shades of blue, and in some places, although these spots are few and far between, the ice is black and I can see down to the depths of the lake, reminding me of the fact that I am indeed skating on a lake, not a Zamboni-flooded artificial ice that’s painted white. This is real. Then I feel the smell of yeast, and without the signs or Google Maps, I know exactly where I am. I’m at the yeast factory, and I think of Wife and her stories of her old classmate who declared in classroom that in a case of war Sollentuna would be a target for bombs, because of the yeast factory. Just as I get to the turning point, I see a black dot in the horizon, and I assume it’s another skater. Even though I tell myself to just keep skating, and sticking to my rhythm, I accelerate and soon I’m a little out of breath, but I’m also just a few strides behind a man. I pass him and I keep pushing a good while longer so that I get a nice distance between him and me, so that he wouldn’t think I passed him just to stick it to him. I glance behind me and see him a few hundred meters behind me so I stop skating and just raise my fist for a second or so. 12 kilometers says the sign, and the wind, my friend just a half an hour ago is now my enemy, blowing against me. I remember being ten years ago and walking to school in a snow storm, with the wind on my face, and how I then imagined being Prince Valiant, and I laugh at myself, and then I imagine being a messenger with an important letter in my backpack and I accelerate so I can deliver it on time. The shorter track joins the longer track from the left and the two tracks merge into one, and right there the ice is soft. My blade gets caught in the slush and I ran a few steps across, and then keep skating. I can already see the red huts on the shore, and I now I decide to cut a few seconds from my time. And I skate as fast as I can, and I zig zag a little to go around the many cracks, and when I get to about thirty meters from the Start sign, I let up, and glide towards the benches, blow my nose, and when I get to the bench, sit down. I take off my blades, walk to our car, throw my blades in the trunk, and drive home. It’s not a bumper car, and I’d rather skate home, but it's as close to my dream as it can get. 92589cd6b69c469da7d2305a7ec31edb http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/frozen It’s never cold in the beginning. My fingers still work, so I can take photos with my mobile, and do a Facebook check-in. The cold doesn’t hit until the last ten minutes of the hour, and by then, I’m so close to going home I know I’ll make it out of there alive. I look down to my feet, and I see that I’ve managed to stomp a perfect square into the snow, and that makes me happy. I’d smile, but the muscles on my face won’t move anymore. I look out to the ice to see if Daughter is still skating around in circles. She is. I look at the clock at the other end of the field, and note that I still have seven minutes to go. My fingers are cold now so I’m keeping my hands in fists inside my gloves. My toes are also cold, and I can’t wait to get to the car, when the blood starts to circulate in my toes again, and I get that tingling sensation in them. I remember walking past the Royal Castle in a snow storm with Wife ten years ago, with my teeth chattering. She told me to relax instead “If you’re freezing, you shouldn’t fight it, you should just relax,” she said. I answered her with the sound of chattering teeth. “It’s true, my sister told me that,” she insisted, and with both of them sisters now against me, I exhaled and relaxed. And I exhale now, at the edge of this bandy field, and my shoulders drop. I see Daughter coming back towards me, following her coaches, and giving me a quick look. She does that to see if I’m watching, so I lift my left arm and give her a thumbs-up with the empty thumb of my glove. She waves, and accelerates to catch up with the coach. I t doesn’t seem that long ago I was inside a hockey rink, wearing a hockey sock in my head, circling around an empty rink, shooting the puck to an empty net, then picking it up, shooting it against the boards, and skating to the other end to do the same. We were supposed to have a hockey practice that day, but with the mercury dropping on the thermometer below our official minus-15 degrees Celsius limit, most of the other guys had either gone home, or had never showed up in the first place. I had stayed for three reasons. One, I really liked to play and since I already was there, I figured I might as well go out and shoot some pucks. Second, it was the cool thing to do, and acted as a testament to my true love of the game — or at least that was the story the next day at school. And third, I had to stay in case my fans showed up. They were there for most of our games, and practices, and sometimes after school, I’d see them sitting outside their apartment building close to my school, and I’d stop, and we’d talk, and I’d make them laugh, and then ride home feeling pretty good about myself. It was so cold that after just a few minutes, my face was so frozen I couldn’t really talk anymore, because I couldn’t move my mouth. And then I saw the group of three young girls walk towards the rink, and the three of them stand there side by side, watching us goof around. I saw one of them make a small wave-like gesture to me, so I nodded slightly, then picked up the puck, and took a shot. I missed the net, and the puck hit the chicken wire behind the net, and disappeared inside a white cloud of puff as the puck hit the frost off the wire. I skated towards the girls. “No practice today. Optional, actually. Too cold,” I said. “It sure is cold,” said the tallest one. “Yup,” I said, turned around, and went back to shooting the puck. They stayed there for twenty minutes, and then walked back to the rink cafeteria. I played some more and then went to the dressing room and peeled the skin off my ears. I guess I should have known they’d make me stay at the hospital when they gave me a bath, but I was only five years old, so I didn’t know much about things like that, and the truth became obvious to me soon enough anyway. The water flowed from the faucet, and the nurse was trying to make me sit. “It’s too hot,” I said. She turned the tape a little to make the water colder. “Now,” she said. I put my hand under the flowing water. “Still too hot,” I said. “It’s hot.” The nurse kept on turning off the hot water, and I kept on telling her the water was still too warm. It was too warm, I wanted it colder. The nurse looked at my father with a puzzled look on her face. He looked at her and shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know what to say," he said. "He does like the cold.” [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Sat, 23 Feb 2013 18:52:54 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no It’s never cold in the beginning. My fingers still work, so I can take photos with my mobile, and do a Facebook check-in. The cold doesn’t hit until the last ten minutes of the hour, and by then, I’m so close to going home I know I’ll make it out of there alive. I look down to my feet, and I see that I’ve managed to stomp a perfect square into the snow, and that makes me happy. I’d smile, but the muscles on my face won’t move anymore. I look out to the ice to see if Daughter is still skating around in circles. She is. I look at the clock at the other end of the field, and note that I still have seven minutes to go. My fingers are cold now so I’m keeping my hands in fists inside my gloves. My toes are also cold, and I can’t wait to get to the car, when the blood starts to circulate in my toes again, and I get that tingling sensation in them. I remember walking past the Royal Castle in a snow storm with Wife ten years ago, with my teeth chattering. She told me to relax instead “If you’re freezing, you shouldn’t fight it, you should just relax,” she said. I answered her with the sound of chattering teeth. “It’s true, my sister told me that,” she insisted, and with both of them sisters now against me, I exhaled and relaxed. And I exhale now, at the edge of this bandy field, and my shoulders drop. I see Daughter coming back towards me, following her coaches, and giving me a quick look. She does that to see if I’m watching, so I lift my left arm and give her a thumbs-up with the empty thumb of my glove. She waves, and accelerates to catch up with the coach. I t doesn’t seem that long ago I was inside a hockey rink, wearing a hockey sock in my head, circling around an empty rink, shooting the puck to an empty net, then picking it up, shooting it against the boards, and skating to the other end to do the same. We were supposed to have a hockey practice that day, but with the mercury dropping on the thermometer below our official minus-15 degrees Celsius limit, most of the other guys had either gone home, or had never showed up in the first place. I had stayed for three reasons. One, I really liked to play and since I already was there, I figured I might as well go out and shoot some pucks. Second, it was the cool thing to do, and acted as a testament to my true love of the game — or at least that was the story the next day at school. And third, I had to stay in case my fans showed up. They were there for most of our games, and practices, and sometimes after school, I’d see them sitting outside their apartment building close to my school, and I’d stop, and we’d talk, and I’d make them laugh, and then ride home feeling pretty good about myself. It was so cold that after just a few minutes, my face was so frozen I couldn’t really talk anymore, because I couldn’t move my mouth. And then I saw the group of three young girls walk towards the rink, and the three of them stand there side by side, watching us goof around. I saw one of them make a small wave-like gesture to me, so I nodded slightly, then picked up the puck, and took a shot. I missed the net, and the puck hit the chicken wire behind the net, and disappeared inside a white cloud of puff as the puck hit the frost off the wire. I skated towards the girls. “No practice today. Optional, actually. Too cold,” I said. “It sure is cold,” said the tallest one. “Yup,” I said, turned around, and went back to shooting the puck. They stayed there for twenty minutes, and then walked back to the rink cafeteria. I played some more and then went to the dressing room and peeled the skin off my ears. I guess I should have known they’d make me stay at the hospital when they gave me a bath, but I was only five years old, so I didn’t know much about things like that, and the truth became obvious to me soon enough anyway. The water flowed from the faucet, and the nurse was trying to make me sit. “It’s too hot,” I said. She turned the tape a little to make the water colder. “Now,” she said. I put my hand under the flowing water. “Still too hot,” I said. “It’s hot.” The nurse kept on turning off the hot water, and I kept on telling her the water was still too warm. It was too warm, I wanted it colder. The nurse looked at my father with a puzzled look on her face. He looked at her and shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know what to say," he said. "He does like the cold.” 644ac7b7380a4a879b1a8fd6cd44b4e0 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-flipside-of--miracle- In 1977, after Boris Kulagin coached the Soviet Union to a World Championship silver medal for the second year in a row, he was relieved of his duties as the bench boss, and a new boss was called in. Viktor Tikhonov, a Moscow native, and a former Moscow Dynamo defenseman, rode back into his home town to take over the Red Army team, and the national team, which was practically the same thing. By then, Kharlamov was 29, and one of the veteran players on the team. He was a two-time Olympic champion, and a six-time World Champion, and a national hero. None of that mattered to Tikhonov, already famous for his discipline and tough love towards his players. Or, at least, tough something. Kharlamov, like everybody else, had an image of a good coach in his head. That image looked like Anatoli Tarasov, the legendary coach of the national team, who had built the 1970s championship machine, and who had given Valeri his chance, and believed in him when nobody else did. Tikhonov was nothing like that. Tikhonov was the exact opposite. “We have won Soviet championships, world championships, and we’ve done it our way, why should we now have to start preparing for a new season any differently,” Kharlamov told his teammates. “Preparing for a new season any differently” meant “working twice as hard”. Tikhonov told the Red Army players over and over again how the players on his former team, Riga Dinamo in Latvia, worked much harder than the stars in Moscow. And with only a silver and a bronze medal - a bronze! - in the last two world championships, the players didn’t have much of an argument against him. In the fall of 1979, after another World Championship gold medal, Kharlamov was even more of a veteran player, and with the effects of the 1976 car accident still lingering in his body, Tikhonov decided that number 17 was done. Tikhonov wasn’t alone in his thoughts about Kharlamov. One of the people who thought Kharlamov may have been, if not completely washed up, then at least past his prime was Valeri Borisovich Kharlamov himself. “After a lost game when my entire body aches, and I can’t even lift my arm, I think that I’ve done my share, it’s time for the younger players to take over and work their behinds off,” he would tell his wife. “If I can’t make the Red Army team, I can always play on a team that’s fighting for the 11th place in the standings, and we can still live in Moscow,” he’d say. But he didn’t leave Moscow, or the CSKA, and he did hang on to his spot on the national team. But even if he finished second in the World Championships in 1979, in a tournament that the Soviet Union went through undefeated, and even if he scored 22 goals and 48 points in 41 Soviet top league games in 1978-79, by the next fall, he found himself something of an outcast. Nothing was good enough for the coach. One of the reasons was the lack of discipline Kharlamov had showed outside the rink. In 1977, right after Tikhonov had taken over the national team, Kharlamov and defenseman Valeri Vasiliev were out drinking the night before an Izvestia Cup game against Czechoslovakia, the Soviets’ archrivals. Well, their only rivals in the hockey world at the time. The team was down 2-0 after two periods, and Tikhonov entered the dressing room, fuming. “Enemies … you’re my enemies .. You’re benched!” he yelled to Kharlamov and Vasiliev. That time, though, Kharlamov was bigger than the coach. It was the tiny number 17 who had more clout with the team, and the rest of the players stood up for him. Boris Mikhailov stood up. “Coach. Give them a chance to make up for their mistake,” he said. Others joined in and finally, Tikhonov agreed. The Soviet Union rallied back from behind, and tied the game 3-3 in the end. Vasiliev scored a goal, and Kharlamov picked up two assists. After the game, Tikhonov went back to Kharlamov and Vasiliev, and said, with venom in his voice: “Here’s an idea. What if we let you guys drink whenever you want, maybe you should be the exception, maybe you should be allowed to do whatever you want.” Even the Minister of Sport Sergei Pavlov got involved later, and told the players to keep the drinking out of the public eye, at least. He even offered them a chance to use his dacha for the purpose, but the players declined. They weren’t stupid. In 1979, Kharlamov’s play was just fine, and even if his production dropped somewhat, he was still a part of the team that was getting ready for the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, NY, in February. Coach Tikhonov wanted to rebuild his national team and get some new blood in, so he broke his famous top line. It was Kharlamov who had to go. Team captain Boris Mikhailov and Vladimir Petrov stayed together, and Kharlamov was sent further down in the lineup. His spot on the top line went to young Sergei Makarov who had been voted to the World Championship All-Star team by the media. That, too, had been something of an injustice and Kharlamov was sure Tikhonov was behind. After all, he had collected more points in the tournament than Makarov, and both Mikhailov and Petrov were voted into the All-Star team. Why was he left out? But he knew better than to fight with the coach, so he played as hard as he could, and by the New Year’s, he had scored ten goals in 21 games in the Soviet league. Before the Olympics, Petrov, Mikhailov and Kharlamov approached Tikhonov and asked him to put them back together. Kharlamov didn’t come along, as Mikhailov and Petrov thought it was best that they’d be the ones to talk to the coach. That was, Kharlamov wouldn’t be begging. “Viktor Vasilyevich, we’ve been loyal to the team and the country for many years, and while the young players are good, it’s just not the same playing without Valeri,” said Boris Mikhailov, the team captain. Tikhonov listened carefully but nothing on his face revealed what he was thinking about, or whether the veteran players had any chance of changing the coach’s mind. “Boris and I, we’ve always played together. Even Tarasov tried moving Kharlamov from our line, and we told him, too, that we felt like a man who chopped off his finger,” said Petrov. Tikhonov listened, thanked Petrov and Mikhailov for their message, and sent them away. Kharlamov sat in his white Volga at the parking lot of the Luzhniki arena, waiting for his friends. When he saw his friends walk out of the arena, he opened the car door and got out. “Well, what did he say?” he asked Petrov. “Nothing. He said he’d think about it,” Petrov replied. Kharlamov inhaled, and closed his eyes. The good news was that Tikhonov hadn’t said no. The bad news was that he hadn’t said no, and now he’d use this as a weapon, he thought. “He’s going to make me pay for it,” Kharlamov said. “Fine.” Meanwhile, Tikhonov was thinking about it. Maybe he wasn’t thrilled with Kharlamov’s play, but the only thing that mattered was winning. Maybe getting back to together would be the spark all three needed. “It’s probably the last chance for them to play together. Maybe I should put them back together,” he told his assistant coach, Vladimir Jurzinov. Jurzinov agreed. In the four Izvestia Cup games in December, Kharlamov scored two goals, and added 4 assists, and the first line was as good as ever when the team left the Soviet Union for Germany, to play two exhibition games against West Germany, and then onward to the US, to have their dress rehearsal at the Madison Square Garden, against Team USA. Kharlamov went goalless through the games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Krefeld in Germany, but opened scoring in the game against the US in New York. The Americans didn’t stand a chance, as the CCCP men kept on scoring, at will, it seemed. Soviet Union 10, USA 3. The Soviets were just as good and dangerous as everybody thought. Only, they weren’t as good and dangerous as they thought themselves. The team traveled to Lake Placid only to find out that the Olympic village they’d be living in for a couple of weeks was a less-than-welcoming facility. While it was new, it was also built like a prison because that’s exactly what it was going to be after the Games. A prison. The Americans and the Canadians stayed elsewhere. Finland’s cross-country skier Juha Mieto, who stood 6-4 tall, was so furious when he couldn’t sleep in the short beds in the rooms that were small as train compartments, that he tore a pillow apart so that in the morning, the corridor was covered in pieces of the pillow. Two adjacent rooms shared a window, with a separating wall right in the middle of the window. The walls were thin, and privacy didn’t exist. The Soviets’ and Kharlamov’s biggest enemy, though, was boredom. Unfortunately, the only thing they could come up with to take away the numbness was vodka. Over 120 empty vodka bottles were found outside the Soviet rooms after the tournament. On the ice, things were smooth as well. Soviet Union held a true hockey clinic in its first three games, against Japan, the Netherlands, and Poland, beating all three second-tier hockey nations, with a 41-5 goal differential. Kharlamov scored five points. The tournament couldn’t have started better for him. In the next game, against Holland, he scored just one point, but his day off didn’t matter as Vladimir Krutov stepped up and scored a hat trick, and added two assists. In the third game, against Poland, Kharlamov scored again, and when he returned to the Olympic Village that night he had scored 3+6=9 points in the tournament. In just three games. Just before the team embarked on their journey, the U.S. President Jimmy Carter had announced that the United States would boycott the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow in protest of Soviet military action in Afghanistan if the Soviets didn’t withdraw their troops by February 20. He had also earlier suggested that the US might ban the Soviet Olympic team from the Lake Placid Games. The day of the deadline was the day of the last games of the round-robin. The Soviets played against Canada, and beat them handily 6-4. Kharlamov didn’t score a point. They had cruised through the first round robin undefeated, winning all five games, scoring 51 goals and allowing just eleven. Mikhailov - Petrov - Kharlamov line had scored 13 of the 51, or a fourth of the teams’ goals, a little less than expected, but they were always known to be best in the really tough games. Two such games were ahead of them before they could fly home as Olympic champions, and get new medals, and promotions in the Army. One against the US, and one against the Swedes, their two points from the game against Finland - a 4-2 win - were carried over from the round-robin. The tension was rising, and the pressure was mounting. The Soviets weren’t playing just for the Olympic gold, they weren’t even simple propaganda boys for the Soviet empire, they were now the enemy of the state. Kharlamov’s confidence wasn’t as good as at the beginning of the tournament. A forward lives for, and by goals and points, and with the top line not producing, the coach had turned his attention to them now. This time the players had asked Tikhonov to try to change lines to get Kharlamov going and to force the opponents to change their matchups. The coach listened to the players, but this time, he didn’t see any point in giving in to them. Kharlamov saw the signs in the stands during the warmups. He didn’t understand all of them, and he didn’t want to look too hard, because he didn’t want people to know that he cared, but he could see them. Some of them were written in Russian. “Get out of Afghanistan!” “Russki, go home, not Afghanistan!” Kharlamov sighed. It was draining to always be fighting somebody, to always be the enemy. Everything felt fine, though, as Valeri Kharlamov laced up his Adidas skates, and snapped on his Jofa helmet, and walked to the rink. He was the last player to leave the dressing room, as always, and the last one to step onto the ice. Minutes later, he was leaning on stick at the red line, next to David Silk, watching Petrov win the opening faceoff. His line was the Soviets’ starting line, as usual, with Vyacheslav Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov behind them. People were cheering, but the noise levels went down after the first shift, as the homecrowd was nervously watching the game, fearing for the worst. Kharlamov always wanted to feel the puck early in the game, get around a defenseman, or make a nice pass, to get into the game. The others knew it, so right away Fetisov got the puck to Kharlamov, who made a couple of moves, to feel the puck, and then sent it to Petrov with a beautiful backhander. Petrov, uncharacteristically, dumped the puck into the US zone. The Americans’ attack was cut short in the neutral zone and Kharlamov picked up the puck, then picked up speed, and when facing three Americans on the blue line, he turned back, calmed down the situation and then tried to carry it back into the US zone. He tried to find Mikhailov with a long passed, but instead, iced the puck. “We got a little bit of a glimpse of what the US team is going to try to do. When the Soviets gain possession of the puck, they’re going to try to be very deliberately … when they have the time. Under those circumstances, the US team is going to back off and try to move into their defensive zone with all five men so that they won’t be outnumbered,” said Al Michaels, calling the game on NBC. The top line didn’t score, but others did. Vladimir Krutov gave his team the lead halfway through the first period. The US tied it up. Makarov gave the Soviets the lead just two and a half minutes before the end of the first period, but Mark Johnson shocked the Soviet players, and most of all the coaching staff, with his 2-2 goal on the last second of play in the first period. Tikhonov panicked, and made a goalie change. Out came Vladislav Tretyak, a national hero, and instead, Vladimir Myshkin took his place in front of the Soviet net. Kharlamov couldn’t believe his ears. Was Tikhonov really pulling Tretiak? He looked at the goalie across the dressing room. He didn’t say anything, and Tretiak didn’t say anything, but he could see the goalie was furious. “He’s crazy,” Kharlamov told Tretiak, as they were the two last players to leave the dressing room before the second period. At first, the goalie change seemed to calm things down, as Maltsev scored the Soviets’ third go-ahead goal at 2:18 into the second period. With one period to go, the US was down by a goal, putting up a good fight, but being outshot 30-10 in the first two periods. Myshkin had made jus two saves in the period. “Our coach made a serious mistake by pulling Tretiak. Vladislav had always been able to shut it down at the right time, and his calmness charged the whole team. And when Tikhonov pulled him, we immediately felt some discomfort, and the Americans gained confidence. That change substitution was fatal,” Petrov said years later. Fatal it was, as with exactly ten minutes remaining in the game, Mike Eruzione beat Myshkin with a wrist shot from the slot, and gave Team USA the lead in the game for the first time, just a minute and 21 seconds after Johnson had tied the game. Tikhonov kept sending his top line out, but as the clock was winding down, Kharlamov seemed to be going through the motions. Kharlamov, Petrov, and Mikhailov came out for the last time with a minute and a half remaining in the game. The US coach had made sure his players kept their shifts at 45 seconds, while the Soviets’ top line played easily over a minute, close to 90 seconds at a time. For once, they weren’t the stronger team in the end. With a minute remaining, Kharlamov took a pass from Petrov on the Soviet blue line. He skipped past Silk at the red line, went around Ken Morrow on the blue line but lost control of the puck, and it went to the US zone. Mikhailov grabbed it and played it to Petrov in front of the net, but Jim Craig made a save on Petrov’s backhander. Kharlamov was waiting at the far post, should the puck find its way there. It never did. With 30 seconds remaining, Kharlamov got the puck again, at the red line. This time he skated around Johnson, then dumped the puck into the US zone, but Petrov was late to the puck. Mikhailov missed it, but Bilyaletdninov managed to keep it in the zone. With just 12 seconds remaining, Kharlamov knew it was over. He skated into the corner, but he knew it was over. He made a body check, and put his arms around Rob McClanahan in the corner, trying to look like he was still battling, like he still believed – but he wasn’t. When the final buzzer went off, and the Americans stormed onto the ice behind him, Kharlamov never looked back. He adjusted his elbow pads, looked up to the scoreboard, and wondered what Tikhonov was going to say. He did notice that Tikhonov left the bench right away, without shaking hands with the Americans. After the players’ handshakes, he saw Helmut Balderis, the Latvian sniper, skate to the American bench and shake hands with Herb Brooks, the US coach. The Americans’ doctor was George Nagobdas, whose parents had left Latvia some 40 years earlier. He spoke Latvian and told Balderis, in Latvian, not to do it. Balderis replied by cursing his coach. Tikhonov, who had coached Riga Latvia for years, understood every word of the message. Back in the Soviet Union, Tikhonov criticized Balderis and kicked him out of the national team. But in Lake Placid, in public, Tikhonov stayed quiet, and even skipped the post-game press conference. In the dressing room, however, he let his players know exactly what he was thinking, and who he thought should be blamed for the loss. And it wasn’t him. He walked around the room, stopping in front of the players he deemed guiltiest for the loss, and wagged his finger in their faces. “This is your loss!” he told Tretiak who just stared back at him. “This is your loss!,” he told Mikhailov. “Your loss, you did this,” he told Petrov. He finally took a few steps towards Kharlamov’s stall. “This is your loss! This. Is. Your. Loss,” he spat out. Years, decades later Tikhonov would admit that pulling Tretiak was a huge mistake, and that he was the one to get blamed for it. “Tretiak always played better after he gave up a goal. The decision was a result of getting caught up in emotions. After Tretiak gave up the rebound and let in the soft goal by Johnson, my blood was boiling. It was my worst mistake, my biggest regret,” he said. Back at the prison, as the players called the Olympic Village, there was a line to the phone. Mikahilov was on the phone, standing a few meters behind him were the Golikov brother, when Kharlamov took his place in the line. The players had few secrets from each other, even if they only heard one side of the conversation. Everybody knew how the others’ families were doing, whose parents were ill and whose children had gotten praise at school. Valeri dialled the number to Moscow. He looked at his watch, it was ten o’clock. It’d be morning in Moscow. Irina answered after just a few rings. “Valeri? Why are you calling so early?” she said. “Is everything OK? Are you hurt?” “No, I’m not hurt, I’m fine,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake up Sasha and Begonita. I just wanted to call you, because something happened. A disaster, really.” He could hear Irina hold her breath. “We lost to the Americans. 4-3,” Valeri said. “Tikhonov did not like that,” Irina muttered back. “No,” said Valeri, and then added, “what is Pravda saying about the game?” Irina put the receiver on the table, and ran to get the paper. She knew Valeri only had a few minutes to speak with her. She opened the paper, and while looking for sports news, she spoke with Valeri. “Nothing here … the kids miss you … we all miss you, and we hope you come home a champion … nothing here,” she went on. “I miss all of you. Guess where we live here? A prison. This is a prison, for real. They told us that the house we’re in now, will be a prison after the Olympics,” Valeri said. “There’s nothing about the game in the paper.” “Maybe it was too late to make it in to the paper. Could you check the paper tomorrow for me, please? I have to go now. Love you,” Valeri told his wife, and hung up. The tournament wasn’t over yet, even if nobody told the Americans. There was still a chance for the Soviet Union to win the gold medal, despite their embarrassing loss to the US. If they beat Sweden, while the US lost to Finland, they’d be Olympic champions. When the Soviet players left the Olympic Village, Finland had a 2-1 lead in the game against the Americans. Jukka Porvari and Kimmo Leinonen had scored for the Finns, Steven Cristoff for the Americans. One period remained to be played in the game. When Kharlamov and his teammates arrived at the rink, Phil Verchota, Rob McClanahan, and Mark Johnson had scored for the US, and the battle was over. Kharlamov, Petrov, and Mikhailov were still the top line, even if Tikhonov told publicly afterwards that he had thought they looked tired in the game against the US. Maybe because they played twice as long shifts as the Americans. In one shift in the third period, Petrov faced three different American centers in a faceoff. Everybody was so used to the Soviets being the stronger team in the third period, that they even considered the Americans having used doping. "What do you give your players eat and drink before the third?” asked Valeri Vasiliev. “The last period is always ours. Leading 3-2 going into the second period … we were confident of victory." Poor Sweden. They never had a chance. It took just 36 seconds for Kharlamov to set up Vladimir Petrov for a goal in the game against Sweden. With 2:22 remaining in the first period, Mikhailov made it 4-0, again assisted by Kharlamov, while Makarov and Alexander Maltsev had scored two goals in between. At 15:02 into the second period, the game was 9-0 … and over. All that remained was the medal ceremony. When the Soviet national team returned home after a successful World Championship, the players usually met with the Communist party officials, and the representatives of the Komsomol, the youth division of the Party. When the CCCP played and won, productivity was said to go up by five to ten percent, but after a loss, it plummeted. In 1980, the hockey team was pushed aside when the crowds celebrated other athletes, the winners. Kharlamov knew that before they landed. Irina hadn’t found anything about the game against the US in Pravda, which meant that it had never happened. Pravda was rewriting history as it happened, and in that history, there was no place for losers. “Maybe I can play a few seasons in another team,” he had told his wife during their last phone conversation. “If he kicks me out, maybe I can play a few more seasons somewhere else, finish my studies, and then become coach.” “Just come home,” she had told him. On the plane back to Moscow, Tikhonov continued his attacks on Kharlamov and Tretiak. He walked up and down the aisle, always stopping next to Tretiak and Kharlamov, to let the veterans know they had failed him. Finally, Valeri Vasiliev who sat behind Kharlamov had got enough. He stood up behind Tikhonov, who was still yelling at Kharlamov, and put the coach in a headlock. “You can keep yelling at them, or you can stop, and I won’t kill you. Your choice … coach,” he said. Tikhonov tried to shake Vasiliev off his back, but the defenseman was just to strong. “Fine,” the coach said and Vasiliev let him go. Tikhonov walked to the front of the plane, muttering curses. There were no World Championships that spring, but the Soviet national team did play in the Sweden Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden in April 1980 which gave Tikhonov a chance to cut Vasiliev and Petrov from the team. He put Krutov on the same line with Mikhailov and Kharlamov, and made Kharlamov the center of the line. Kharlamov scored a goal in the game against Canada and the Soviets won all four of their games in the tournament. But nothing helped. No win was big enough, no goal breathtaking enough. The summer, and the season until the next World Championships, were going to be long. And even a gold medal in the 1981 Worlds wouldn’t probably take away the pain. The Soviet Union hockey national team blazed through season 1979-80 with a 22-1 record, and the only thing they, that team, is remembered for is that one loss. Then again, when a team wins four straight Olympic gold medals, 21 consecutive Olympic games, plays 48 games in two seasons, loses two and ties one, that one loss that one season is nothing short of … a miracle. Or a disaster. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Fri, 22 Feb 2013 19:19:38 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no In 1977, after Boris Kulagin coached the Soviet Union to a World Championship silver medal for the second year in a row, he was relieved of his duties as the bench boss, and a new boss was called in. Viktor Tikhonov, a Moscow native, and a former Moscow Dynamo defenseman, rode back into his home town to take over the Red Army team, and the national team, which was practically the same thing. By then, Kharlamov was 29, and one of the veteran players on the team. He was a two-time Olympic champion, and a six-time World Champion, and a national hero. None of that mattered to Tikhonov, already famous for his discipline and tough love towards his players. Or, at least, tough something. Kharlamov, like everybody else, had an image of a good coach in his head. That image looked like Anatoli Tarasov, the legendary coach of the national team, who had built the 1970s championship machine, and who had given Valeri his chance, and believed in him when nobody else did. Tikhonov was nothing like that. Tikhonov was the exact opposite. “We have won Soviet championships, world championships, and we’ve done it our way, why should we now have to start preparing for a new season any differently,” Kharlamov told his teammates. “Preparing for a new season any differently” meant “working twice as hard”. Tikhonov told the Red Army players over and over again how the players on his former team, Riga Dinamo in Latvia, worked much harder than the stars in Moscow. And with only a silver and a bronze medal - a bronze! - in the last two world championships, the players didn’t have much of an argument against him. In the fall of 1979, after another World Championship gold medal, Kharlamov was even more of a veteran player, and with the effects of the 1976 car accident still lingering in his body, Tikhonov decided that number 17 was done. Tikhonov wasn’t alone in his thoughts about Kharlamov. One of the people who thought Kharlamov may have been, if not completely washed up, then at least past his prime was Valeri Borisovich Kharlamov himself. “After a lost game when my entire body aches, and I can’t even lift my arm, I think that I’ve done my share, it’s time for the younger players to take over and work their behinds off,” he would tell his wife. “If I can’t make the Red Army team, I can always play on a team that’s fighting for the 11th place in the standings, and we can still live in Moscow,” he’d say. But he didn’t leave Moscow, or the CSKA, and he did hang on to his spot on the national team. But even if he finished second in the World Championships in 1979, in a tournament that the Soviet Union went through undefeated, and even if he scored 22 goals and 48 points in 41 Soviet top league games in 1978-79, by the next fall, he found himself something of an outcast. Nothing was good enough for the coach. One of the reasons was the lack of discipline Kharlamov had showed outside the rink. In 1977, right after Tikhonov had taken over the national team, Kharlamov and defenseman Valeri Vasiliev were out drinking the night before an Izvestia Cup game against Czechoslovakia, the Soviets’ archrivals. Well, their only rivals in the hockey world at the time. The team was down 2-0 after two periods, and Tikhonov entered the dressing room, fuming. “Enemies … you’re my enemies .. You’re benched!” he yelled to Kharlamov and Vasiliev. That time, though, Kharlamov was bigger than the coach. It was the tiny number 17 who had more clout with the team, and the rest of the players stood up for him. Boris Mikhailov stood up. “Coach. Give them a chance to make up for their mistake,” he said. Others joined in and finally, Tikhonov agreed. The Soviet Union rallied back from behind, and tied the game 3-3 in the end. Vasiliev scored a goal, and Kharlamov picked up two assists. After the game, Tikhonov went back to Kharlamov and Vasiliev, and said, with venom in his voice: “Here’s an idea. What if we let you guys drink whenever you want, maybe you should be the exception, maybe you should be allowed to do whatever you want.” Even the Minister of Sport Sergei Pavlov got involved later, and told the players to keep the drinking out of the public eye, at least. He even offered them a chance to use his dacha for the purpose, but the players declined. They weren’t stupid. In 1979, Kharlamov’s play was just fine, and even if his production dropped somewhat, he was still a part of the team that was getting ready for the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, NY, in February. Coach Tikhonov wanted to rebuild his national team and get some new blood in, so he broke his famous top line. It was Kharlamov who had to go. Team captain Boris Mikhailov and Vladimir Petrov stayed together, and Kharlamov was sent further down in the lineup. His spot on the top line went to young Sergei Makarov who had been voted to the World Championship All-Star team by the media. That, too, had been something of an injustice and Kharlamov was sure Tikhonov was behind. After all, he had collected more points in the tournament than Makarov, and both Mikhailov and Petrov were voted into the All-Star team. Why was he left out? But he knew better than to fight with the coach, so he played as hard as he could, and by the New Year’s, he had scored ten goals in 21 games in the Soviet league. Before the Olympics, Petrov, Mikhailov and Kharlamov approached Tikhonov and asked him to put them back together. Kharlamov didn’t come along, as Mikhailov and Petrov thought it was best that they’d be the ones to talk to the coach. That was, Kharlamov wouldn’t be begging. “Viktor Vasilyevich, we’ve been loyal to the team and the country for many years, and while the young players are good, it’s just not the same playing without Valeri,” said Boris Mikhailov, the team captain. Tikhonov listened carefully but nothing on his face revealed what he was thinking about, or whether the veteran players had any chance of changing the coach’s mind. “Boris and I, we’ve always played together. Even Tarasov tried moving Kharlamov from our line, and we told him, too, that we felt like a man who chopped off his finger,” said Petrov. Tikhonov listened, thanked Petrov and Mikhailov for their message, and sent them away. Kharlamov sat in his white Volga at the parking lot of the Luzhniki arena, waiting for his friends. When he saw his friends walk out of the arena, he opened the car door and got out. “Well, what did he say?” he asked Petrov. “Nothing. He said he’d think about it,” Petrov replied. Kharlamov inhaled, and closed his eyes. The good news was that Tikhonov hadn’t said no. The bad news was that he hadn’t said no, and now he’d use this as a weapon, he thought. “He’s going to make me pay for it,” Kharlamov said. “Fine.” Meanwhile, Tikhonov was thinking about it. Maybe he wasn’t thrilled with Kharlamov’s play, but the only thing that mattered was winning. Maybe getting back to together would be the spark all three needed. “It’s probably the last chance for them to play together. Maybe I should put them back together,” he told his assistant coach, Vladimir Jurzinov. Jurzinov agreed. In the four Izvestia Cup games in December, Kharlamov scored two goals, and added 4 assists, and the first line was as good as ever when the team left the Soviet Union for Germany, to play two exhibition games against West Germany, and then onward to the US, to have their dress rehearsal at the Madison Square Garden, against Team USA. Kharlamov went goalless through the games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Krefeld in Germany, but opened scoring in the game against the US in New York. The Americans didn’t stand a chance, as the CCCP men kept on scoring, at will, it seemed. Soviet Union 10, USA 3. The Soviets were just as good and dangerous as everybody thought. Only, they weren’t as good and dangerous as they thought themselves. The team traveled to Lake Placid only to find out that the Olympic village they’d be living in for a couple of weeks was a less-than-welcoming facility. While it was new, it was also built like a prison because that’s exactly what it was going to be after the Games. A prison. The Americans and the Canadians stayed elsewhere. Finland’s cross-country skier Juha Mieto, who stood 6-4 tall, was so furious when he couldn’t sleep in the short beds in the rooms that were small as train compartments, that he tore a pillow apart so that in the morning, the corridor was covered in pieces of the pillow. Two adjacent rooms shared a window, with a separating wall right in the middle of the window. The walls were thin, and privacy didn’t exist. The Soviets’ and Kharlamov’s biggest enemy, though, was boredom. Unfortunately, the only thing they could come up with to take away the numbness was vodka. Over 120 empty vodka bottles were found outside the Soviet rooms after the tournament. On the ice, things were smooth as well. Soviet Union held a true hockey clinic in its first three games, against Japan, the Netherlands, and Poland, beating all three second-tier hockey nations, with a 41-5 goal differential. Kharlamov scored five points. The tournament couldn’t have started better for him. In the next game, against Holland, he scored just one point, but his day off didn’t matter as Vladimir Krutov stepped up and scored a hat trick, and added two assists. In the third game, against Poland, Kharlamov scored again, and when he returned to the Olympic Village that night he had scored 3+6=9 points in the tournament. In just three games. Just before the team embarked on their journey, the U.S. President Jimmy Carter had announced that the United States would boycott the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow in protest of Soviet military action in Afghanistan if the Soviets didn’t withdraw their troops by February 20. He had also earlier suggested that the US might ban the Soviet Olympic team from the Lake Placid Games. The day of the deadline was the day of the last games of the round-robin. The Soviets played against Canada, and beat them handily 6-4. Kharlamov didn’t score a point. They had cruised through the first round robin undefeated, winning all five games, scoring 51 goals and allowing just eleven. Mikhailov - Petrov - Kharlamov line had scored 13 of the 51, or a fourth of the teams’ goals, a little less than expected, but they were always known to be best in the really tough games. Two such games were ahead of them before they could fly home as Olympic champions, and get new medals, and promotions in the Army. One against the US, and one against the Swedes, their two points from the game against Finland - a 4-2 win - were carried over from the round-robin. The tension was rising, and the pressure was mounting. The Soviets weren’t playing just for the Olympic gold, they weren’t even simple propaganda boys for the Soviet empire, they were now the enemy of the state. Kharlamov’s confidence wasn’t as good as at the beginning of the tournament. A forward lives for, and by goals and points, and with the top line not producing, the coach had turned his attention to them now. This time the players had asked Tikhonov to try to change lines to get Kharlamov going and to force the opponents to change their matchups. The coach listened to the players, but this time, he didn’t see any point in giving in to them. Kharlamov saw the signs in the stands during the warmups. He didn’t understand all of them, and he didn’t want to look too hard, because he didn’t want people to know that he cared, but he could see them. Some of them were written in Russian. “Get out of Afghanistan!” “Russki, go home, not Afghanistan!” Kharlamov sighed. It was draining to always be fighting somebody, to always be the enemy. Everything felt fine, though, as Valeri Kharlamov laced up his Adidas skates, and snapped on his Jofa helmet, and walked to the rink. He was the last player to leave the dressing room, as always, and the last one to step onto the ice. Minutes later, he was leaning on stick at the red line, next to David Silk, watching Petrov win the opening faceoff. His line was the Soviets’ starting line, as usual, with Vyacheslav Fetisov and Alexei Kasatonov behind them. People were cheering, but the noise levels went down after the first shift, as the homecrowd was nervously watching the game, fearing for the worst. Kharlamov always wanted to feel the puck early in the game, get around a defenseman, or make a nice pass, to get into the game. The others knew it, so right away Fetisov got the puck to Kharlamov, who made a couple of moves, to feel the puck, and then sent it to Petrov with a beautiful backhander. Petrov, uncharacteristically, dumped the puck into the US zone. The Americans’ attack was cut short in the neutral zone and Kharlamov picked up the puck, then picked up speed, and when facing three Americans on the blue line, he turned back, calmed down the situation and then tried to carry it back into the US zone. He tried to find Mikhailov with a long passed, but instead, iced the puck. “We got a little bit of a glimpse of what the US team is going to try to do. When the Soviets gain possession of the puck, they’re going to try to be very deliberately … when they have the time. Under those circumstances, the US team is going to back off and try to move into their defensive zone with all five men so that they won’t be outnumbered,” said Al Michaels, calling the game on NBC. The top line didn’t score, but others did. Vladimir Krutov gave his team the lead halfway through the first period. The US tied it up. Makarov gave the Soviets the lead just two and a half minutes before the end of the first period, but Mark Johnson shocked the Soviet players, and most of all the coaching staff, with his 2-2 goal on the last second of play in the first period. Tikhonov panicked, and made a goalie change. Out came Vladislav Tretyak, a national hero, and instead, Vladimir Myshkin took his place in front of the Soviet net. Kharlamov couldn’t believe his ears. Was Tikhonov really pulling Tretiak? He looked at the goalie across the dressing room. He didn’t say anything, and Tretiak didn’t say anything, but he could see the goalie was furious. “He’s crazy,” Kharlamov told Tretiak, as they were the two last players to leave the dressing room before the second period. At first, the goalie change seemed to calm things down, as Maltsev scored the Soviets’ third go-ahead goal at 2:18 into the second period. With one period to go, the US was down by a goal, putting up a good fight, but being outshot 30-10 in the first two periods. Myshkin had made jus two saves in the period. “Our coach made a serious mistake by pulling Tretiak. Vladislav had always been able to shut it down at the right time, and his calmness charged the whole team. And when Tikhonov pulled him, we immediately felt some discomfort, and the Americans gained confidence. That change substitution was fatal,” Petrov said years later. Fatal it was, as with exactly ten minutes remaining in the game, Mike Eruzione beat Myshkin with a wrist shot from the slot, and gave Team USA the lead in the game for the first time, just a minute and 21 seconds after Johnson had tied the game. Tikhonov kept sending his top line out, but as the clock was winding down, Kharlamov seemed to be going through the motions. Kharlamov, Petrov, and Mikhailov came out for the last time with a minute and a half remaining in the game. The US coach had made sure his players kept their shifts at 45 seconds, while the Soviets’ top line played easily over a minute, close to 90 seconds at a time. For once, they weren’t the stronger team in the end. With a minute remaining, Kharlamov took a pass from Petrov on the Soviet blue line. He skipped past Silk at the red line, went around Ken Morrow on the blue line but lost control of the puck, and it went to the US zone. Mikhailov grabbed it and played it to Petrov in front of the net, but Jim Craig made a save on Petrov’s backhander. Kharlamov was waiting at the far post, should the puck find its way there. It never did. With 30 seconds remaining, Kharlamov got the puck again, at the red line. This time he skated around Johnson, then dumped the puck into the US zone, but Petrov was late to the puck. Mikhailov missed it, but Bilyaletdninov managed to keep it in the zone. With just 12 seconds remaining, Kharlamov knew it was over. He skated into the corner, but he knew it was over. He made a body check, and put his arms around Rob McClanahan in the corner, trying to look like he was still battling, like he still believed – but he wasn’t. When the final buzzer went off, and the Americans stormed onto the ice behind him, Kharlamov never looked back. He adjusted his elbow pads, looked up to the scoreboard, and wondered what Tikhonov was going to say. He did notice that Tikhonov left the bench right away, without shaking hands with the Americans. After the players’ handshakes, he saw Helmut Balderis, the Latvian sniper, skate to the American bench and shake hands with Herb Brooks, the US coach. The Americans’ doctor was George Nagobdas, whose parents had left Latvia some 40 years earlier. He spoke Latvian and told Balderis, in Latvian, not to do it. Balderis replied by cursing his coach. Tikhonov, who had coached Riga Latvia for years, understood every word of the message. Back in the Soviet Union, Tikhonov criticized Balderis and kicked him out of the national team. But in Lake Placid, in public, Tikhonov stayed quiet, and even skipped the post-game press conference. In the dressing room, however, he let his players know exactly what he was thinking, and who he thought should be blamed for the loss. And it wasn’t him. He walked around the room, stopping in front of the players he deemed guiltiest for the loss, and wagged his finger in their faces. “This is your loss!” he told Tretiak who just stared back at him. “This is your loss!,” he told Mikhailov. “Your loss, you did this,” he told Petrov. He finally took a few steps towards Kharlamov’s stall. “This is your loss! This. Is. Your. Loss,” he spat out. Years, decades later Tikhonov would admit that pulling Tretiak was a huge mistake, and that he was the one to get blamed for it. “Tretiak always played better after he gave up a goal. The decision was a result of getting caught up in emotions. After Tretiak gave up the rebound and let in the soft goal by Johnson, my blood was boiling. It was my worst mistake, my biggest regret,” he said. Back at the prison, as the players called the Olympic Village, there was a line to the phone. Mikahilov was on the phone, standing a few meters behind him were the Golikov brother, when Kharlamov took his place in the line. The players had few secrets from each other, even if they only heard one side of the conversation. Everybody knew how the others’ families were doing, whose parents were ill and whose children had gotten praise at school. Valeri dialled the number to Moscow. He looked at his watch, it was ten o’clock. It’d be morning in Moscow. Irina answered after just a few rings. “Valeri? Why are you calling so early?” she said. “Is everything OK? Are you hurt?” “No, I’m not hurt, I’m fine,” he said. “I hope I didn’t wake up Sasha and Begonita. I just wanted to call you, because something happened. A disaster, really.” He could hear Irina hold her breath. “We lost to the Americans. 4-3,” Valeri said. “Tikhonov did not like that,” Irina muttered back. “No,” said Valeri, and then added, “what is Pravda saying about the game?” Irina put the receiver on the table, and ran to get the paper. She knew Valeri only had a few minutes to speak with her. She opened the paper, and while looking for sports news, she spoke with Valeri. “Nothing here … the kids miss you … we all miss you, and we hope you come home a champion … nothing here,” she went on. “I miss all of you. Guess where we live here? A prison. This is a prison, for real. They told us that the house we’re in now, will be a prison after the Olympics,” Valeri said. “There’s nothing about the game in the paper.” “Maybe it was too late to make it in to the paper. Could you check the paper tomorrow for me, please? I have to go now. Love you,” Valeri told his wife, and hung up. The tournament wasn’t over yet, even if nobody told the Americans. There was still a chance for the Soviet Union to win the gold medal, despite their embarrassing loss to the US. If they beat Sweden, while the US lost to Finland, they’d be Olympic champions. When the Soviet players left the Olympic Village, Finland had a 2-1 lead in the game against the Americans. Jukka Porvari and Kimmo Leinonen had scored for the Finns, Steven Cristoff for the Americans. One period remained to be played in the game. When Kharlamov and his teammates arrived at the rink, Phil Verchota, Rob McClanahan, and Mark Johnson had scored for the US, and the battle was over. Kharlamov, Petrov, and Mikhailov were still the top line, even if Tikhonov told publicly afterwards that he had thought they looked tired in the game against the US. Maybe because they played twice as long shifts as the Americans. In one shift in the third period, Petrov faced three different American centers in a faceoff. Everybody was so used to the Soviets being the stronger team in the third period, that they even considered the Americans having used doping. "What do you give your players eat and drink before the third?” asked Valeri Vasiliev. “The last period is always ours. Leading 3-2 going into the second period … we were confident of victory." Poor Sweden. They never had a chance. It took just 36 seconds for Kharlamov to set up Vladimir Petrov for a goal in the game against Sweden. With 2:22 remaining in the first period, Mikhailov made it 4-0, again assisted by Kharlamov, while Makarov and Alexander Maltsev had scored two goals in between. At 15:02 into the second period, the game was 9-0 … and over. All that remained was the medal ceremony. When the Soviet national team returned home after a successful World Championship, the players usually met with the Communist party officials, and the representatives of the Komsomol, the youth division of the Party. When the CCCP played and won, productivity was said to go up by five to ten percent, but after a loss, it plummeted. In 1980, the hockey team was pushed aside when the crowds celebrated other athletes, the winners. Kharlamov knew that before they landed. Irina hadn’t found anything about the game against the US in Pravda, which meant that it had never happened. Pravda was rewriting history as it happened, and in that history, there was no place for losers. “Maybe I can play a few seasons in another team,” he had told his wife during their last phone conversation. “If he kicks me out, maybe I can play a few more seasons somewhere else, finish my studies, and then become coach.” “Just come home,” she had told him. On the plane back to Moscow, Tikhonov continued his attacks on Kharlamov and Tretiak. He walked up and down the aisle, always stopping next to Tretiak and Kharlamov, to let the veterans know they had failed him. Finally, Valeri Vasiliev who sat behind Kharlamov had got enough. He stood up behind Tikhonov, who was still yelling at Kharlamov, and put the coach in a headlock. “You can keep yelling at them, or you can stop, and I won’t kill you. Your choice … coach,” he said. Tikhonov tried to shake Vasiliev off his back, but the defenseman was just to strong. “Fine,” the coach said and Vasiliev let him go. Tikhonov walked to the front of the plane, muttering curses. There were no World Championships that spring, but the Soviet national team did play in the Sweden Cup in Gothenburg, Sweden in April 1980 which gave Tikhonov a chance to cut Vasiliev and Petrov from the team. He put Krutov on the same line with Mikhailov and Kharlamov, and made Kharlamov the center of the line. Kharlamov scored a goal in the game against Canada and the Soviets won all four of their games in the tournament. But nothing helped. No win was big enough, no goal breathtaking enough. The summer, and the season until the next World Championships, were going to be long. And even a gold medal in the 1981 Worlds wouldn’t probably take away the pain. The Soviet Union hockey national team blazed through season 1979-80 with a 22-1 record, and the only thing they, that team, is remembered for is that one loss. Then again, when a team wins four straight Olympic gold medals, 21 consecutive Olympic games, plays 48 games in two seasons, loses two and ties one, that one loss that one season is nothing short of … a miracle. Or a disaster. 5626dc3d0023496aa0323132bdebe5d2 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/awkward-non-silence When I was a kid, and home alone after school, I sometimes stood in front of the mirror in the hall holding another mirror, and gaze into the mirror tunnel I saw in front of me. I used to stand there and think it was an entrance to another world. Decades later, when I was a single man living the single man’s life, it sometimes happened that on a Sunday afternoon, while watching a rerun of “Friends”, I realized that I hadn’t spoken with another person since Friday night when I had left the office. Now, that didn’t mean that I hadn’t spoken at all, or opened my mouth one bit. I’d most likely been singing along classic 1980s hits, or laughing out loud - back then nobody LOLed - and speaking to the talking heads on TV, even arguing with them. But also, I had been speaking just to myself. I used to hold speeches, in English and in French, mostly in English, on topics that ranged from post-game statements to the media to Oscar speeches to something I should have said to a client or a friend. “Mais, mais, je.. Je…” Yes, my French speeches were short. I don’t talk in the car like I used to, and I recently discovered that I seem to talk to myself only in one specific instance these days: When I think back to something I’ve done, and conclude that it might have been embarrassing. The other day, for example, I was in the kitchen making coffee and I thought back to an interview I made the week before during which I told the interview person that I happen to make the best lattes in Stockholm. And as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I laughed a little, and started to mumble, and shake my head a little, and kept talking to this imaginary person, going through the process of making a real good cafe latte. Most of the times, though, I just say something like “Oh, well” or “Now, wasn’t that something”, or, “But it’s true!” Sometimes I crack a joke, and then other times I may sing a little. I actually sing a lot in the house. I’m not a great singer, which is why I only sing in the house, but in here, I like to sing. Anything can trigger a song in me. Son says he needs a name for his cartoon character, tentatively called “Square” so I suggest calling him “Hip” as .. in I used to be a renegade, I used to fool around But I couldn't take the punishment, and had to settle down Now I'm playing it real straight, and yes I cut my hair You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care Because I can tell what's going on It's hip to be a square Mostly I do Finnish oldies, though, and we even play this as a game. Son and Daugher can throw words at me, and I’ll sing a song about that word. (If anyone knows a song in which “fork” is featured, let me know). Last week, Son and Daughter and I were on the bus on our way home from school. Son was playing something on my iPad, Daughter had my “iPad mini mini”, my phone, that is, so all I had was the bus window and my thoughts. And that’s when I thought about a comment I had made to another interview person - I never learn, do I - and it made me feel a little awkward, and this time my escape was a song. I belted out a Finnish classic about a silver moon, a song often sung in our house. Of course, we were on the bus which made it an awkward moment and when I think about it now, I want to stand up and hold a speech. And that loop reminds me of that mirror tunnel. I can’t believe I told you about the mirror tunnel. How embarrassing. IT’S HIP TO BE SQUARE! [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:32:14 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no When I was a kid, and home alone after school, I sometimes stood in front of the mirror in the hall holding another mirror, and gaze into the mirror tunnel I saw in front of me. I used to stand there and think it was an entrance to another world. Decades later, when I was a single man living the single man’s life, it sometimes happened that on a Sunday afternoon, while watching a rerun of “Friends”, I realized that I hadn’t spoken with another person since Friday night when I had left the office. Now, that didn’t mean that I hadn’t spoken at all, or opened my mouth one bit. I’d most likely been singing along classic 1980s hits, or laughing out loud - back then nobody LOLed - and speaking to the talking heads on TV, even arguing with them. But also, I had been speaking just to myself. I used to hold speeches, in English and in French, mostly in English, on topics that ranged from post-game statements to the media to Oscar speeches to something I should have said to a client or a friend. “Mais, mais, je.. Je…” Yes, my French speeches were short. I don’t talk in the car like I used to, and I recently discovered that I seem to talk to myself only in one specific instance these days: When I think back to something I’ve done, and conclude that it might have been embarrassing. The other day, for example, I was in the kitchen making coffee and I thought back to an interview I made the week before during which I told the interview person that I happen to make the best lattes in Stockholm. And as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I laughed a little, and started to mumble, and shake my head a little, and kept talking to this imaginary person, going through the process of making a real good cafe latte. Most of the times, though, I just say something like “Oh, well” or “Now, wasn’t that something”, or, “But it’s true!” Sometimes I crack a joke, and then other times I may sing a little. I actually sing a lot in the house. I’m not a great singer, which is why I only sing in the house, but in here, I like to sing. Anything can trigger a song in me. Son says he needs a name for his cartoon character, tentatively called “Square” so I suggest calling him “Hip” as .. in I used to be a renegade, I used to fool around But I couldn't take the punishment, and had to settle down Now I'm playing it real straight, and yes I cut my hair You might think I'm crazy, but I don't even care Because I can tell what's going on It's hip to be a square Mostly I do Finnish oldies, though, and we even play this as a game. Son and Daugher can throw words at me, and I’ll sing a song about that word. (If anyone knows a song in which “fork” is featured, let me know). Last week, Son and Daughter and I were on the bus on our way home from school. Son was playing something on my iPad, Daughter had my “iPad mini mini”, my phone, that is, so all I had was the bus window and my thoughts. And that’s when I thought about a comment I had made to another interview person - I never learn, do I - and it made me feel a little awkward, and this time my escape was a song. I belted out a Finnish classic about a silver moon, a song often sung in our house. Of course, we were on the bus which made it an awkward moment and when I think about it now, I want to stand up and hold a speech. And that loop reminds me of that mirror tunnel. I can’t believe I told you about the mirror tunnel. How embarrassing. IT’S HIP TO BE SQUARE! e1fa46ebd35d4e60a81ebf315ea47a98 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/fasth-goes-mental Anaheim Ducks goalie Viktor Fasth had a lot of physical work to do to overcome a knee injury while playing in Sweden. He also had some mental changes to make. Fasth told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter he once threw his goalie stick 17 rows into the crowd. When his former AIK goalie coach Stefan Persson tells the story, he stops at row 7 -- but you get the picture. "When I was in my teens and got my first real goalie mask, our equipment manager told me once that the next time you break a stick on the crossbar, I'll take your mask and throw it to the ground," Fasth told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet . "Somehow I remember that one." He's better now, he said -- and it shows. Working with mental coach Martin Blom, Fasth improved his approach. Persson points out another detail that makes Fasth a successful goalie. Persson made a video of Fasth, showing just the moments when he turned his head and looked around during one game. The edit was four minutes long. He edited a similar video for AIK's new goalie, Daniel Larsson, at the beginning of this season. That edit was 22 seconds long. "No other goalie moves his head as much as Fasth," Persson said. "Your eyes are key to everything. If you know where you are and where the other players are, you can then steer the defense and talk to the defensemen, and you don't have to guess when you make saves." Every once in a while, Fasth has to return to the basics. That's when he works on angles, positioning, and getting up from the ice. "He had some problems with the small [NHL] rink, but it was just a matter of adjusting things a little," Persson said. How little? Four inches. Though he could claim some, Persson won't take credit for Fasth's breakthrough in the NHL. "Who came up with the flop in high jump, or the V-style in ski jumping? It wasn't a coach, it was an athlete," Persson said. "Viktor's so modest, and when you hear him praise the defense after a game, that's truly him. He also knows that when he has a bad day, he'll get their support." But the goalie coach is surprised. "Did I think he'd get to the NHL when he came to AIK? No." Originally published here . [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Sat, 16 Feb 2013 09:54:54 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Anaheim Ducks goalie Viktor Fasth had a lot of physical work to do to overcome a knee injury while playing in Sweden. He also had some mental changes to make. Fasth told Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter he once threw his goalie stick 17 rows into the crowd. When his former AIK goalie coach Stefan Persson tells the story, he stops at row 7 -- but you get the picture. "When I was in my teens and got my first real goalie mask, our equipment manager told me once that the next time you break a stick on the crossbar, I'll take your mask and throw it to the ground," Fasth told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet . "Somehow I remember that one." He's better now, he said -- and it shows. Working with mental coach Martin Blom, Fasth improved his approach. Persson points out another detail that makes Fasth a successful goalie. Persson made a video of Fasth, showing just the moments when he turned his head and looked around during one game. The edit was four minutes long. He edited a similar video for AIK's new goalie, Daniel Larsson, at the beginning of this season. That edit was 22 seconds long. "No other goalie moves his head as much as Fasth," Persson said. "Your eyes are key to everything. If you know where you are and where the other players are, you can then steer the defense and talk to the defensemen, and you don't have to guess when you make saves." Every once in a while, Fasth has to return to the basics. That's when he works on angles, positioning, and getting up from the ice. "He had some problems with the small [NHL] rink, but it was just a matter of adjusting things a little," Persson said. How little? Four inches. Though he could claim some, Persson won't take credit for Fasth's breakthrough in the NHL. "Who came up with the flop in high jump, or the V-style in ski jumping? It wasn't a coach, it was an athlete," Persson said. "Viktor's so modest, and when you hear him praise the defense after a game, that's truly him. He also knows that when he has a bad day, he'll get their support." But the goalie coach is surprised. "Did I think he'd get to the NHL when he came to AIK? No." Originally published here . 127e95a49a8a4b39a28088633b31c372 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/fasth-s-road-to-the-nhl When goalie Viktor Fasth signed a two-year contract with Stockholm AIK in 2010, it was barely news in Sweden. The biggest morning paper, Dagens Nyheter, had a three-line blurb about it, and Aftonbladet, the biggest daily, pulled the general manager's comments off AIK's website. No wonder. AIK played in the second- and third-tier leagues for years and had just then, in 2010, earned promotion to the Swedish Elite League. Fasth, too, spent his career in the second- and third-tier leagues, and had just signed his first SEL contract at 27. "He was a good goalie when he came to Stockholm, but he had only played about 40 games in the previous two seasons due to his knee injury, so I suppose other teams didn't want to take a chance with him," AIK goalie coach Stefan Persson told NHL.com. "We had another goalie who had also struggled with injuries, but our GM, Anders Gozzi, just said that we can't be so unlucky that both goalies get injured at the same time." Now, a slight injury to Anaheim Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller has given Fasth his chance in the NHL -- and he has taken full advantage. The 30-year-old rookie has won all six of his starts and is one of the surprise stories so far this season. The path he has taken is a long one. The knee injury Fasth suffered while playing soccer to warm up before a practice kept him sidelined for nine months in 2008-09, but it had also gave him the opportunity to build himself up. Together with his club's mental coach, Martin Blom, Fasth worked on his psychological and physical strength. "The season was over [already in October], and everything was dark. So I called Martin and his first words were: 'Perfect! Now we can work on everything we've talked about,'" Fasth told Aftonbladet early in his first season with AIK. So when Fasth returned to action with the Vaxjo Lakers in the second-tier Allsvenskan in the fall of 2009, he had made thousands of saves in his mind and had worked on getting stronger. "There was no pressure, they had all the time in the world, so Martin had Viktor work with light weights and made sure the foundation was there," Persson said. Fasth had been an accomplished goalie in his teens -- he played for his district team and got into the hockey high school in Lulea, about 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle -- but he also had been rejected by the Lulea club and had to play Swedish Division 2 instead. (That sounds better than it is, Division 2 is the fourth-highest division in the country.) Fasth then moved back to Vanersborg, in the south of Sweden, 10 miles from Trollhattan, a city formerly famous for a Saab auto factory now referred to as "Trollywood" thanks to several hit movies coming out of its film production facility. He played Division 1 hockey there with the Tvastad Cobras, a merger between a Trollhattan club and a Vanersborg club. Though that team finished last and went belly up, the top team in Division 1, Tingsryd, wanted Fasth. And after three seasons there, Vaxjo, came calling. Fasth took another step up, to the second-tier league in Sweden. When he arrived in Stockholm in 2010, he knew what he wanted to do. "He said he wanted to get tighter, play a little closer to the net," Persson said. "A lot of goalies can say that without knowing what it means, but Viktor knew exactly what he needed to do. "When I saw his attention to details, I realized he'd go far. He's also a very modest person. He says he's never the best, but he just keeps working hard to see how good he can get. Maybe this is as good as he gets, maybe he can be even better." Persson carries with him a laptop with more than 30GB of videos and clips of his goalies with training programs and playbooks for them. He pulls up a video that shows Fasth working post to post, and Europe's "Rock the Night" comes out of the speakers: "I've gone through changes; I've gone through pain" Persson's laptop wallpaper is of Fasth hitting the ice in an Anaheim Ducks sweater. The coach can go back and watch Fasth's every save from the past two years, or see his workout regime and practices. Naturally, Persson is keeping an eye on his former protégé's play in the NHL. "He was fantastic in the game against [the Colorado Avalanche], but he disappeared in the game against the [St. Louis Blues]. I had to send him a message, although I'm just happy to see him do well," Persson said. "I'm surprised to see how well he handles the stick now. Maybe they've worked on that." Persson and Fasth stopped worrying about save percentages and instead focused on wins and goals-against average because, as Persson said, "They don't lie." "It's fun to see that his plan works even in the NHL," Persson said. "I think their goalie coach Pete Peeters had asked to play a little more aggressively in the NHL, and he had tried it in the camp, but it's also important for a goalie to stick to his style, because if he changes it too much, and it doesn't work, he may never get another chance. "But he's so tough mentally. And because he has such high demands for himself, he also has high demands for others." After his first season with AIK, which ended in a World Championship final with Sweden and a loss to Finland, Fasth caught the attention of some NHL teams. But he didn't want to sign because he was offered only a two-way contract and he had just become a father. "He called me about an hour before the deadline and said it was time to recharge the batteries, because he was coming back to AIK," Persson said. Last season, Fasth played more games, won more games and had a better save percentage than the season before. He had proved he was no flash in the pan, got a one-way contract from the Ducks, and left Stockholm. "He's 30 now, and he's fought his way to the NHL just because he decided to work as hard as he could, and see how far that would get him," Persson said. Originally published here . [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Sat, 16 Feb 2013 09:50:44 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no When goalie Viktor Fasth signed a two-year contract with Stockholm AIK in 2010, it was barely news in Sweden. The biggest morning paper, Dagens Nyheter, had a three-line blurb about it, and Aftonbladet, the biggest daily, pulled the general manager's comments off AIK's website. No wonder. AIK played in the second- and third-tier leagues for years and had just then, in 2010, earned promotion to the Swedish Elite League. Fasth, too, spent his career in the second- and third-tier leagues, and had just signed his first SEL contract at 27. "He was a good goalie when he came to Stockholm, but he had only played about 40 games in the previous two seasons due to his knee injury, so I suppose other teams didn't want to take a chance with him," AIK goalie coach Stefan Persson told NHL.com. "We had another goalie who had also struggled with injuries, but our GM, Anders Gozzi, just said that we can't be so unlucky that both goalies get injured at the same time." Now, a slight injury to Anaheim Ducks goalie Jonas Hiller has given Fasth his chance in the NHL -- and he has taken full advantage. The 30-year-old rookie has won all six of his starts and is one of the surprise stories so far this season. The path he has taken is a long one. The knee injury Fasth suffered while playing soccer to warm up before a practice kept him sidelined for nine months in 2008-09, but it had also gave him the opportunity to build himself up. Together with his club's mental coach, Martin Blom, Fasth worked on his psychological and physical strength. "The season was over [already in October], and everything was dark. So I called Martin and his first words were: 'Perfect! Now we can work on everything we've talked about,'" Fasth told Aftonbladet early in his first season with AIK. So when Fasth returned to action with the Vaxjo Lakers in the second-tier Allsvenskan in the fall of 2009, he had made thousands of saves in his mind and had worked on getting stronger. "There was no pressure, they had all the time in the world, so Martin had Viktor work with light weights and made sure the foundation was there," Persson said. Fasth had been an accomplished goalie in his teens -- he played for his district team and got into the hockey high school in Lulea, about 100 miles south of the Arctic Circle -- but he also had been rejected by the Lulea club and had to play Swedish Division 2 instead. (That sounds better than it is, Division 2 is the fourth-highest division in the country.) Fasth then moved back to Vanersborg, in the south of Sweden, 10 miles from Trollhattan, a city formerly famous for a Saab auto factory now referred to as "Trollywood" thanks to several hit movies coming out of its film production facility. He played Division 1 hockey there with the Tvastad Cobras, a merger between a Trollhattan club and a Vanersborg club. Though that team finished last and went belly up, the top team in Division 1, Tingsryd, wanted Fasth. And after three seasons there, Vaxjo, came calling. Fasth took another step up, to the second-tier league in Sweden. When he arrived in Stockholm in 2010, he knew what he wanted to do. "He said he wanted to get tighter, play a little closer to the net," Persson said. "A lot of goalies can say that without knowing what it means, but Viktor knew exactly what he needed to do. "When I saw his attention to details, I realized he'd go far. He's also a very modest person. He says he's never the best, but he just keeps working hard to see how good he can get. Maybe this is as good as he gets, maybe he can be even better." Persson carries with him a laptop with more than 30GB of videos and clips of his goalies with training programs and playbooks for them. He pulls up a video that shows Fasth working post to post, and Europe's "Rock the Night" comes out of the speakers: "I've gone through changes; I've gone through pain" Persson's laptop wallpaper is of Fasth hitting the ice in an Anaheim Ducks sweater. The coach can go back and watch Fasth's every save from the past two years, or see his workout regime and practices. Naturally, Persson is keeping an eye on his former protégé's play in the NHL. "He was fantastic in the game against [the Colorado Avalanche], but he disappeared in the game against the [St. Louis Blues]. I had to send him a message, although I'm just happy to see him do well," Persson said. "I'm surprised to see how well he handles the stick now. Maybe they've worked on that." Persson and Fasth stopped worrying about save percentages and instead focused on wins and goals-against average because, as Persson said, "They don't lie." "It's fun to see that his plan works even in the NHL," Persson said. "I think their goalie coach Pete Peeters had asked to play a little more aggressively in the NHL, and he had tried it in the camp, but it's also important for a goalie to stick to his style, because if he changes it too much, and it doesn't work, he may never get another chance. "But he's so tough mentally. And because he has such high demands for himself, he also has high demands for others." After his first season with AIK, which ended in a World Championship final with Sweden and a loss to Finland, Fasth caught the attention of some NHL teams. But he didn't want to sign because he was offered only a two-way contract and he had just become a father. "He called me about an hour before the deadline and said it was time to recharge the batteries, because he was coming back to AIK," Persson said. Last season, Fasth played more games, won more games and had a better save percentage than the season before. He had proved he was no flash in the pan, got a one-way contract from the Ducks, and left Stockholm. "He's 30 now, and he's fought his way to the NHL just because he decided to work as hard as he could, and see how far that would get him," Persson said. Originally published here . da15a5dafea74e0598f0c0293ff966e6 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/keklinen Seemed like a good day to dust off this profile on Jarmo Kekäläinen, the Columbus Blue Jackets new GM, who at the time of the story was the St. Louis Blues' assistant GM. Click below for the story. Here's a pdf version. Eagle Eye Jarmo Common sense counts when NHL executive Jarmo Kekäläinen builds championship teams. His secret is the skill to control his own passion for hockey. Jarmo Kekäläinen, a National Hockey League (NHL) executive, loves hockey. He gets a rush out of winning and building championship teams. But to get there, he has to put his emotions aside and believe his eyes and the data. For a scout, seeing is believing. “The St. Louis Blues select from Warroad High School forward T.J. Oshie.” That sentence by Kekäläinen, the St. Louis Blues Assistant General Manager and Head of Amateur Scouting, made a lot of hard work worth while for a lot of people. First, there’s naturally T.J. Oshie, the teenage hockey player from an American high school. Being drafted into the NHL is a dream for all young hockey players. Oshie was just one of the players that had their big day at the NHL entry draft in Ottawa last year. All the practices, games and missed social events suddenly cashed in: Oshie hit the big time. In a way, if only for a day. The real payoff will come the day Oshie finally makes it to the NHL. That may be in a year or two. It may also be never. Either way, Oshie is not the only one wishing for his breakthrough. Kekäläinen will also be rooting for him. If Oshie turns out to be the kind of player that Kekäläinen and his scouting organization are betting on, getting the rights to sign him to a lucrative contract is worth every cent they invested in finding him, and other hockey protégés. Kekäläinen is in charge of the Blues’ amateur scouting organization, which combs through the best young players in the world. Scouting keeps him on the road. His home, or home base, or both, however you want to put it, is just outside Detroit, Michigan. He says it’s a convenient location for him, as it’s close to an international airport, the big universities in the East, and the Ontario Hockey League north of the border. On the week of the Profile interview, Kekäläinen landed in Stockholm on Tuesday and saw games in the Stockholm region the same day. The next day, he was in Gavle, Sweden, some 160 kilometers away. On Thursday, he flew to Prague to see some games, then jetted to Gothenburg on Saturday, saw a couple of games there, and returned to Stockholm on Sunday night. “During the season, I can never say that I need to take a weekend off,” says Kekäläinen. “I’m lucky to get a Monday with no junior games scheduled. Even if there isn’t a game, there are still the player evaluation reports to read and write, statistics to read and, different ranking lists to go through,” he says. With a travel schedule like that, it doesn’t matter that Kekäläinen’s house isn’t even in the same state as his employer’s office. And yet, he is the assistant general manager of the club, and involved in every major hockey decision made by the club—such as player trades and signings of new players. But it’s the entry draft that is really his show. “We have our 13 scouts in strategic spots around the world. They evaluate the players in their own regions before I show up,” he says. “Once a player is rated better than a certain threshold grade, I want to see him play.” That threshold would be around the second round of the draft. “I want to see the best players a few times,” he says. “The local scout is my best source of information. If I see somebody play a great game, the scout can tell me additional information about the player. Maybe it was his best game ever against a mediocre opponent. Maybe the player had a fever. And knowing that, I can make a decision. I have to have complete trust in the guys on the ground,” he says. In the NHL, the draft is the great equalizer. In simple terms, the teams that finish last in the standings get to choose first. Seven rounds of 30 teams choosing players translate into over 200 draft choices. The way the NHL organizations generally work the draft is using “The List.” After all the player evaluations and interviews, Kekäläinen and his team draw up a list of players they would want to draft. “Of all the drafted players, only a fraction end up in the NHL and only about one player per team per draft manages to make a prominent NHL career. I expect our organization to find first- and second-rounders that play in the NHL,” he says. Working through The List in the draft is a game in itself. Practically no NHL teams drafts for currents needs—the players are too young to carry a heavy load in the league—and instead teams, according to Vancouver Canucks’ General Manager Dave Nonis, “draft assets.” Some “assets” are capitalized by the organization that drafted them, others are traded away for new “assets.” “Working The List is basically easy. You just list the players in the order of your preference and then strike out the names that have already been drafted before it’s your turn. And then you take the player who’s on top of your list,” says Kekäläinen. He has also been in charge of the draft for the Ottawa Senators when he was their director of player personnel. At the same time, you have to have a feel for the other clubs and what they might choose. Sometimes it’s worth the gamble to trade your draft pick for a lower one, get something in return, usually an extra pick, because you still get the player you want. “In Ottawa, we traded our late third-round pick for an early fourth-round pick and got an eighth-round pick in addition. We still got the goalkeeper, Ray Emery, we wanted all along,” says Kekäläinen. T.J. Oshie was number ten on Kekäläinen’s list last year. “Our Minnesota scout didn’t believe Oshie would be available when it was our turn. Well, he was,” he says. Jarmo Kekäläinen is a lone European hockey executive in the NHL, and is generally expected to become the first European general manager of an NHL club. He was the general manager of HIFK, Helsinki in 1998 when the club won the Finnish Elite League championship. He has been a hockey star most of his life. He climbed through the ranks in Kuopio and debuted on the local team as a 17-yearold. He was also a member of several Finnish junior national teams. He played hockey at Clarkson University in the United States and signed an NHL contract with the Boston Bruins in 1989 as a free agent. He was a member of Team Finland in the 1991 Canada Cup. He retired at the age of 29 due to injuries. There are only 30 teams in the NHL, which means that there are only 30 jobs Kekäläinen is ultimately interested in. And to make it to the top one day, he has to be both bold and consistent—and he has to do a good job wherever he is. In 2002, Kekäläinen left the Ottawa Senators after not being promoted to the GM position that became vacant. Today, the Senators are on top of the league, while Kekäläinen’s Blues are in the rebuilding phase. “It’s a little sad to see the Senators do so well and not be a part of it, but at the same time, it’s good to see the team that I have helped build to do well,” he says. “It’s the championships that count, and winning that makes all the work worthwhile,” he says, and then adds, “There’s nothing better than to see it all come together in a championship team. I felt that with HIFK in 1998.” To become the first European general manager in the NHL is something that drives Kekäläinen. It’s not the only thing, and he doesn’t think about it every day, but it’s something he wants. Basically, if he becomes the first European GM, that day can’t be far away. “Well, a general manager would probably be able to spend more time at home,” he says, laughing. “Seriously, at that point, I would get the power to really build a team. Yes, it would be a high-pressure job, but I always try to turn the pressure into something more positive.” “I don’t think my being European is an obstacle. I mean, I know my hockey, I have an American university degree and I speak English just as well as the North American GMs. I sincerely believe that if I keep on doing a good job, my day will come,” he says. “Selection of a GM should be about ability, not nationality.” Hockey skills are the most visible attribute in a player, but Kekäläinen is even more interested in the intangibles. “Playing hockey is much more than having fast legs and hands. It’s about instincts, work ethic, winning mentality, heart, and desire,” he says. Just as the game itself is all about being in the right place at the right time, the same applies for building a career outside of it. Both for Kekäläinen and the players he scouts. “Find the right players in the right roles. That’s it. If the player evaluations and expectations are correct, the team works. Player evaluation is important because that’s the information the decision making is based on. If the expectations are askew, the result is a disaster. Often a player that looks good gets pigeonholed— and keeps on getting new opportunities but in the wrong role,” he says. One example is Eero Somervuori, former prodigy who was touted as the new Teemu Selänne when he was 16-years-old and playing for the Jokerit team in Helsinki. “The club’s marketing created expectations that were simply off. Eero was, and is, a good player, but he wasn’t like Teemu. Eero had to find a new team with more accurate expectations and a role that fit him to get his career on track,” says Kekäläinen. And that, Kekäläinen says, applies to all teams anywhere in the world. Because to create a real team feeling, not only do the players need to know what is expected of them, they also need to know what the other players’ roles and expectations are, and to respect them. “First, the biggest mistake a manager can do is to only draft or like players that remind him of his own style. You have to be emotionally detached from your own game. But at the same time, my easiest, and one of the best scoutings was somebody I played with,” he says. “Tappara, Tampere needed a player, and their GM Kalevi Numminen showed me a list of players they were considering. I looked through it and pointed at a name. I told them that he was a great face-off man, he had great hockey sense, and even though his skating looked a little odd, he could deliver the puck to the right place at the right time. I knew it because he delivered the puck to me game after game in college,” says Kekäläinen. “I want to be surrounded by people who can make a case for their evaluation. Somebody sitting on a fence is of no use to me, or to the organization,” he says. T.J. Oshie is no longer a high school student. He’s enrolled in the University of North Dakota and has continued to develop as a hockey player. When North Dakota won the Western Collegiate Hockey Association championship in March, Oshie was elected to the tournament all-star team. * * * Kekäläinen on... ... what makes a coach great: Credibility and charisma, respect from players, ability to read and react. ... how to survive on the road: Work out regularly and get enough sleep. ... balancing work and home life: Relax in the summer time after the draft. Published in Profile , May 2006 [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Wed, 13 Feb 2013 10:22:26 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Seemed like a good day to dust off this profile on Jarmo Kekäläinen, the Columbus Blue Jackets new GM, who at the time of the story was the St. Louis Blues' assistant GM. Click below for the story. Here's a pdf version. Eagle Eye Jarmo Common sense counts when NHL executive Jarmo Kekäläinen builds championship teams. His secret is the skill to control his own passion for hockey. Jarmo Kekäläinen, a National Hockey League (NHL) executive, loves hockey. He gets a rush out of winning and building championship teams. But to get there, he has to put his emotions aside and believe his eyes and the data. For a scout, seeing is believing. “The St. Louis Blues select from Warroad High School forward T.J. Oshie.” That sentence by Kekäläinen, the St. Louis Blues Assistant General Manager and Head of Amateur Scouting, made a lot of hard work worth while for a lot of people. First, there’s naturally T.J. Oshie, the teenage hockey player from an American high school. Being drafted into the NHL is a dream for all young hockey players. Oshie was just one of the players that had their big day at the NHL entry draft in Ottawa last year. All the practices, games and missed social events suddenly cashed in: Oshie hit the big time. In a way, if only for a day. The real payoff will come the day Oshie finally makes it to the NHL. That may be in a year or two. It may also be never. Either way, Oshie is not the only one wishing for his breakthrough. Kekäläinen will also be rooting for him. If Oshie turns out to be the kind of player that Kekäläinen and his scouting organization are betting on, getting the rights to sign him to a lucrative contract is worth every cent they invested in finding him, and other hockey protégés. Kekäläinen is in charge of the Blues’ amateur scouting organization, which combs through the best young players in the world. Scouting keeps him on the road. His home, or home base, or both, however you want to put it, is just outside Detroit, Michigan. He says it’s a convenient location for him, as it’s close to an international airport, the big universities in the East, and the Ontario Hockey League north of the border. On the week of the Profile interview, Kekäläinen landed in Stockholm on Tuesday and saw games in the Stockholm region the same day. The next day, he was in Gavle, Sweden, some 160 kilometers away. On Thursday, he flew to Prague to see some games, then jetted to Gothenburg on Saturday, saw a couple of games there, and returned to Stockholm on Sunday night. “During the season, I can never say that I need to take a weekend off,” says Kekäläinen. “I’m lucky to get a Monday with no junior games scheduled. Even if there isn’t a game, there are still the player evaluation reports to read and write, statistics to read and, different ranking lists to go through,” he says. With a travel schedule like that, it doesn’t matter that Kekäläinen’s house isn’t even in the same state as his employer’s office. And yet, he is the assistant general manager of the club, and involved in every major hockey decision made by the club—such as player trades and signings of new players. But it’s the entry draft that is really his show. “We have our 13 scouts in strategic spots around the world. They evaluate the players in their own regions before I show up,” he says. “Once a player is rated better than a certain threshold grade, I want to see him play.” That threshold would be around the second round of the draft. “I want to see the best players a few times,” he says. “The local scout is my best source of information. If I see somebody play a great game, the scout can tell me additional information about the player. Maybe it was his best game ever against a mediocre opponent. Maybe the player had a fever. And knowing that, I can make a decision. I have to have complete trust in the guys on the ground,” he says. In the NHL, the draft is the great equalizer. In simple terms, the teams that finish last in the standings get to choose first. Seven rounds of 30 teams choosing players translate into over 200 draft choices. The way the NHL organizations generally work the draft is using “The List.” After all the player evaluations and interviews, Kekäläinen and his team draw up a list of players they would want to draft. “Of all the drafted players, only a fraction end up in the NHL and only about one player per team per draft manages to make a prominent NHL career. I expect our organization to find first- and second-rounders that play in the NHL,” he says. Working through The List in the draft is a game in itself. Practically no NHL teams drafts for currents needs—the players are too young to carry a heavy load in the league—and instead teams, according to Vancouver Canucks’ General Manager Dave Nonis, “draft assets.” Some “assets” are capitalized by the organization that drafted them, others are traded away for new “assets.” “Working The List is basically easy. You just list the players in the order of your preference and then strike out the names that have already been drafted before it’s your turn. And then you take the player who’s on top of your list,” says Kekäläinen. He has also been in charge of the draft for the Ottawa Senators when he was their director of player personnel. At the same time, you have to have a feel for the other clubs and what they might choose. Sometimes it’s worth the gamble to trade your draft pick for a lower one, get something in return, usually an extra pick, because you still get the player you want. “In Ottawa, we traded our late third-round pick for an early fourth-round pick and got an eighth-round pick in addition. We still got the goalkeeper, Ray Emery, we wanted all along,” says Kekäläinen. T.J. Oshie was number ten on Kekäläinen’s list last year. “Our Minnesota scout didn’t believe Oshie would be available when it was our turn. Well, he was,” he says. Jarmo Kekäläinen is a lone European hockey executive in the NHL, and is generally expected to become the first European general manager of an NHL club. He was the general manager of HIFK, Helsinki in 1998 when the club won the Finnish Elite League championship. He has been a hockey star most of his life. He climbed through the ranks in Kuopio and debuted on the local team as a 17-yearold. He was also a member of several Finnish junior national teams. He played hockey at Clarkson University in the United States and signed an NHL contract with the Boston Bruins in 1989 as a free agent. He was a member of Team Finland in the 1991 Canada Cup. He retired at the age of 29 due to injuries. There are only 30 teams in the NHL, which means that there are only 30 jobs Kekäläinen is ultimately interested in. And to make it to the top one day, he has to be both bold and consistent—and he has to do a good job wherever he is. In 2002, Kekäläinen left the Ottawa Senators after not being promoted to the GM position that became vacant. Today, the Senators are on top of the league, while Kekäläinen’s Blues are in the rebuilding phase. “It’s a little sad to see the Senators do so well and not be a part of it, but at the same time, it’s good to see the team that I have helped build to do well,” he says. “It’s the championships that count, and winning that makes all the work worthwhile,” he says, and then adds, “There’s nothing better than to see it all come together in a championship team. I felt that with HIFK in 1998.” To become the first European general manager in the NHL is something that drives Kekäläinen. It’s not the only thing, and he doesn’t think about it every day, but it’s something he wants. Basically, if he becomes the first European GM, that day can’t be far away. “Well, a general manager would probably be able to spend more time at home,” he says, laughing. “Seriously, at that point, I would get the power to really build a team. Yes, it would be a high-pressure job, but I always try to turn the pressure into something more positive.” “I don’t think my being European is an obstacle. I mean, I know my hockey, I have an American university degree and I speak English just as well as the North American GMs. I sincerely believe that if I keep on doing a good job, my day will come,” he says. “Selection of a GM should be about ability, not nationality.” Hockey skills are the most visible attribute in a player, but Kekäläinen is even more interested in the intangibles. “Playing hockey is much more than having fast legs and hands. It’s about instincts, work ethic, winning mentality, heart, and desire,” he says. Just as the game itself is all about being in the right place at the right time, the same applies for building a career outside of it. Both for Kekäläinen and the players he scouts. “Find the right players in the right roles. That’s it. If the player evaluations and expectations are correct, the team works. Player evaluation is important because that’s the information the decision making is based on. If the expectations are askew, the result is a disaster. Often a player that looks good gets pigeonholed— and keeps on getting new opportunities but in the wrong role,” he says. One example is Eero Somervuori, former prodigy who was touted as the new Teemu Selänne when he was 16-years-old and playing for the Jokerit team in Helsinki. “The club’s marketing created expectations that were simply off. Eero was, and is, a good player, but he wasn’t like Teemu. Eero had to find a new team with more accurate expectations and a role that fit him to get his career on track,” says Kekäläinen. And that, Kekäläinen says, applies to all teams anywhere in the world. Because to create a real team feeling, not only do the players need to know what is expected of them, they also need to know what the other players’ roles and expectations are, and to respect them. “First, the biggest mistake a manager can do is to only draft or like players that remind him of his own style. You have to be emotionally detached from your own game. But at the same time, my easiest, and one of the best scoutings was somebody I played with,” he says. “Tappara, Tampere needed a player, and their GM Kalevi Numminen showed me a list of players they were considering. I looked through it and pointed at a name. I told them that he was a great face-off man, he had great hockey sense, and even though his skating looked a little odd, he could deliver the puck to the right place at the right time. I knew it because he delivered the puck to me game after game in college,” says Kekäläinen. “I want to be surrounded by people who can make a case for their evaluation. Somebody sitting on a fence is of no use to me, or to the organization,” he says. T.J. Oshie is no longer a high school student. He’s enrolled in the University of North Dakota and has continued to develop as a hockey player. When North Dakota won the Western Collegiate Hockey Association championship in March, Oshie was elected to the tournament all-star team. * * * Kekäläinen on... ... what makes a coach great: Credibility and charisma, respect from players, ability to read and react. ... how to survive on the road: Work out regularly and get enough sleep. ... balancing work and home life: Relax in the summer time after the draft. Published in Profile , May 2006 4793f91c430b43adaedf8627a1be813f http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-slovak-code Greetings from Poprad, Slovakia. Ďakujem . That’s all I can say in Slovak, and while I know it’s not much, according to my mother it’s the most important word in the world. It means “thank you”. I’m here to cover the women’s Olympic qualification hockey tournament, and - as far as I can tell - I am the only reporter who’s not either from Slovakia or Japan. It’s got its advantages and disadvantages. The upside is that sometimes I get a little preferential treatment. I get to handpick the players I want to talk to, and they bring them to me, before they meet the rest of the media. Then again, when it’s a press conference setting, and they have people interpreting the questions from Slovak to Japanese and from Japanese to Slovak, and then the answers, they don’t want that one guy asking anything in English. Instead, they give me a private recap of some of the answers, and I’m sure it’s not as detailed as the actuals answers seem to be, but who am I to disagree with the coach if he thinks “it was a good game”. So last night, I listening to the Japanese and the Slovak questions and answers for about fifteen minutes, but I didn’t hear ďakujem , or any of the Japanese words I learned from the TV mini series “Shogun” 30 years ago - like “wakarimasu” - so I mostly just stood there and smiled. T en years ago, I was at the hockey world championships in Ostrava in the Czech Republic with a group of friends. While there, we realized that the language barrier between us and the locals was a big one. One of my friends had worked in Poland for years, and he drew upon that experience to come up with a solution. “We should just speak Finnish. I mean, we don’t speak Czech, they don’t speak English, it doesn’t really matter what the common language we don’t understand is,” he said. “That’s what I always did in Poland. The important thing is to just smile, look happy and friendly, and use numbers,” he added. And that’s what we did. We ordered food in Finnish, and got drinks in Finnish, and bought train tickets in Finnish, using a lot of numbers, all the while smiling. And people smiled back. Smiling’s important, especially when you don’t know the language. While there’s the language barrier, and we seem lost, we still have the social code. P oprad’s covered in snow. It has been snowing three of the four days I’ve been here which means that the sidewalks are gone. In their place is simply a tiny path that goes through the snow. On my first day here, I went for a walk to find the city center. Finding downtown is important to me because I don’t think I’ve truly visited a place if I haven’t been downtown. (Wife and I drove around Oklahoma quite a while to find it). On my way there, I met a young lady walking to the opposite direction. The path was obviously too narrow for both of us, but a few meters before we would have passed each other, she saw a hole in the snow by the side of the path, and then very carefully placed her foot in the hole, so I could pass. I nodded to her, smiled and kept on walking. On my way back to the hotel, just outside the arena, I saw a man carrying two plastic bags, one green, one red, walking towards me. We, too, were on a collision course. As we got closer, I saw a footstep in the snow, by the side of the path, so I very carefully placed my shoe in the hole, and let the man pass. Ďakujem , I muttered, smiling. He slowed down a little and looked at me. Then he nodded approvingly, smiled back, and kept on walking. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Sat, 09 Feb 2013 11:16:37 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Greetings from Poprad, Slovakia. Ďakujem . That’s all I can say in Slovak, and while I know it’s not much, according to my mother it’s the most important word in the world. It means “thank you”. I’m here to cover the women’s Olympic qualification hockey tournament, and - as far as I can tell - I am the only reporter who’s not either from Slovakia or Japan. It’s got its advantages and disadvantages. The upside is that sometimes I get a little preferential treatment. I get to handpick the players I want to talk to, and they bring them to me, before they meet the rest of the media. Then again, when it’s a press conference setting, and they have people interpreting the questions from Slovak to Japanese and from Japanese to Slovak, and then the answers, they don’t want that one guy asking anything in English. Instead, they give me a private recap of some of the answers, and I’m sure it’s not as detailed as the actuals answers seem to be, but who am I to disagree with the coach if he thinks “it was a good game”. So last night, I listening to the Japanese and the Slovak questions and answers for about fifteen minutes, but I didn’t hear ďakujem , or any of the Japanese words I learned from the TV mini series “Shogun” 30 years ago - like “wakarimasu” - so I mostly just stood there and smiled. T en years ago, I was at the hockey world championships in Ostrava in the Czech Republic with a group of friends. While there, we realized that the language barrier between us and the locals was a big one. One of my friends had worked in Poland for years, and he drew upon that experience to come up with a solution. “We should just speak Finnish. I mean, we don’t speak Czech, they don’t speak English, it doesn’t really matter what the common language we don’t understand is,” he said. “That’s what I always did in Poland. The important thing is to just smile, look happy and friendly, and use numbers,” he added. And that’s what we did. We ordered food in Finnish, and got drinks in Finnish, and bought train tickets in Finnish, using a lot of numbers, all the while smiling. And people smiled back. Smiling’s important, especially when you don’t know the language. While there’s the language barrier, and we seem lost, we still have the social code. P oprad’s covered in snow. It has been snowing three of the four days I’ve been here which means that the sidewalks are gone. In their place is simply a tiny path that goes through the snow. On my first day here, I went for a walk to find the city center. Finding downtown is important to me because I don’t think I’ve truly visited a place if I haven’t been downtown. (Wife and I drove around Oklahoma quite a while to find it). On my way there, I met a young lady walking to the opposite direction. The path was obviously too narrow for both of us, but a few meters before we would have passed each other, she saw a hole in the snow by the side of the path, and then very carefully placed her foot in the hole, so I could pass. I nodded to her, smiled and kept on walking. On my way back to the hotel, just outside the arena, I saw a man carrying two plastic bags, one green, one red, walking towards me. We, too, were on a collision course. As we got closer, I saw a footstep in the snow, by the side of the path, so I very carefully placed my shoe in the hole, and let the man pass. Ďakujem , I muttered, smiling. He slowed down a little and looked at me. Then he nodded approvingly, smiled back, and kept on walking. f3113861b6e24bc293f16304f1e0d8ee http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-year-of-the-flying-glove Finland in November is a dark place as it is, but in 1991, it was darker than ever. The housing bubble had burst, several banks went bankrupt, and the unemployment rate shot from 3.5 percent in 1990 to 12 percent by the end of 1992. And there he was, a 22-year-old, baby-faced part-time kindergarten teacher who had scored an incredible 36 goals in 35 games in the Finnish second-tier league, to follow up on his 43 goals in 33 games in major junior the year before. His club, Jokerit, had been on the brink of bankruptcy for years and was demoted to the second-tier league. In his four years with the team, Jokerit not only got promoted back to the elite league, they won the Finnish championship in 1992. He clinched the championship when he took a long pass at the red line, accelerated, left the defenseman behind, and beat the goalie with a backhand. Then he circled back up toward center ice, threw his glove in the air, and shot it down using his stick as a rifle. His name was Teemu Selanne. Back in 1977, when Team Finland captain Veli-Pekka Ketola returned to Finland from Winnipeg, he looked back at his time in the WHA in an early memoir. He told a story about tens of thousands of people lining up on the streets of Winnipeg to see the Avco Cup parade. "I can't even imagine that any Finnish athlete would ride down the [Helsinki main street] Mannerheimintie in a convertible. Finns are just different; we don't cheer people that way. Not even [four-time Olympic winner] Lasse Viren," he said. "If my team drove down the streets of Pori after a championship, there'd be just five people there -- and they'd be throwing eggs," he added. And yet, when Jokerit won the Finnish championship, they did have a parade, and thousands of people did gather at the Helsinki Senate Square to celebrate with their heroes. Suddenly, everything was different. Everything. Selanne left Finland as the league's leading goal scorer, with 39 in 44 games. In fact, in his 97 games in the last three seasons in the SM-liiga, Selanne had scored 76 goals. After a season in the second-tier league, another gone awry due to a season-ending leg injury, and two seasons in the top Finnish league, Selanne, 22, was ready for the NHL. And he took Finland with him. As he left Finland, Jokerit announced that his number had been taken out of rotation. While it hadn't been officially retired, it was reserved for Teemu's use only. The club was obviously holding on to some hope of getting their star player back at one point. "We can never replace Teemu as a person, but we'll have to try to replace him as a player, and we need to get at least two new players," said Jokerit owner Harry Harkimo. Teemu was on a first-name basis with Finland. There's never any need to use his last name, everybody knows who Teemu is. Selanne's image in Finland was a mix of superhero and the kid next door. By day, he was a part-time kindergarten teacher, and by night, a goal scoring machine. He was a poster boy for milk -- literally -- and he had already played for Finland in the 1991 World Championship on home soil, in the 1991 Canada Cup, and the 1992 Olympics. In hindsight, it's almost impossible to think that fans in Finland hardly ever saw Selanne play once he left the country. There were no NHL cable packages so the first order of business for hockey fans in Finland was to check page 235 on the Finnish Broadcasting Company's teletext service, a habit that is still hard for many to break. The first Finnish morning TV show had started just three years earlier, and once Teemu got going, highlights of his goals were shown on the show. And there were goals. He started the season with 11 goals in 12 games, and had 40 by the end of January. Mike Bossy's record for goals in a season by a rookie stood at 53, and Selanne had 13 to go, with 32 games remaining. That season, one Finnish network even aired an NHL game live from Los Angeles. Of course, the Kings played the Jets that night. Sure, there was someone named Wayne Gretzky on the Kings, and yes, they would go all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, but in Finland, it was about someone else. It was Jari Kurri vs. Teemu Selanne. It was about that torch. Even if the Jets didn't win much, bowing out in the first round or not making the playoffs, it didn't matter as long as there was Teemu. With all the goals, and Bossy's record in Teemu's crosshairs, the Selanne watch became intense in Finland. (Valio, a Finnish dairy company, aired their new milk commercials with Selanne ordering a glass of milk in a Canadian sports bar). The Jets took the status of Finland's favorite NHL team away from the Oilers as the entire nation followed Selanne's quest to beat the record. Fittingly, Selanne's career-first hat trick had also come in an October game against the Oilers. And just as famous as the Selanne celebration after his 54th goal of the season, the shooting-down-of-the-glove-in-the-air, almost as famous were the two men in Team Finland sweaters holding signs with "5" and first "3" and then "4" on them, as Selanne scored a hat trick in the game against the Quebec Nordiques. In the summer of 1993, Selanne was in the papers every day. He raced in a rally under an alias (Teukka Salama, "Teddy Flash"), he toured Finland on 1000 cc motorbikes, he did charity work, played in a tennis tournament, and ran a hockey school or two. Hockey's popularity skyrocketed in Finland in the early 1990s with record attendance in the Finnish league, and new magazines popping up in the market. On TV, an NHL magazine program brought the highlights to Finns. All that was partly thanks to the rags-to-riches story that was Helsinki Jokerit -- with Teemu as their big building block -- and partly due to Selanne's phenomenal first seasons in the NHL. And in the fall of 1994, when Selanne returned to Helsinki with the Jets, people lined up on the streets again. Not only to see Teemu, but also to see the Calder Trophy he won after the 1992-93 season, and the Stanley Cup, which made its first visit to Finland. Everything seems funny 20 years later. We can now go on YouTube and watch those milk commercials. Selanne is working out at the gym and running in the Finnish forest before leaning back on the porch of his sauna, having a glass of milk. It seems so innocent, and Teemu's so young. The slogan is: "Milk. It doesn't go to your head. It goes to your legs". Maybe that really is Teemu's secret. --- (If you want to see this story in its natural habitat, please click here ). [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Tue, 05 Feb 2013 22:49:24 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Finland in November is a dark place as it is, but in 1991, it was darker than ever. The housing bubble had burst, several banks went bankrupt, and the unemployment rate shot from 3.5 percent in 1990 to 12 percent by the end of 1992. And there he was, a 22-year-old, baby-faced part-time kindergarten teacher who had scored an incredible 36 goals in 35 games in the Finnish second-tier league, to follow up on his 43 goals in 33 games in major junior the year before. His club, Jokerit, had been on the brink of bankruptcy for years and was demoted to the second-tier league. In his four years with the team, Jokerit not only got promoted back to the elite league, they won the Finnish championship in 1992. He clinched the championship when he took a long pass at the red line, accelerated, left the defenseman behind, and beat the goalie with a backhand. Then he circled back up toward center ice, threw his glove in the air, and shot it down using his stick as a rifle. His name was Teemu Selanne. Back in 1977, when Team Finland captain Veli-Pekka Ketola returned to Finland from Winnipeg, he looked back at his time in the WHA in an early memoir. He told a story about tens of thousands of people lining up on the streets of Winnipeg to see the Avco Cup parade. "I can't even imagine that any Finnish athlete would ride down the [Helsinki main street] Mannerheimintie in a convertible. Finns are just different; we don't cheer people that way. Not even [four-time Olympic winner] Lasse Viren," he said. "If my team drove down the streets of Pori after a championship, there'd be just five people there -- and they'd be throwing eggs," he added. And yet, when Jokerit won the Finnish championship, they did have a parade, and thousands of people did gather at the Helsinki Senate Square to celebrate with their heroes. Suddenly, everything was different. Everything. Selanne left Finland as the league's leading goal scorer, with 39 in 44 games. In fact, in his 97 games in the last three seasons in the SM-liiga, Selanne had scored 76 goals. After a season in the second-tier league, another gone awry due to a season-ending leg injury, and two seasons in the top Finnish league, Selanne, 22, was ready for the NHL. And he took Finland with him. As he left Finland, Jokerit announced that his number had been taken out of rotation. While it hadn't been officially retired, it was reserved for Teemu's use only. The club was obviously holding on to some hope of getting their star player back at one point. "We can never replace Teemu as a person, but we'll have to try to replace him as a player, and we need to get at least two new players," said Jokerit owner Harry Harkimo. Teemu was on a first-name basis with Finland. There's never any need to use his last name, everybody knows who Teemu is. Selanne's image in Finland was a mix of superhero and the kid next door. By day, he was a part-time kindergarten teacher, and by night, a goal scoring machine. He was a poster boy for milk -- literally -- and he had already played for Finland in the 1991 World Championship on home soil, in the 1991 Canada Cup, and the 1992 Olympics. In hindsight, it's almost impossible to think that fans in Finland hardly ever saw Selanne play once he left the country. There were no NHL cable packages so the first order of business for hockey fans in Finland was to check page 235 on the Finnish Broadcasting Company's teletext service, a habit that is still hard for many to break. The first Finnish morning TV show had started just three years earlier, and once Teemu got going, highlights of his goals were shown on the show. And there were goals. He started the season with 11 goals in 12 games, and had 40 by the end of January. Mike Bossy's record for goals in a season by a rookie stood at 53, and Selanne had 13 to go, with 32 games remaining. That season, one Finnish network even aired an NHL game live from Los Angeles. Of course, the Kings played the Jets that night. Sure, there was someone named Wayne Gretzky on the Kings, and yes, they would go all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, but in Finland, it was about someone else. It was Jari Kurri vs. Teemu Selanne. It was about that torch. Even if the Jets didn't win much, bowing out in the first round or not making the playoffs, it didn't matter as long as there was Teemu. With all the goals, and Bossy's record in Teemu's crosshairs, the Selanne watch became intense in Finland. (Valio, a Finnish dairy company, aired their new milk commercials with Selanne ordering a glass of milk in a Canadian sports bar). The Jets took the status of Finland's favorite NHL team away from the Oilers as the entire nation followed Selanne's quest to beat the record. Fittingly, Selanne's career-first hat trick had also come in an October game against the Oilers. And just as famous as the Selanne celebration after his 54th goal of the season, the shooting-down-of-the-glove-in-the-air, almost as famous were the two men in Team Finland sweaters holding signs with "5" and first "3" and then "4" on them, as Selanne scored a hat trick in the game against the Quebec Nordiques. In the summer of 1993, Selanne was in the papers every day. He raced in a rally under an alias (Teukka Salama, "Teddy Flash"), he toured Finland on 1000 cc motorbikes, he did charity work, played in a tennis tournament, and ran a hockey school or two. Hockey's popularity skyrocketed in Finland in the early 1990s with record attendance in the Finnish league, and new magazines popping up in the market. On TV, an NHL magazine program brought the highlights to Finns. All that was partly thanks to the rags-to-riches story that was Helsinki Jokerit -- with Teemu as their big building block -- and partly due to Selanne's phenomenal first seasons in the NHL. And in the fall of 1994, when Selanne returned to Helsinki with the Jets, people lined up on the streets again. Not only to see Teemu, but also to see the Calder Trophy he won after the 1992-93 season, and the Stanley Cup, which made its first visit to Finland. Everything seems funny 20 years later. We can now go on YouTube and watch those milk commercials. Selanne is working out at the gym and running in the Finnish forest before leaning back on the porch of his sauna, having a glass of milk. It seems so innocent, and Teemu's so young. The slogan is: "Milk. It doesn't go to your head. It goes to your legs". Maybe that really is Teemu's secret. --- (If you want to see this story in its natural habitat, please click here ). 265f17eef1ed4b2388af85c47201a989 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/lorem-ristom Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit! Duis elementum neque in sem scelerisque quis dapibus diam adipiscing - very adipiscing. Pellentesque mollis arcu ac enim tincidunt volutpat. Sed facilisis dapibus convallis. Romanes eunt domus. Mauris ac lacus quam. Mauris velit velit, Mauri’s veli tempor vel pulvinar et, pharetra in massa. Duis id sem dui. Vivamus facilisis velit vel libero facilisis rutrum. Vestibulum eu nulla in metus vestibulum dapibus. We missed the bus , they missed the bus. Donec diam velit, molestie nec commodo vel, mattis sed dolor. Nulla in justo at lorem venenatis adipiscing sollicitudin non ligula. Maecenas velit ipsum , bibendum non porta in, ultrices nec eros. Sed et felis nunc. Sed neque tortor, consectetur tincidunt molestie non, accumsan ultricies dolor. Suspendisse tempus neque id mauris semper sed mattis urna euismod. Nulla fringilla - and I mean nulla fringilla - leo id varius luctus, metus justo dictum diam, quis ultrices risus magna ac nisi. Ut vitae nulla massa. In other words, a whole lotta nothing. Anyway, pellentesque aliquam placerat mi in tempus. Pellentesque id enim eget mauris - and Mauri’s veli - convallis molestie. Nam lacus metus, lacinia at consectetur eget, iaculis vel tellus. Vestibulum leo nisl, elementum eu euismod ac, and I shall only say this one: consequat in turpis. Duis sagittis interdum varius. Vestibulum vel adipiscing dolor. Nam sed est tortor. VESTIBULUM! Oh well, vivamus sagittis, ante et sodales placerat , nisl augue posuere magna, nec viverra risus quam varius leo. Maecenas nec cursus tellus. Suspendisse tempor… [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Mon, 04 Feb 2013 20:02:13 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit! Duis elementum neque in sem scelerisque quis dapibus diam adipiscing - very adipiscing. Pellentesque mollis arcu ac enim tincidunt volutpat. Sed facilisis dapibus convallis. Romanes eunt domus. Mauris ac lacus quam. Mauris velit velit, Mauri’s veli tempor vel pulvinar et, pharetra in massa. Duis id sem dui. Vivamus facilisis velit vel libero facilisis rutrum. Vestibulum eu nulla in metus vestibulum dapibus. We missed the bus , they missed the bus. Donec diam velit, molestie nec commodo vel, mattis sed dolor. Nulla in justo at lorem venenatis adipiscing sollicitudin non ligula. Maecenas velit ipsum , bibendum non porta in, ultrices nec eros. Sed et felis nunc. Sed neque tortor, consectetur tincidunt molestie non, accumsan ultricies dolor. Suspendisse tempus neque id mauris semper sed mattis urna euismod. Nulla fringilla - and I mean nulla fringilla - leo id varius luctus, metus justo dictum diam, quis ultrices risus magna ac nisi. Ut vitae nulla massa. In other words, a whole lotta nothing. Anyway, pellentesque aliquam placerat mi in tempus. Pellentesque id enim eget mauris - and Mauri’s veli - convallis molestie. Nam lacus metus, lacinia at consectetur eget, iaculis vel tellus. Vestibulum leo nisl, elementum eu euismod ac, and I shall only say this one: consequat in turpis. Duis sagittis interdum varius. Vestibulum vel adipiscing dolor. Nam sed est tortor. VESTIBULUM! Oh well, vivamus sagittis, ante et sodales placerat , nisl augue posuere magna, nec viverra risus quam varius leo. Maecenas nec cursus tellus. Suspendisse tempor… bd1918b0cbdb4682900eddae043c9cc5 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/you-learn-something-every-day The other day, a friend of mine tweeted something about his childhood in Oshawa, Ontario. While I knew that he was Canadian, and may have been aware of the fact that he was from "Toronto", I never knew he was from Oshawa. Not that it mattered to me, but I replied to him, and said that you learn something new every day. I often tell Son and Daughter that you learn something every day. Just the other day Son was a one-boy audience to a medium-long speech that Herb Brooks would have been jealous of, on the importance of practice, and learning by doing. Yesterday, when Daughter and I hung out at the rink, she worked on her math skills by tying to figure out how much time was left on the clock. “Well, a bandy game lasts 90 minutes, and now they’ve played 86 .. so…,” I’d say, and she would be quiet for a while, and then deliver her answer with a big smile. Sometimes, though, we learn something when things go wrong. Our biology teacher was nice woman, probably in her thirties, although in hindsight I realize that I was a very bad judge of age when I was a teenager. She was young, relative to our history teacher, at least, and she was nice, and that was enough for me. Our class was awful, though. We were 13 or 14, and some people’s hormones had got the best of them, and while they couldn’t contain their hormones, they themselves couldn’t be contained in the classroom. The teacher tried to use some of that teacher judo on us - teach us stuff without it feeling so much like school - so she sometimes took us for short field trips into the nearby forest, and its jogging path where we’d collect soil samples, or maybe simply make observations. One spring day, one of those gorgeous days in May when there’s no snow anymore and when the sun is shining it’s really warm, but since it’s not summer yet, you’re often dressed wrong, she took us to the river. The river was a nice walk from the school, much farther than the forest which was basically just outside the school’s front door. The river was about a kilometer and a half from the school, and the likelyhood somebody not making it to the river with the group - but instead maybe ending up at the gas station cafeteria - was high, but the teacher probably liked her odds. She could probably do without those who didn’t make it. Anyway, the purpose of our field trip was to take water samples from the river, and the analyze them to see how polluted the river was. The teacher had picked a spot, and we all walked up the hill and then down the hill to the river. As far as I remembered, the water in the river had been brown, but since my friends - but not me - also used to swim in it, and since there had been talk about restocking the river with salmon I had never thought it might be polluted. The spot she had picked was in an open area, with no forest, but she hadn’t chosen that place because she wanted to stay in the sun but because that’s where the sewage pipe was. Because that’s where she wanted to get her sample. With the class there she told us first what she was about to do, and then asked everybody to step back. She held a sample bottle in her hand, and then got to the edge of water, and we followed her every step. She dropped the bottle into the river, and when she pulled it back up, she was obviously happy with her catch. We were all around her and for one reason or another, somebody in the crowd pushed the person in front of him. Maybe he didn’t hear her, and just wanted to get a little closer to hear better. Anyway, the person he pushed then shoved the person in front of him who, in turn, took a step forward and pushed the person in front of him. Who then got shoved into the teacher, who … fell into the water. And that’s how I learned the concept of “chain reaction”. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Mon, 04 Feb 2013 13:10:30 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no The other day, a friend of mine tweeted something about his childhood in Oshawa, Ontario. While I knew that he was Canadian, and may have been aware of the fact that he was from "Toronto", I never knew he was from Oshawa. Not that it mattered to me, but I replied to him, and said that you learn something new every day. I often tell Son and Daughter that you learn something every day. Just the other day Son was a one-boy audience to a medium-long speech that Herb Brooks would have been jealous of, on the importance of practice, and learning by doing. Yesterday, when Daughter and I hung out at the rink, she worked on her math skills by tying to figure out how much time was left on the clock. “Well, a bandy game lasts 90 minutes, and now they’ve played 86 .. so…,” I’d say, and she would be quiet for a while, and then deliver her answer with a big smile. Sometimes, though, we learn something when things go wrong. Our biology teacher was nice woman, probably in her thirties, although in hindsight I realize that I was a very bad judge of age when I was a teenager. She was young, relative to our history teacher, at least, and she was nice, and that was enough for me. Our class was awful, though. We were 13 or 14, and some people’s hormones had got the best of them, and while they couldn’t contain their hormones, they themselves couldn’t be contained in the classroom. The teacher tried to use some of that teacher judo on us - teach us stuff without it feeling so much like school - so she sometimes took us for short field trips into the nearby forest, and its jogging path where we’d collect soil samples, or maybe simply make observations. One spring day, one of those gorgeous days in May when there’s no snow anymore and when the sun is shining it’s really warm, but since it’s not summer yet, you’re often dressed wrong, she took us to the river. The river was a nice walk from the school, much farther than the forest which was basically just outside the school’s front door. The river was about a kilometer and a half from the school, and the likelyhood somebody not making it to the river with the group - but instead maybe ending up at the gas station cafeteria - was high, but the teacher probably liked her odds. She could probably do without those who didn’t make it. Anyway, the purpose of our field trip was to take water samples from the river, and the analyze them to see how polluted the river was. The teacher had picked a spot, and we all walked up the hill and then down the hill to the river. As far as I remembered, the water in the river had been brown, but since my friends - but not me - also used to swim in it, and since there had been talk about restocking the river with salmon I had never thought it might be polluted. The spot she had picked was in an open area, with no forest, but she hadn’t chosen that place because she wanted to stay in the sun but because that’s where the sewage pipe was. Because that’s where she wanted to get her sample. With the class there she told us first what she was about to do, and then asked everybody to step back. She held a sample bottle in her hand, and then got to the edge of water, and we followed her every step. She dropped the bottle into the river, and when she pulled it back up, she was obviously happy with her catch. We were all around her and for one reason or another, somebody in the crowd pushed the person in front of him. Maybe he didn’t hear her, and just wanted to get a little closer to hear better. Anyway, the person he pushed then shoved the person in front of him who, in turn, took a step forward and pushed the person in front of him. Who then got shoved into the teacher, who … fell into the water. And that’s how I learned the concept of “chain reaction”. 299575c9a5dc4102a4bd8bee66089ef2 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/suit-up My first real soccer shirt was a yellow, short-sleeved shirt with a small crest on the chest, with a stylized G in the middle of it. G for Gnistan, or “spark”. The day I got my first real soccer shirt was the biggest day of my life, until I got my first real hockey sweater. The hockey sweater was dark green and had the word “KERHO” - “club” in Finnish - diagonally across the chest. And the year after that, I got a sweater with real advertisement on it, a career highlight. I know it’s that real outfit that makes everything better. That real sweater, shirt, real pants, real shoes, they turn a hobby into a step on a career path. It’s the outfit that makes the little boys and girls look exactly like the big boys and girls which is what they want. They want to be the real thing. Son had his a speed skating race last weekend, the second one in his short career. In the first one, he wore just regular sweat pants, and a jacket, and a ski mask turned into a hat. He did fine, although he fell in the last curve, and lost a few seconds, but he didn’t seem to care, either way. He’s not much of a competitor - he likes to win, though - so when I told him that there was going to another race the following weekend, he just nodded and said, “fine”, in the same tone he says “fine” when I ask him how his day at school was. Not too thrilled, that is. He got a little more excited at his next practice when he got a medal for his participation in the first race. He made some space on a shelf, and, optimistically, left room for more medals. But then, at his next practice, he got a real skating suit, a red, white and blue suit, the kind that made him look like a Young Superman, had he worn his underwear over it. Right away, the suit made his stride a little better, his glide a little longer, and his starts a little more explosive. Now, kids are naturally cute creatures, and they can pull of thins that most adults can’t. Things that are fine and cute with a kid, sometimes become creepy and weird when adults do it. I will never forget the three Leksand fans welcoming Hockey Hall of Famer Ed Belfour to Sweden, wearing their all-too-big Leksand jerseys and hats at the Stockholm airport. Three kids welcoming him there, singing in sweaters that hang down below their knees? Cute. Those three? Not quite as much. After Son’s races - he even grabbed a heat victory this time - I was sitting on the bench, talking to another father, who doubled as a team leader at the event. He had been out on the ice in his speed skating skates, when I - and my hockey skates - had been thrown out, and got yelled at. “What kind of skates are those?” I asked him, to make conversation, and pointed at this skates on the floor. “Oh, just regular racing skates,” he said. “You race?” “Yeah, my wife and I race in the oldtimers’ class.” “Oh,” I said. “Hey, you can skate, you should race, too. Just try out the other skates, we’ll have races here on Wednesdays. You should do it,” he said. “We’ll see,” I said. “Maybe.” But as I said that, I already knew that I’m probably not going to do it because as soon as he had told me to race, the first image that went through my mind was me trying to get into one of those red, white, and blue speed skating suits. And it wasn’t pretty. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:40:15 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no My first real soccer shirt was a yellow, short-sleeved shirt with a small crest on the chest, with a stylized G in the middle of it. G for Gnistan, or “spark”. The day I got my first real soccer shirt was the biggest day of my life, until I got my first real hockey sweater. The hockey sweater was dark green and had the word “KERHO” - “club” in Finnish - diagonally across the chest. And the year after that, I got a sweater with real advertisement on it, a career highlight. I know it’s that real outfit that makes everything better. That real sweater, shirt, real pants, real shoes, they turn a hobby into a step on a career path. It’s the outfit that makes the little boys and girls look exactly like the big boys and girls which is what they want. They want to be the real thing. Son had his a speed skating race last weekend, the second one in his short career. In the first one, he wore just regular sweat pants, and a jacket, and a ski mask turned into a hat. He did fine, although he fell in the last curve, and lost a few seconds, but he didn’t seem to care, either way. He’s not much of a competitor - he likes to win, though - so when I told him that there was going to another race the following weekend, he just nodded and said, “fine”, in the same tone he says “fine” when I ask him how his day at school was. Not too thrilled, that is. He got a little more excited at his next practice when he got a medal for his participation in the first race. He made some space on a shelf, and, optimistically, left room for more medals. But then, at his next practice, he got a real skating suit, a red, white and blue suit, the kind that made him look like a Young Superman, had he worn his underwear over it. Right away, the suit made his stride a little better, his glide a little longer, and his starts a little more explosive. Now, kids are naturally cute creatures, and they can pull of thins that most adults can’t. Things that are fine and cute with a kid, sometimes become creepy and weird when adults do it. I will never forget the three Leksand fans welcoming Hockey Hall of Famer Ed Belfour to Sweden, wearing their all-too-big Leksand jerseys and hats at the Stockholm airport. Three kids welcoming him there, singing in sweaters that hang down below their knees? Cute. Those three? Not quite as much. After Son’s races - he even grabbed a heat victory this time - I was sitting on the bench, talking to another father, who doubled as a team leader at the event. He had been out on the ice in his speed skating skates, when I - and my hockey skates - had been thrown out, and got yelled at. “What kind of skates are those?” I asked him, to make conversation, and pointed at this skates on the floor. “Oh, just regular racing skates,” he said. “You race?” “Yeah, my wife and I race in the oldtimers’ class.” “Oh,” I said. “Hey, you can skate, you should race, too. Just try out the other skates, we’ll have races here on Wednesdays. You should do it,” he said. “We’ll see,” I said. “Maybe.” But as I said that, I already knew that I’m probably not going to do it because as soon as he had told me to race, the first image that went through my mind was me trying to get into one of those red, white, and blue speed skating suits. And it wasn’t pretty. d92c1eb2934f4404887fb17979ba8b0e http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/sisu The young, dark-haired man behind the desk at the gym said something to me and whatever it was, he was being passionate about it, that much I knew. He was smiling, and pounding his chest, and pointing at me. I’m reasonably good at lip reading, but that time, I was confused. Usually, he just takes my card, swipes it, and gives it back to me, so I often keep my earphones in my ears, smile politely, and keep walking. But, this time, he was still holding onto my card and talking, so I scratched my head a little, and like a great magician, discreetly pulled the earphone out without him noticing. He saw the puzzled look on my face. “I was just saying that I like that,” he said, and pointed to my forehead. “Gonna tattoo one of ‘em right here,” he added, and pounded his chest again. That’s when I realized he was talking about the three yellow crowns, the national symbol of Sweden, on my dark-blue woollen ski hat. “Yes,” I said, delighted that I was now able to join the conversation. “Yes! They do look good,” I added. “Right here,” he said, and pointed to the right side of his chest with his index finger. He swiped the card, and I kept on walking with my head held high all the way to the dressing room. After all, he was right, the three crowns do look nice, even to a Finn like myself. That’s why I had bought the hat in the first place. A few days later, I was back at the gym, and the same guy, the one that has that dark Middle Eastern look, greeted me. With a big smile on his face, he was pounding his chest again, and then he saw my hat. “Wait, where’s your nice hat?” he asked me. He looked a little disappointed. That time, I was wearing my Dad’s old hat that he used to wear in the rink when he was our hockey coach. It’s red and white, and thick and warm, and it says “SISU” in big letters on the sides. Sisu, one of the few Finnish words even non-Finns, and especially people in Sweden, know. Now, the Sisu on the hat is simply a reference to the Sisu trucks, but still. “Oh, this one one. Well, today I’m all Finnish, you know. Sisu!” I said and pointed to the word. “Nice,” he said. “You know, in Finland we have this thing called sisu,” I said again, and pumped my fist a little. He didn’t say anything, but he looked like he’d never heard of sisu. He swiped my card, and handed it back to me. “I’m still gonna get that tattoo,” he said. “Right here,” he said, and pointed to his chest. I walked to the door, put on my shoes, and watched him swipe a few cards for others who had just come in, and then waved goodbye to him from the door. He waved back and shouted: “Sweden!” People laughed. He laughed. He was happy. Last night, I was at the gym again, and, yes, I wore the hat with the three crowns – just to make my new friend happy. After all, sisu can't be taught. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Tue, 22 Jan 2013 17:06:12 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no The young, dark-haired man behind the desk at the gym said something to me and whatever it was, he was being passionate about it, that much I knew. He was smiling, and pounding his chest, and pointing at me. I’m reasonably good at lip reading, but that time, I was confused. Usually, he just takes my card, swipes it, and gives it back to me, so I often keep my earphones in my ears, smile politely, and keep walking. But, this time, he was still holding onto my card and talking, so I scratched my head a little, and like a great magician, discreetly pulled the earphone out without him noticing. He saw the puzzled look on my face. “I was just saying that I like that,” he said, and pointed to my forehead. “Gonna tattoo one of ‘em right here,” he added, and pounded his chest again. That’s when I realized he was talking about the three yellow crowns, the national symbol of Sweden, on my dark-blue woollen ski hat. “Yes,” I said, delighted that I was now able to join the conversation. “Yes! They do look good,” I added. “Right here,” he said, and pointed to the right side of his chest with his index finger. He swiped the card, and I kept on walking with my head held high all the way to the dressing room. After all, he was right, the three crowns do look nice, even to a Finn like myself. That’s why I had bought the hat in the first place. A few days later, I was back at the gym, and the same guy, the one that has that dark Middle Eastern look, greeted me. With a big smile on his face, he was pounding his chest again, and then he saw my hat. “Wait, where’s your nice hat?” he asked me. He looked a little disappointed. That time, I was wearing my Dad’s old hat that he used to wear in the rink when he was our hockey coach. It’s red and white, and thick and warm, and it says “SISU” in big letters on the sides. Sisu, one of the few Finnish words even non-Finns, and especially people in Sweden, know. Now, the Sisu on the hat is simply a reference to the Sisu trucks, but still. “Oh, this one one. Well, today I’m all Finnish, you know. Sisu!” I said and pointed to the word. “Nice,” he said. “You know, in Finland we have this thing called sisu,” I said again, and pumped my fist a little. He didn’t say anything, but he looked like he’d never heard of sisu. He swiped my card, and handed it back to me. “I’m still gonna get that tattoo,” he said. “Right here,” he said, and pointed to his chest. I walked to the door, put on my shoes, and watched him swipe a few cards for others who had just come in, and then waved goodbye to him from the door. He waved back and shouted: “Sweden!” People laughed. He laughed. He was happy. Last night, I was at the gym again, and, yes, I wore the hat with the three crowns – just to make my new friend happy. After all, sisu can't be taught. 9e33af8bcf774911834a4857ff2363ef http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/whose-line-is-it-anyway I don’t know why I remember that particular line, but I do, and I think it’s funny. I think it’s funny that I remember it, and I think it’s a funny line. Maybe I remember it because I caught myself by surprise with my witty answer. It was almost as if I didn’t realize what I had said until I heard the words come out of my mouth. Or maybe that whole trip was such an adventure and that’s the reason it stuck to my mind. Or maybe it’s a combination of things. Maybe the fact that I’ve told this story a few times over the years has made it a memorable one. Anyway, as a kid, I was a regular at the Helsinki hockey arena. There are two teams in Helsinki and back then, they shared the arena, and Dad and I went to both teams’ games so I was there every week. Most often with Dad, or Mom and Dad - one season, Mom had tickets to every single game played in the arena - but hardly ever alone, or with a friend. After all, I was just ten years old, and it was dark, and the games didn’t end until nine or so, and, well, Dad was going anyway. But one time, this one particular time, I was at the game with a buddy of mine. He was my teammate and he was my classmate, so he happened to live in the same Helsinki suburb that I did. After the game, we took the bus home. It was easy enough. The bus stop was right outside the arena, and it was a short walk home from the stop at the other end of the line. The problem was that a few thousand people wanted to get on the same bus, but somehow we managed to get in, even if we had to stand. I remember feeling mighty cool, riding the bus with a buddy, on my own. We talked about the game, and about our heroes, and about school - a little - and before I knew it, we were close to home, and even though I can’t remember why he would have stayed on the bus after me, but he was going to ride it one stop longer or something. I was supposed to press the red button to let the driver know I wanted the bus to stop, but because I was standing in the middle, and because that particular bus only had buttons on the ceiling, and because I was short, I couldn’t reach it. My buddy looked at me, amused, and then asked me if he should do it. I said yes, and he pressed the button. “Sometimes I wonder where you’d end up without me,” he said with a smirk on his face. And that’s when I said: “Apparently, the end of the line for bus number 69,” I said. My friend laughed, and I jumped out of the bus. So good. Still so good. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Fri, 11 Jan 2013 16:19:20 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no I don’t know why I remember that particular line, but I do, and I think it’s funny. I think it’s funny that I remember it, and I think it’s a funny line. Maybe I remember it because I caught myself by surprise with my witty answer. It was almost as if I didn’t realize what I had said until I heard the words come out of my mouth. Or maybe that whole trip was such an adventure and that’s the reason it stuck to my mind. Or maybe it’s a combination of things. Maybe the fact that I’ve told this story a few times over the years has made it a memorable one. Anyway, as a kid, I was a regular at the Helsinki hockey arena. There are two teams in Helsinki and back then, they shared the arena, and Dad and I went to both teams’ games so I was there every week. Most often with Dad, or Mom and Dad - one season, Mom had tickets to every single game played in the arena - but hardly ever alone, or with a friend. After all, I was just ten years old, and it was dark, and the games didn’t end until nine or so, and, well, Dad was going anyway. But one time, this one particular time, I was at the game with a buddy of mine. He was my teammate and he was my classmate, so he happened to live in the same Helsinki suburb that I did. After the game, we took the bus home. It was easy enough. The bus stop was right outside the arena, and it was a short walk home from the stop at the other end of the line. The problem was that a few thousand people wanted to get on the same bus, but somehow we managed to get in, even if we had to stand. I remember feeling mighty cool, riding the bus with a buddy, on my own. We talked about the game, and about our heroes, and about school - a little - and before I knew it, we were close to home, and even though I can’t remember why he would have stayed on the bus after me, but he was going to ride it one stop longer or something. I was supposed to press the red button to let the driver know I wanted the bus to stop, but because I was standing in the middle, and because that particular bus only had buttons on the ceiling, and because I was short, I couldn’t reach it. My buddy looked at me, amused, and then asked me if he should do it. I said yes, and he pressed the button. “Sometimes I wonder where you’d end up without me,” he said with a smirk on his face. And that’s when I said: “Apparently, the end of the line for bus number 69,” I said. My friend laughed, and I jumped out of the bus. So good. Still so good. 9752cb0ff3184399be0a03c3d6e99356 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/on-a-recent-afternoon-in-2012 Here's a quick recap of the year 2012, in the form of first lines of stories published in the New Yorker throughout the year (not including fiction). On the evening of January 12th, Chitmin Lay was in his cell, in Moulmein Prison, in the lush tropical hills of southern Burma, when guards informed him that he was a free man. On a mild Monday afternoon in mid-January, Ester Dean, a songwriter and vocalist, arrived at Roc the Mic Studios, on West Twenty-seventh Street in Manhattan, for the first of five days of songwriting sessions. On Thursday, January 19th, the front page of the Daily Mail carried a story about Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. On a mild Thursday afternoon this past February, Mitt Romney and his entourage arrived at a big house in a small town called Clarkston, about forty miles north of Detroit. On February 10th, an eclectic assortment of conservatives streamed into a ballroom in Washington to hear Rick Santorum speak. On February 29th, two days before parliamentary elections in Iran, I joined a few dozen foreign correspondents - along with official handlers - in the parking lot of the Laleh, a formerly five-star Tehran hotel with tatty rooms, an ornate lobby, and a surfeit of eyes. On the third Friday in March, Nicholas York, a student at the University of East Anglia, packed a bag for five days in Porec, Croatia. One afternoon this spring, Will Guidara, the general manager and co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, a restaurant in Manhattan’s Flatiron district, arrived at work limping and gray-faced. One night last May, some twenty financiers and politicians met for dinner in the Tuscany private dining room at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. At nine o’clock on a wet Monday morning in June, Twenty-fourth Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues was parked solid with megatrailers and tech-support vehicles. One night last June, outside the town of Lakota, North Dakota, three cows, with three calves, wandered off a ranch and onto a nearby property farmed by a family named Brossart. Last summer, Lucianna Amato, who turns twelve this month and lives in Sayville, on Long Island, went to a science camp, where she spent a lot of time outside, looking at plants and birds. Last summer, when New York announced that gay couples could finally get hitched, Jay Fischer couldn’t make it to the Stonewall Inn, where an impromptu celebration had begun. On Labor Day weekend, the writer Lynn Vincent was shopping at a used bookstore in San Diego, in a neighborhood called Normal Heights. One night last fall, I emerged from a subway stop downtown and encountered a raucous demonstration connected to the Occupy Wall Street protests. On October 2nd, a few weeks after Occupy Wall Street began, Colin Robinson, a British man with a head of loose gray curls, fished a Natural Light beer case out of a trash can in Chelsea. On a rainy night in late November, Robert Kyncl was in Google’s New York City offices, on Ninth Avenue, whiteboarding the future of TV. On a clear December afternoon, Roger Thomas was completing a four-month renovation of the high-limit slot-machine room at the Wynn Las Vegas resort. On one of those indecisive early winter afternoons - warm in the sun, nippy out of it - Chucker Branch and Christine Lehner, his partner, were on the roof of the Whitney Museum, winterizing their bees. One night last month, Emily Conner, a twenty-five-year-old playwright from Toronto, and Charlotte Matthews, a twenty-three-year-old sailing instructor from Staten Island, stood in their kitchen in Crown Heights and griped abut their new roommates. One stormy night earlier this month, Franklin Paulino, an aspiring doctor from Perth Amboy, was talking about his favorite work of art, a marble sculpture called “Ugolino and His Sons.” On a Tuesday evening not long ago, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, the founder of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, and ABby Kluchin, who teaches Freud at the institute, were in the back room of Building on Bond, a bistro in Boerum Hill. On a Thursday not long ago, the singer Ronnie Spector and her husband of twenty-nine years, Jonathan Greenfield, drove from their home in Connecticut into Manhattan to rehearse Spector’s one-woman show, “Beyond the Beehive,” which is a work-in-progress. On a recent Thursday, at a dinner held in the butcher section of the old Essex Street Market, about two hundred guests - some having paid several thousand dollars for the privilege - raised their glasses to the mentally unbalanced. On a recent Thursday, Mike Cote stood in front of a bathroom mirror in a midtown hotel, combing gray dye into his temples. On a recent afternoon in Santa Monica, Trevor Neilson met with his staff at Global Philanthropy Group, a company that guides the philanthropic activities of the very rich. One recent afternoon, two art movers visited the Mütter Museum, at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, to prepare two thin slices of Albert Einstein’s corpus callosum and temporal love for travel. One recent Friday afternoon in the San Fernando Valley, Flynn McGarry crept into a neighbor’s yard. On a recent Sunday morning in the black township of Kwa Thema, near Johannesburg, a young lesbian couple went to church. Not long ago, Daniel Pinkwater opened his front door, in the Mid-Hudson Valley, to greet a person who had come to mow his lawn. Last week, His Eminence the Eleventh Shingza Rinpoche Tenzin Choekyi Gyaltsen, while sleeping, fitfully, at a friend’s apartment in Woodside, Queens, had a dream. Last Tuesday afternoon, a group of Cooper Union alumni gathered on the sidewalk in front of the school’s Foundation Building, on Third Avenue just south of Astor Place, carrying a tank of helium, a spool of kite string, and a large stash of balloons. Last Tuesday evening, just before the returns came in from the primaries in Mississippi and Alabama, Mike Allen was zipping through the corridors of Politico, the five-year-old Web site. At 2:30 P.M. last Wednesday, the sales clerks at the New York Jets’ official retail shop on Fiftieth Street off Madison Avenue, were awaiting word from management on what number the team’s latest reported acquisition would be wearing on his jersey, and deflecting the early birds who stopped in, hoping to beat the merchandising rush. On a warm evening last week, Ben Cohen, one half of Ben & Jerry’s, walked across a parking lot in Fort Greene toward a white Ford van called the Illuminator. The other day, an elegantly dressed man entered Room 819 at the Empire Hotel, across the street from Lincoln Center. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Wed, 02 Jan 2013 23:26:36 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Here's a quick recap of the year 2012, in the form of first lines of stories published in the New Yorker throughout the year (not including fiction). On the evening of January 12th, Chitmin Lay was in his cell, in Moulmein Prison, in the lush tropical hills of southern Burma, when guards informed him that he was a free man. On a mild Monday afternoon in mid-January, Ester Dean, a songwriter and vocalist, arrived at Roc the Mic Studios, on West Twenty-seventh Street in Manhattan, for the first of five days of songwriting sessions. On Thursday, January 19th, the front page of the Daily Mail carried a story about Sir Fred Goodwin, the former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. On a mild Thursday afternoon this past February, Mitt Romney and his entourage arrived at a big house in a small town called Clarkston, about forty miles north of Detroit. On February 10th, an eclectic assortment of conservatives streamed into a ballroom in Washington to hear Rick Santorum speak. On February 29th, two days before parliamentary elections in Iran, I joined a few dozen foreign correspondents - along with official handlers - in the parking lot of the Laleh, a formerly five-star Tehran hotel with tatty rooms, an ornate lobby, and a surfeit of eyes. On the third Friday in March, Nicholas York, a student at the University of East Anglia, packed a bag for five days in Porec, Croatia. One afternoon this spring, Will Guidara, the general manager and co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, a restaurant in Manhattan’s Flatiron district, arrived at work limping and gray-faced. One night last May, some twenty financiers and politicians met for dinner in the Tuscany private dining room at the Bellagio hotel in Las Vegas. At nine o’clock on a wet Monday morning in June, Twenty-fourth Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues was parked solid with megatrailers and tech-support vehicles. One night last June, outside the town of Lakota, North Dakota, three cows, with three calves, wandered off a ranch and onto a nearby property farmed by a family named Brossart. Last summer, Lucianna Amato, who turns twelve this month and lives in Sayville, on Long Island, went to a science camp, where she spent a lot of time outside, looking at plants and birds. Last summer, when New York announced that gay couples could finally get hitched, Jay Fischer couldn’t make it to the Stonewall Inn, where an impromptu celebration had begun. On Labor Day weekend, the writer Lynn Vincent was shopping at a used bookstore in San Diego, in a neighborhood called Normal Heights. One night last fall, I emerged from a subway stop downtown and encountered a raucous demonstration connected to the Occupy Wall Street protests. On October 2nd, a few weeks after Occupy Wall Street began, Colin Robinson, a British man with a head of loose gray curls, fished a Natural Light beer case out of a trash can in Chelsea. On a rainy night in late November, Robert Kyncl was in Google’s New York City offices, on Ninth Avenue, whiteboarding the future of TV. On a clear December afternoon, Roger Thomas was completing a four-month renovation of the high-limit slot-machine room at the Wynn Las Vegas resort. On one of those indecisive early winter afternoons - warm in the sun, nippy out of it - Chucker Branch and Christine Lehner, his partner, were on the roof of the Whitney Museum, winterizing their bees. One night last month, Emily Conner, a twenty-five-year-old playwright from Toronto, and Charlotte Matthews, a twenty-three-year-old sailing instructor from Staten Island, stood in their kitchen in Crown Heights and griped abut their new roommates. One stormy night earlier this month, Franklin Paulino, an aspiring doctor from Perth Amboy, was talking about his favorite work of art, a marble sculpture called “Ugolino and His Sons.” On a Tuesday evening not long ago, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, the founder of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, and ABby Kluchin, who teaches Freud at the institute, were in the back room of Building on Bond, a bistro in Boerum Hill. On a Thursday not long ago, the singer Ronnie Spector and her husband of twenty-nine years, Jonathan Greenfield, drove from their home in Connecticut into Manhattan to rehearse Spector’s one-woman show, “Beyond the Beehive,” which is a work-in-progress. On a recent Thursday, at a dinner held in the butcher section of the old Essex Street Market, about two hundred guests - some having paid several thousand dollars for the privilege - raised their glasses to the mentally unbalanced. On a recent Thursday, Mike Cote stood in front of a bathroom mirror in a midtown hotel, combing gray dye into his temples. On a recent afternoon in Santa Monica, Trevor Neilson met with his staff at Global Philanthropy Group, a company that guides the philanthropic activities of the very rich. One recent afternoon, two art movers visited the Mütter Museum, at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, to prepare two thin slices of Albert Einstein’s corpus callosum and temporal love for travel. One recent Friday afternoon in the San Fernando Valley, Flynn McGarry crept into a neighbor’s yard. On a recent Sunday morning in the black township of Kwa Thema, near Johannesburg, a young lesbian couple went to church. Not long ago, Daniel Pinkwater opened his front door, in the Mid-Hudson Valley, to greet a person who had come to mow his lawn. Last week, His Eminence the Eleventh Shingza Rinpoche Tenzin Choekyi Gyaltsen, while sleeping, fitfully, at a friend’s apartment in Woodside, Queens, had a dream. Last Tuesday afternoon, a group of Cooper Union alumni gathered on the sidewalk in front of the school’s Foundation Building, on Third Avenue just south of Astor Place, carrying a tank of helium, a spool of kite string, and a large stash of balloons. Last Tuesday evening, just before the returns came in from the primaries in Mississippi and Alabama, Mike Allen was zipping through the corridors of Politico, the five-year-old Web site. At 2:30 P.M. last Wednesday, the sales clerks at the New York Jets’ official retail shop on Fiftieth Street off Madison Avenue, were awaiting word from management on what number the team’s latest reported acquisition would be wearing on his jersey, and deflecting the early birds who stopped in, hoping to beat the merchandising rush. On a warm evening last week, Ben Cohen, one half of Ben & Jerry’s, walked across a parking lot in Fort Greene toward a white Ford van called the Illuminator. The other day, an elegantly dressed man entered Room 819 at the Empire Hotel, across the street from Lincoln Center. 6cb908022f8f43b0a5832d0c3b525d52 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/two-miserable-bachelors About 15 years ago, I spent New Year’s Eve with my best friend at my place. It was a nice place, in a Helsinki suburb, a ten-minute train ride from downtown Helsinki. We made some food, we called up another buddy to come over - he did, briefly - and we danced to the Doors. “You know what my mother said when I told her about us hanging out at New Year’s?” my buddy asked me. I had no idea. “She said that she felt bad for us, ‘two miserable bachelors, alone at New Year’s’,” he added, and we laughed. Hah. Miserable? We weren’t lonely. We weren’t losers. We were wild and crazy guys. So wild that by midnight, we stood on the balcony of my apartment, and since we didn’t have any fireworks, we simply threw down burning matches. Eleven months and 3 weeks later, the two of us talked on the phone about our plans for New Year’s Eve. Under normal circumstances we probably would have got together, possibly in his downtown apartment, and we would have danced to the Doors and had a good old time. But normal wasn’t what it used to be after I had moved to Sweden. “I don’t know what I’ll do, I might go back to Sweden for New Year’s,” I said as casually as I could. It was sort of a big deal for two reasons. One, it was finally the end of 1999, so we stood on the doorsteps of a new millennium. Now was the time to party like it was 1999. It was going to be the wildest and craziest of New year’s in living memory. Two, it was a big deal because the reason I might be going back to Sweden for the big event wasn’t so I could hear Europe perform Final Countdown in Stockholm’s Old Town, but because there was this girl who had sort of invited me to a New Year’s party. My buddy was also contemplating spending New Year’s with some friends, and especially one particularly good lady friend I had only heard stories of. Of course, I, at least, was faking it. I had no plans to stay in Finland, and had already booked my return trip to Sweden. I think he was faking his contemplation as well. He was going for sure. I was mesmerized by the young lady in question. We had spent countless of hours together, walking around Stockholm, talking. We had exchanged hundreds of emails, and, yes, we had kissed. When I left for Finland for Xmas, she had casually mentioned a New Year’s party to me. “Now, it’s not a big deal, but if you’re around, it’d be nice if you could come,” she had said. “Anyway, so, I might got to this party in Sweden,” I told my best friend. I was sitting in my car at a Helsinki gas station, talking to him on the phone. “You should go,” he said. “Go for it,” he added, and laughed, and I assumed he was laughing at least partly at himself because he always said “go for it.” Which is what made him such a good friend. “Yeah, I might. You, too. Go for it,” I said. The next day, I got on the ferry to Sweden, and in the morning, as I drove off it, I drove straight to the Old Town - no, not to see Europe - where I was supposed to meet her. She came walking towards the Old Town subway station, i came driving from the other direction, and when I saw her, I honked. She smiled and got in, and we drove to my place. The next day, we went to the New Year’s party together, and we welcomed the new millennium with a bunch of wild and crazy Swedish guys, melting tin on the stove, making predictions for the new year, as is the Finnish custom. Twelve months later, Girlfriend (later Wife) and I spent New Year’s at my best friend’s house with him, and his Girlfriend (later Wife). The miserable bachelors were a thing of the past. They were a 20th century memory. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Mon, 31 Dec 2012 16:31:12 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no About 15 years ago, I spent New Year’s Eve with my best friend at my place. It was a nice place, in a Helsinki suburb, a ten-minute train ride from downtown Helsinki. We made some food, we called up another buddy to come over - he did, briefly - and we danced to the Doors. “You know what my mother said when I told her about us hanging out at New Year’s?” my buddy asked me. I had no idea. “She said that she felt bad for us, ‘two miserable bachelors, alone at New Year’s’,” he added, and we laughed. Hah. Miserable? We weren’t lonely. We weren’t losers. We were wild and crazy guys. So wild that by midnight, we stood on the balcony of my apartment, and since we didn’t have any fireworks, we simply threw down burning matches. Eleven months and 3 weeks later, the two of us talked on the phone about our plans for New Year’s Eve. Under normal circumstances we probably would have got together, possibly in his downtown apartment, and we would have danced to the Doors and had a good old time. But normal wasn’t what it used to be after I had moved to Sweden. “I don’t know what I’ll do, I might go back to Sweden for New Year’s,” I said as casually as I could. It was sort of a big deal for two reasons. One, it was finally the end of 1999, so we stood on the doorsteps of a new millennium. Now was the time to party like it was 1999. It was going to be the wildest and craziest of New year’s in living memory. Two, it was a big deal because the reason I might be going back to Sweden for the big event wasn’t so I could hear Europe perform Final Countdown in Stockholm’s Old Town, but because there was this girl who had sort of invited me to a New Year’s party. My buddy was also contemplating spending New Year’s with some friends, and especially one particularly good lady friend I had only heard stories of. Of course, I, at least, was faking it. I had no plans to stay in Finland, and had already booked my return trip to Sweden. I think he was faking his contemplation as well. He was going for sure. I was mesmerized by the young lady in question. We had spent countless of hours together, walking around Stockholm, talking. We had exchanged hundreds of emails, and, yes, we had kissed. When I left for Finland for Xmas, she had casually mentioned a New Year’s party to me. “Now, it’s not a big deal, but if you’re around, it’d be nice if you could come,” she had said. “Anyway, so, I might got to this party in Sweden,” I told my best friend. I was sitting in my car at a Helsinki gas station, talking to him on the phone. “You should go,” he said. “Go for it,” he added, and laughed, and I assumed he was laughing at least partly at himself because he always said “go for it.” Which is what made him such a good friend. “Yeah, I might. You, too. Go for it,” I said. The next day, I got on the ferry to Sweden, and in the morning, as I drove off it, I drove straight to the Old Town - no, not to see Europe - where I was supposed to meet her. She came walking towards the Old Town subway station, i came driving from the other direction, and when I saw her, I honked. She smiled and got in, and we drove to my place. The next day, we went to the New Year’s party together, and we welcomed the new millennium with a bunch of wild and crazy Swedish guys, melting tin on the stove, making predictions for the new year, as is the Finnish custom. Twelve months later, Girlfriend (later Wife) and I spent New Year’s at my best friend’s house with him, and his Girlfriend (later Wife). The miserable bachelors were a thing of the past. They were a 20th century memory. 9748bd40fb9b421f811a729814a5fd4e http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/listen-to-this Listen to this: the good people at podcastomatic.com have built a cool robot. It's got red eyes, and a long face, but the best part is that it's got a manly voice, and they have trained it to read these blog entries out loud. (Maybe yours, too.) So, click below to open the feed in iTunes, or, this link if you use another RSS reader to get the audio files. Enjoy. - Webmaster [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Fri, 28 Dec 2012 21:22:24 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Listen to this: the good people at podcastomatic.com have built a cool robot. It's got red eyes, and a long face, but the best part is that it's got a manly voice, and they have trained it to read these blog entries out loud. (Maybe yours, too.) So, click below to open the feed in iTunes, or, this link if you use another RSS reader to get the audio files. Enjoy. - Webmaster 6181086bf84a43469dc1f80c019d60ad http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/season-s-greetings I’m sorry, but there will be no Top 10 New Year’s countdown this year because Mr. Pakarinen says he’s been too busy to write up a list, let alone go through the archives. Frankly, I think the reason there’s no Top 10 list is that he just couldn’t find ten good stories. Sure, there was this . And this was OK, but you know what I mean? So, rather than have you go through some old crap, he’s going to hide under the covers and say he’s been “busy”. With what, you ask, and I don’t have an answer. Anyway. He’s also told all us interns that we can take a long break over the holidays, which tells me there won’t be major updates here, if any. There’d better not be if he first tells us that we can take some time off. Like, suppose he, against all odds, should get a half-baked idea for a story, am I then expected to come in and type the story and post it for him? Fuhgeddaboudit. Unless there’s a bonus in it for me. I mean, I do things for money. Don’t you? Merry Christmas to you all. – Webmaster [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Thu, 20 Dec 2012 08:11:21 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no I’m sorry, but there will be no Top 10 New Year’s countdown this year because Mr. Pakarinen says he’s been too busy to write up a list, let alone go through the archives. Frankly, I think the reason there’s no Top 10 list is that he just couldn’t find ten good stories. Sure, there was this . And this was OK, but you know what I mean? So, rather than have you go through some old crap, he’s going to hide under the covers and say he’s been “busy”. With what, you ask, and I don’t have an answer. Anyway. He’s also told all us interns that we can take a long break over the holidays, which tells me there won’t be major updates here, if any. There’d better not be if he first tells us that we can take some time off. Like, suppose he, against all odds, should get a half-baked idea for a story, am I then expected to come in and type the story and post it for him? Fuhgeddaboudit. Unless there’s a bonus in it for me. I mean, I do things for money. Don’t you? Merry Christmas to you all. – Webmaster 1a0488e3597d4f3788c03ff0ceb8ed81 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/skeleton-frames-of-burned-out-chevrolets The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves. Except that it’s not a screen door, and there’s no Mary around. Instead, it’s the door of our microwave oven. I put a Finnish meat pie in there and sit at our kitchen table with a comic book. It's cold and dark outside because it's winter in Joensuu, Finland, a provincial city in eastern Finland, just 102 kilometers from the border between Finland and the Soviet Union. I could have gone to the outside skating rink just outside our house but it's difficult to find the motivation once I've got home from school. The thermometer on the roof of the bank at the market square said it was minus-30 degrees today, just like yesterday. I had wrapped my scarf around my face but it only helped for a short while, until my breath made it wet so it froze. Every time I inhaled, my nostrils seemed to freeze up as well. No, I'd just eat my pie, read my comics, and then put on some Springsteen. Born To Run. The stereo, our good hi-fi system was all mine between 3 pm when I came home from school and 5.30 when Dad came home from work. Mom got in a little earlier, so often I'd take my music to my room, and play the Hobbit or Manic Miner on my ZX Spectrum 64. Born in the USA had come out the previous summer, and I got to borrow the LP from my buddy, Mika, who actually always went by his last name, and who was also my pop culture consultant. He had that Springsteen album, and he had Mellencamp albums from when he was still John Cougar, and he had Huey Lewis when it was all news to me. If it wasn't too cold outside and if I didn't go to the rink, I'd walk the 800 meters from our house to Mika's house, and he'd play Springsteen, and Mellencamp, or the Blues Brothers, and we’d sit in his room, and he’d pull album after album - when they were albums - from his shelf, and tell me all about the band, then play a few tracks. We sort of knew of each other but we became friends during psychology class at school. Many a Wednesday morning we sat next to each other playing a word game we had come up with, in which we chose random words from the pages of the psychology book, and then try to create new words using the letters in that word. The psychology teacher was also our religion teacher, a little old lady who liked to run a tight ship, but simply wasn’t able to do it with a classroom full of teenagers. She got upset very easily, and you could follow her stages of fury just by looking at her. She was like a human thermometer - the kind that we had back then - in that the angrier she was, the redder she got. First it was just her neck, with red spots that got larger and larger, then her chin, then cheeks, until her whole face was crimson. The religion classes were tougher for her than the psychology classes. Psych was optional, religion not. Once, she asked a friend of mine to read a few paragraphs from pages 78-79 out loud - having first woken him up - and by the time he had finished the passage, the red had reached the top of her skull. “We already did that last semester,” she hissed. “Oh, did we?” said my buddy, got up and walked to the waste basket, then ripped the book into two halves and dropped one of them into the basket. Class dismissed. Anyway, it was Mika who had lent me that Born in the USA album, and I taped it one dark winter’s afternoon when I was home alone. And then I’d sit on the floor in our living room with the album cover in front of me, and listen to the songs, and read the lyrics. That spring and summer, Terry, a Canadian exchange student who stayed with us for a few months, watched the Dancing in the Dark video over and over again. Terry was convinced that Bruce was wearing a wig, and he used the then-high tech methods of watching the clip frame-by-frame to prove it to me. “Look at that rug. He must be wearing one, he’s an old man. He’s 35,” he told me. And then we’d watch Courtney Cox climb onto the stage and dance with Bruce. “I wanna change your clothes, your hair, your face,” Terry would sing, and point at me with a smirk on his face. That fall, Terry went back to Canada, and I went back to Mika’s albums. I borrowed Mellencamp’s Scarecrow, and remixes of “Dancing in the Dark”, “Cover me”, and “Born in the USA.” (That’s why I still do an echo in the chorus of Dancing). I borrowed “The River” from Mika after two girls in my class did their Finnish-class presentation on the man and his music, and then, to close it off, played “The River”. Because it’s a double album, and has a running time over 82 minutes, I had to use a 90-minute C cassette, which meant that the songs that ended up on B-side - everything from Point Blank on - didn’t get much play in the house. Even today, when I have all the albums in neat folders on my iTunes, the play counts drop dramatically after Point Blank: Hungry Heart 32, The River 27, The Ties that Bind 20, Point Blank 13, Stolen Car 7, Fade Away 5, Ramrod 5, Drive All Night 4. But I bought a copy of Born to Run because Mika said it was a classic. Back then, Born to Run was already an old album. It had come out ten years earlier, and Springsteen had also recorded three other albums between that and Born in the USA. “Everybody should have Born to Run at home,” Mika had told me so when I saw it in the mid-price section at a local department store soon afterwards, I grabbed it. I remember coming home with the album, and first flipping the cover over to see who Bruce is leaning on - Clarence Clemons, of course - and then opening the cover to reveal the image of a smiling Springsteen, and the lyrics. I sat down, and I listed to the music with the cover, and the lyrics, in front of me, following the stories, from Mary on the porch to Eddie, and Scooter, and the Big Man. 1."Thunder Road" 2."Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"  3."Night"  4. “Backstreets"   Side 2 1."Born to Run"  2."She's the One"  3."Meeting Across the River"  4."Jungleland"  I didn’t know much about New Jersey, and the little that I did know, I had learned from the Rolling Stone magazine which our town’s best newsstand at the square had two copies of each week. I made sure to get one of them. That and a copy of the MAD magazine, with their usual gang of idiots. But our town did have a river and it made for a good meeting point and which teenage boy doesn’t know what it feels like when “she’s so pretty that you’re lost in the stars, as you jockey your way through the cars”. It didn’t matter that there was no one particular “she” for me, because there were still so many shes around me, at school, at the rink. “The Rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night”. I didn’t know Harlem, either, and hadn’t followed the Vietnam war but I did know the New York Rangers. Often, though, by the time Springsteen had sung that opening line of Jungleland, I was already fast asleep on the couch. It was cold and dark outside and I was fast asleep, dreaming about a town full of losers, and pulling out of there to win. It’s December again. It's cold and dark outside. The screen door slams . [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Wed, 12 Dec 2012 15:48:17 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves. Except that it’s not a screen door, and there’s no Mary around. Instead, it’s the door of our microwave oven. I put a Finnish meat pie in there and sit at our kitchen table with a comic book. It's cold and dark outside because it's winter in Joensuu, Finland, a provincial city in eastern Finland, just 102 kilometers from the border between Finland and the Soviet Union. I could have gone to the outside skating rink just outside our house but it's difficult to find the motivation once I've got home from school. The thermometer on the roof of the bank at the market square said it was minus-30 degrees today, just like yesterday. I had wrapped my scarf around my face but it only helped for a short while, until my breath made it wet so it froze. Every time I inhaled, my nostrils seemed to freeze up as well. No, I'd just eat my pie, read my comics, and then put on some Springsteen. Born To Run. The stereo, our good hi-fi system was all mine between 3 pm when I came home from school and 5.30 when Dad came home from work. Mom got in a little earlier, so often I'd take my music to my room, and play the Hobbit or Manic Miner on my ZX Spectrum 64. Born in the USA had come out the previous summer, and I got to borrow the LP from my buddy, Mika, who actually always went by his last name, and who was also my pop culture consultant. He had that Springsteen album, and he had Mellencamp albums from when he was still John Cougar, and he had Huey Lewis when it was all news to me. If it wasn't too cold outside and if I didn't go to the rink, I'd walk the 800 meters from our house to Mika's house, and he'd play Springsteen, and Mellencamp, or the Blues Brothers, and we’d sit in his room, and he’d pull album after album - when they were albums - from his shelf, and tell me all about the band, then play a few tracks. We sort of knew of each other but we became friends during psychology class at school. Many a Wednesday morning we sat next to each other playing a word game we had come up with, in which we chose random words from the pages of the psychology book, and then try to create new words using the letters in that word. The psychology teacher was also our religion teacher, a little old lady who liked to run a tight ship, but simply wasn’t able to do it with a classroom full of teenagers. She got upset very easily, and you could follow her stages of fury just by looking at her. She was like a human thermometer - the kind that we had back then - in that the angrier she was, the redder she got. First it was just her neck, with red spots that got larger and larger, then her chin, then cheeks, until her whole face was crimson. The religion classes were tougher for her than the psychology classes. Psych was optional, religion not. Once, she asked a friend of mine to read a few paragraphs from pages 78-79 out loud - having first woken him up - and by the time he had finished the passage, the red had reached the top of her skull. “We already did that last semester,” she hissed. “Oh, did we?” said my buddy, got up and walked to the waste basket, then ripped the book into two halves and dropped one of them into the basket. Class dismissed. Anyway, it was Mika who had lent me that Born in the USA album, and I taped it one dark winter’s afternoon when I was home alone. And then I’d sit on the floor in our living room with the album cover in front of me, and listen to the songs, and read the lyrics. That spring and summer, Terry, a Canadian exchange student who stayed with us for a few months, watched the Dancing in the Dark video over and over again. Terry was convinced that Bruce was wearing a wig, and he used the then-high tech methods of watching the clip frame-by-frame to prove it to me. “Look at that rug. He must be wearing one, he’s an old man. He’s 35,” he told me. And then we’d watch Courtney Cox climb onto the stage and dance with Bruce. “I wanna change your clothes, your hair, your face,” Terry would sing, and point at me with a smirk on his face. That fall, Terry went back to Canada, and I went back to Mika’s albums. I borrowed Mellencamp’s Scarecrow, and remixes of “Dancing in the Dark”, “Cover me”, and “Born in the USA.” (That’s why I still do an echo in the chorus of Dancing). I borrowed “The River” from Mika after two girls in my class did their Finnish-class presentation on the man and his music, and then, to close it off, played “The River”. Because it’s a double album, and has a running time over 82 minutes, I had to use a 90-minute C cassette, which meant that the songs that ended up on B-side - everything from Point Blank on - didn’t get much play in the house. Even today, when I have all the albums in neat folders on my iTunes, the play counts drop dramatically after Point Blank: Hungry Heart 32, The River 27, The Ties that Bind 20, Point Blank 13, Stolen Car 7, Fade Away 5, Ramrod 5, Drive All Night 4. But I bought a copy of Born to Run because Mika said it was a classic. Back then, Born to Run was already an old album. It had come out ten years earlier, and Springsteen had also recorded three other albums between that and Born in the USA. “Everybody should have Born to Run at home,” Mika had told me so when I saw it in the mid-price section at a local department store soon afterwards, I grabbed it. I remember coming home with the album, and first flipping the cover over to see who Bruce is leaning on - Clarence Clemons, of course - and then opening the cover to reveal the image of a smiling Springsteen, and the lyrics. I sat down, and I listed to the music with the cover, and the lyrics, in front of me, following the stories, from Mary on the porch to Eddie, and Scooter, and the Big Man. 1."Thunder Road" 2."Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"  3."Night"  4. “Backstreets"   Side 2 1."Born to Run"  2."She's the One"  3."Meeting Across the River"  4."Jungleland"  I didn’t know much about New Jersey, and the little that I did know, I had learned from the Rolling Stone magazine which our town’s best newsstand at the square had two copies of each week. I made sure to get one of them. That and a copy of the MAD magazine, with their usual gang of idiots. But our town did have a river and it made for a good meeting point and which teenage boy doesn’t know what it feels like when “she’s so pretty that you’re lost in the stars, as you jockey your way through the cars”. It didn’t matter that there was no one particular “she” for me, because there were still so many shes around me, at school, at the rink. “The Rangers had a homecoming in Harlem late last night”. I didn’t know Harlem, either, and hadn’t followed the Vietnam war but I did know the New York Rangers. Often, though, by the time Springsteen had sung that opening line of Jungleland, I was already fast asleep on the couch. It was cold and dark outside and I was fast asleep, dreaming about a town full of losers, and pulling out of there to win. It’s December again. It's cold and dark outside. The screen door slams . 0b59548d77a247918247ff1be8204006 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/age-against-the-machine My parents were in their early twenties when I was born, even if I didn’t know it then, and to be honest, I didn’t much think about it even as I grew up to understand it. In fact, when my best friend asked the seven-year-old me how old my parents were, I said I didn’t know. “My mother’s 35,” he announced. “Huh. I think mine’s 35, too,” I said, and then we continued our football match. My mother was 28 at the time. Dad was born a year earlier than Mom, but with a four-month age difference between them, they’re practically the same age, which means that Dad’s always been young, too. Of course, he was my father, so he was the big man, but he was young enough to goof around with my buddies, and me. The summer I graduated from high school, just a week before I moved out of the house and into a college dorm, Dad and I walked to the schoolyard between our house and the house that he lives in now, and played basketball, shot some hoops. I remember thinking how cool it was that I could do that with my father. After all, I was 18, and he was an old man. He was forty. T wo weeks ago, he caught me by surprise when we talked on the phone about our upcoming trip, and he mentioned that he was renovating his bathroom. Now, that didn’t surprise me. He’s always been working on something, if not a boat, then a car. If not a car, then something in the house. What surprised me was what he said next. “It’s not going well,” he said. “I guess I just have to admit that I don’t have the energy. You know I’ll be 67 next week,” he added. Dad’s always been, well, youthful. He’s the handyman, he’s the sports guy, the one with all the gags. He’s the guy who can’t not try to bounce a soccer ball on his head whenever one is available, and the man who pulls out all the stops for a laugh. He’s never talked about his age before and I’ve never talked about his age before, either. We just go on about our lives like we’ve always done, going to hockey, talking about this and that, watching James Bond movies, and playing with gadgets. L ast week, when Son, Daughter and I made our trip to Dad’s, I went to that same schoolyard with Daughter. The school’s there, the yard looks almost the same - at least the hoops do - but they have added a couple of new playground items there. One of them is a rope pyramid that “offers a terrific physical challenge for children”. Daughter accepted the challenge. When she got almost to the top, she yelled down to me that I should try it, too. I told her I didn’t want to do it, and I said so only partly because it was so cold outside - the first snow had fallen that night. Another part of me said no because I didn’t want to find myself standing way up there when the bell rang and the kids ran out again so they could ridicule me like that one time in high school when I took a shortcut through the schoolyard early one fall morning, hit a frozen puddle with the front wheel of my bike and fell on the ground. But then I figured that I should accept the challenge and show Daughter how it’s done. So I climbed up, not quite as high as Daughter (to boost her self-confidence), and then down, just in time to be casually standing by the gate when the bell rang, and the kids came running out. Daughter ran to me, and we high-fived each other. “That was cool, Dad,” she said. Of course, all I heard was “cool Dad”. A fter two hockey games, a movie night with Dad and Laurel and Hardy (because I couldn’t get tickets to the new Bond movie and couldn’t find the previous one on DVD), and an update of Dad’s iPhone and the maps on his navigator, it was time for us to go home. Just before we hit the road again to catch our ferry to Sweden, I ran back inside to go to the bathroom. When I got out, Dad was waiting for me at the front door. “Did you see I had painted everything in there? Notice the new tiles? I finished it before you came. Looks good, right?” he said. “Yes. Everything here looks cool, Dad,” I said. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Wed, 05 Dec 2012 12:51:28 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no My parents were in their early twenties when I was born, even if I didn’t know it then, and to be honest, I didn’t much think about it even as I grew up to understand it. In fact, when my best friend asked the seven-year-old me how old my parents were, I said I didn’t know. “My mother’s 35,” he announced. “Huh. I think mine’s 35, too,” I said, and then we continued our football match. My mother was 28 at the time. Dad was born a year earlier than Mom, but with a four-month age difference between them, they’re practically the same age, which means that Dad’s always been young, too. Of course, he was my father, so he was the big man, but he was young enough to goof around with my buddies, and me. The summer I graduated from high school, just a week before I moved out of the house and into a college dorm, Dad and I walked to the schoolyard between our house and the house that he lives in now, and played basketball, shot some hoops. I remember thinking how cool it was that I could do that with my father. After all, I was 18, and he was an old man. He was forty. T wo weeks ago, he caught me by surprise when we talked on the phone about our upcoming trip, and he mentioned that he was renovating his bathroom. Now, that didn’t surprise me. He’s always been working on something, if not a boat, then a car. If not a car, then something in the house. What surprised me was what he said next. “It’s not going well,” he said. “I guess I just have to admit that I don’t have the energy. You know I’ll be 67 next week,” he added. Dad’s always been, well, youthful. He’s the handyman, he’s the sports guy, the one with all the gags. He’s the guy who can’t not try to bounce a soccer ball on his head whenever one is available, and the man who pulls out all the stops for a laugh. He’s never talked about his age before and I’ve never talked about his age before, either. We just go on about our lives like we’ve always done, going to hockey, talking about this and that, watching James Bond movies, and playing with gadgets. L ast week, when Son, Daughter and I made our trip to Dad’s, I went to that same schoolyard with Daughter. The school’s there, the yard looks almost the same - at least the hoops do - but they have added a couple of new playground items there. One of them is a rope pyramid that “offers a terrific physical challenge for children”. Daughter accepted the challenge. When she got almost to the top, she yelled down to me that I should try it, too. I told her I didn’t want to do it, and I said so only partly because it was so cold outside - the first snow had fallen that night. Another part of me said no because I didn’t want to find myself standing way up there when the bell rang and the kids ran out again so they could ridicule me like that one time in high school when I took a shortcut through the schoolyard early one fall morning, hit a frozen puddle with the front wheel of my bike and fell on the ground. But then I figured that I should accept the challenge and show Daughter how it’s done. So I climbed up, not quite as high as Daughter (to boost her self-confidence), and then down, just in time to be casually standing by the gate when the bell rang, and the kids came running out. Daughter ran to me, and we high-fived each other. “That was cool, Dad,” she said. Of course, all I heard was “cool Dad”. A fter two hockey games, a movie night with Dad and Laurel and Hardy (because I couldn’t get tickets to the new Bond movie and couldn’t find the previous one on DVD), and an update of Dad’s iPhone and the maps on his navigator, it was time for us to go home. Just before we hit the road again to catch our ferry to Sweden, I ran back inside to go to the bathroom. When I got out, Dad was waiting for me at the front door. “Did you see I had painted everything in there? Notice the new tiles? I finished it before you came. Looks good, right?” he said. “Yes. Everything here looks cool, Dad,” I said. 00fc35b7c99c4982879944919cfbd3c6 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/names-and-numbers Last week, I was back at the Joensuu rink that was my home rink for four years in my teens. It’s been 25 years since I moved from that town to go to college in Helsinki, and most of my old friends have moved somewhere else, too, but if there’s one place I can see familiar faces, it’s at the rink. Also, the rink pulls me back. I’ve walked around it hundreds of times, I’ve run around it as many times. I’ve jumped up the stairs, I may have eaten hundreds of sausages and chocolate bars there, and I’ve spent countless hours in the cafeteria – that is no longer a cafeteria. I walked around the rink and climbed up to Dad’s old seats, way up in the stands, at the red line. I sat there for a while, watching the game, and noticed some familiar names on the backs of the sweaters, the names of my former teammates, now on the backs of their sons’ sweaters. Then I looked for number 17, because I always do that. E very November, after Son’s birthday and before my Dad’s birthday, Son, Daughter, and I head off to Finland for an early Xmas tour that goes through Helsinki and ends up in Joensuu where Dad lives. It’s a fun tradition - at least I like it - and after six years, I think it’s fair to call it just that, a tradition. Another part of the tradition is going to hockey games. That first year it was just Son and I driving through the winter wonderland that is Finland, and I think we went to games on three consecutive nights, in three different cities – much to Son’s chagrin. Sure, the hotdogs were nice, and yes, it’s always nice to read comics, but the games were just a little too loud and too long. He was only four then, too. The first night, Son, Daughter and I paid a visit to a rink, and as luck would have it, my old team had a game. Well, it wasn’t pure luck. I had been at the rink earlier so I knew there’d be a game later that night. Three minutes into the game, Son got bored, went on an expedition around the rink - he found the cafeteria - and then informed me that he wanted to go back to Grandma’s so I drove him there during the first intermission, then drove back with Daughter, who was bursting with excitement, and questions: “Did you really play for the black team?” “Where’s the one with the golden helmet?” “Why do they have to play music as soon as the play stops?” (My answers: “Yes, I did”, “They only use those in the elite league”, and “I really don’t know.”) We ate sausages, sat in the cafeteria, walked around the rink, watched the game, and stayed until the very end, because Daughter wanted to see the handshaking alley. Afterwards, she told my mother about how I had played for the black team, and as she told her the story, something occurred to her. “Hey, Dad. What number did you have when you played for the blacks?” she asked me. And before I had the chance to say anything, my Mom said: “Seventeen.” Daughter looked at me, her eyebrows raised. “That’s right, that was my number,” I said. “He was always number 17, just like his big idol … whathisname?” said Mom. “Kh..,” I started. “KHARLAMOV,” shouted Mom, “that’s right. Valeri Kharlamov.” T he next day, and 450 kilometers later, Daughter, my father, and I visited another one of my old rinks, now in Joensuu. There was no game, we just wanted to hang out a little, because that’s what Dad and I do when we have nothing to do. We watched at some practice for a good ten minutes, Daughter and I walked around the rink looking for pucks - she found seven - and when we got back home, Daughter asked me if I had played for that team, too. When I said I had, she asked me what number I had worn. “Seventeen,” I said. “Was that your lucky number?” she asked me. “He always wore seventeen, just like Kharlamov,” said Dad quickly. “And yes, then it became my lucky number,” I added. “Did you also have your name on the sweater,” Daughter asked me. I know the name on the front of the sweater is supposed to be more important than the name on the back, but I always dreamed of getting my name on my hockey sweater. (My dreams are small to medium-sized). When I was ten, and Mom had to make the sweater a little smaller to fit me, I insisted that she does it so that the advertising in the back stays on because that’s what made it a real sweater. She did. “No, I never had my name on the sweater,” I told Daughter. “Too bad,” she said. “I know.” I walked down the stairs, and around the corner to the other side of the rink, all the while keeping an eye on the action on the ice. I ended up in the stands behind the bench, where most of the people were. The parents, the buddies, the hockey fans, and the high school girls. Suddenly, I saw him. There he was, the red number 17, flying down the right wing, chasing a puck that went into the corner. I followed him around, as he forechecked and then back-checked, and then, 30 seconds later, climbed over the board for a line change. I looked down to the bench as 17 sat down on the bench and noted that he had his name on the back of the sweater. "Rahunen", it said. That was not a name I recognized from the past. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Sat, 01 Dec 2012 20:37:25 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Last week, I was back at the Joensuu rink that was my home rink for four years in my teens. It’s been 25 years since I moved from that town to go to college in Helsinki, and most of my old friends have moved somewhere else, too, but if there’s one place I can see familiar faces, it’s at the rink. Also, the rink pulls me back. I’ve walked around it hundreds of times, I’ve run around it as many times. I’ve jumped up the stairs, I may have eaten hundreds of sausages and chocolate bars there, and I’ve spent countless hours in the cafeteria – that is no longer a cafeteria. I walked around the rink and climbed up to Dad’s old seats, way up in the stands, at the red line. I sat there for a while, watching the game, and noticed some familiar names on the backs of the sweaters, the names of my former teammates, now on the backs of their sons’ sweaters. Then I looked for number 17, because I always do that. E very November, after Son’s birthday and before my Dad’s birthday, Son, Daughter, and I head off to Finland for an early Xmas tour that goes through Helsinki and ends up in Joensuu where Dad lives. It’s a fun tradition - at least I like it - and after six years, I think it’s fair to call it just that, a tradition. Another part of the tradition is going to hockey games. That first year it was just Son and I driving through the winter wonderland that is Finland, and I think we went to games on three consecutive nights, in three different cities – much to Son’s chagrin. Sure, the hotdogs were nice, and yes, it’s always nice to read comics, but the games were just a little too loud and too long. He was only four then, too. The first night, Son, Daughter and I paid a visit to a rink, and as luck would have it, my old team had a game. Well, it wasn’t pure luck. I had been at the rink earlier so I knew there’d be a game later that night. Three minutes into the game, Son got bored, went on an expedition around the rink - he found the cafeteria - and then informed me that he wanted to go back to Grandma’s so I drove him there during the first intermission, then drove back with Daughter, who was bursting with excitement, and questions: “Did you really play for the black team?” “Where’s the one with the golden helmet?” “Why do they have to play music as soon as the play stops?” (My answers: “Yes, I did”, “They only use those in the elite league”, and “I really don’t know.”) We ate sausages, sat in the cafeteria, walked around the rink, watched the game, and stayed until the very end, because Daughter wanted to see the handshaking alley. Afterwards, she told my mother about how I had played for the black team, and as she told her the story, something occurred to her. “Hey, Dad. What number did you have when you played for the blacks?” she asked me. And before I had the chance to say anything, my Mom said: “Seventeen.” Daughter looked at me, her eyebrows raised. “That’s right, that was my number,” I said. “He was always number 17, just like his big idol … whathisname?” said Mom. “Kh..,” I started. “KHARLAMOV,” shouted Mom, “that’s right. Valeri Kharlamov.” T he next day, and 450 kilometers later, Daughter, my father, and I visited another one of my old rinks, now in Joensuu. There was no game, we just wanted to hang out a little, because that’s what Dad and I do when we have nothing to do. We watched at some practice for a good ten minutes, Daughter and I walked around the rink looking for pucks - she found seven - and when we got back home, Daughter asked me if I had played for that team, too. When I said I had, she asked me what number I had worn. “Seventeen,” I said. “Was that your lucky number?” she asked me. “He always wore seventeen, just like Kharlamov,” said Dad quickly. “And yes, then it became my lucky number,” I added. “Did you also have your name on the sweater,” Daughter asked me. I know the name on the front of the sweater is supposed to be more important than the name on the back, but I always dreamed of getting my name on my hockey sweater. (My dreams are small to medium-sized). When I was ten, and Mom had to make the sweater a little smaller to fit me, I insisted that she does it so that the advertising in the back stays on because that’s what made it a real sweater. She did. “No, I never had my name on the sweater,” I told Daughter. “Too bad,” she said. “I know.” I walked down the stairs, and around the corner to the other side of the rink, all the while keeping an eye on the action on the ice. I ended up in the stands behind the bench, where most of the people were. The parents, the buddies, the hockey fans, and the high school girls. Suddenly, I saw him. There he was, the red number 17, flying down the right wing, chasing a puck that went into the corner. I followed him around, as he forechecked and then back-checked, and then, 30 seconds later, climbed over the board for a line change. I looked down to the bench as 17 sat down on the bench and noted that he had his name on the back of the sweater. "Rahunen", it said. That was not a name I recognized from the past. f2b889d8c4c64a93801bf9a6176b16bc http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/ten-little-stories-about-a-ten-year-old-boy 1. When he was just three apples high, like the Smurfs, one of Son's favorite places to go to was the local park, because there were animals. Some sheep, some horses, some rabbits, some chicken. And a big rooster. Sometimes we took sandwiches with us, other times we bought some cookies or hotdogs there. This was one of the other times. Son got a hotdog in his hand, and he stood there on the park bench, quietly enjoying his hot dog, looking around. At one point, when he was looking around, the rooster snuck up on him, and snatched the hot dog out of his tiny hand. Early lesson to parents. Son can hold a grudge. We don’t like roosters much anymore. 2. Next time you hear somebody say “nobody dreams of becoming a referee”, tell them there’s a kid in Sweden who dislikes all ball games, but doesn’t mind handing out red cards to his buddies. Son has always been like that. When the kids in our apartment building played soccer in the backyard, he ran around blowing in his whistle, a yellow and a red card in his shirt pocket. When Daughter and I play soccer in our backyard these days, Son is on the balcony, calling the game. Either as a ref or as a play-by-play guy. 3. Some days I think he may be a genius. He’s simply so smart. And it makes me a little worried. I don’t mind being the second smartest guy in the room, but I can feel the responsibility of nurturing a budding genius. But then we watch America’s Funniest Home Videos together, I see him laugh at cats scratching a door, and I’m not as worried anymore. 4. The other day he looked at me and said: “You know, I know what I’m going to look like when I grow up. I’m going to look like you.” My little Mini Me. All my life, my father’s friends have told me how much I resemble my Dad. How much? A lot. “You know, people always tell me that I look like Grandpa,” I told Son. “Oh yeah?” “And I can sort of see it, but I think I also look a lot like Grandma.” “No, you don’t”. “Yes, I do.” “Not really.” “I think I do.” “No, Dad. Grandma never messes up her hair.” “Oh, yes she does. You have a photo of that.” “But that was just one time. And she was kidding.” 5. Last night, I was sitting at my desk, doing something, “work stuff” like I always tell Son and Daughter. Suddenly I realized that I heard talk from Son’s room, and when I turned to look, I saw that he was on his cell phone. “OK, see you soon,” he said and hung up. “Who was that?” I asked him. “Mom. She’s going to be a little late.” “Oh. Did she call you or did you call him?” “She called me.” “On your cell?” “That’s right.” “Huh. Why didn’t she call me, I wonder.” “Maybe she trusts me more. After all, I am her offspring, you’re just her husband.” 6. When Son was an only child, and Wife had gone back to work, I sometimes rode my bike across town to pick him up from kindergarten. As soon as I had got on my bike, Son would yell, “Tell me a storrrryyyyyy!” And for the entire nine kilometers, I would have to tell him a story. Or stories. “… And Lucky Luke rode into the sunset. The End. Nice story, right?” I’d say. “No. The Daltons escaped because they had magic paint!” “Fine, so, the Daltons escaped from the prison, using the magic paint that their Grandma had sent them, inside a loaf of bread. But when they came to their hideout, Luke was there waiting for them. The End…” “… But then, Grandma slammed a door in his face…” For a while, I had some concerns about Son always siding with the bad guys. Then I simply decided that he just never wanted the stories to end, so the bad guys had to get away. These days, when we drive through our old neighborhood, he asks me to tell the story about how he made me tell him stories. 7. Sometimes, I think he’s a little too smart. (Not simply a genius). He doesn’t have to persevere and fight for things. Everything’s easy. So I tell him that when I was a kid, I didn’t have any toys. Once I told him that story when my mother was here, and she took a little offense at that. “You had a lot of toys,” she told me. Son grinned. However, when Son makes up his mind, he can do anything. Just like Doc Brown said in “Back to the Future”: "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” Or, as Son would put it: “Just like Dad always says: "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” This fall, like last fall, he went from door to door selling candy, books, DVDs and other things to the people in our neighborhood. He had a catalogue with him so he showed his customers the choices, took their orders, sent them in to the company behind it all, and then delivered the stuff, all the while hoping to reach prize level 8 and get his hands on that Samsung Galaxy Ace. A real smartphone. And he did. (See 5.) 8. I just played “Devil in disguise” on my laptop in our kitchen. “Oooooh, remember ten years ago,” said Wife. Sure I do. As a baby, Son showed his iron will by refusing to fall asleep. One of my tricks to get him to do that was to hold him real right in my arms, and then dance to “Devil in disguise”, and move him fast from left to right, and back. You look like an angel / walk like an angel / talk like an angel / but I got wise You're the devil in disguise (Oh, yes you are). But I’d also whisper, “No, you’re not.” And just 45 minutes later he’d be sleeping like the baby he was. Easy. 9. I’m an only child so I don’t know what it’s like to have a big brother. But I do know that Daughter is one lucky girl to have the big brother she has. She knows it, too, and that makes me one happy guy. 10. At Son’s christening, his Godfather told us to pay attention to not only what we can teach the child, but to what we can learn from him. It seemed like the sort of thing you say at an event like that, but I’ve often thought about how right he was. Son has taught me a lot. Some magic tricks, several good jokes, but mostly just how to be brave and confident. He knows who he is, and that’s why he wasn’t nervous going to a movie shoot a few weeks ago. That’s why he can sit down during the shoot’s lunch break next to the famous Swedish director and ask him if the movie’s going to be any good - “I think it’s going to be great”, Son assured him - and whether it’s going to be rated G. “I just wonder if my six-year-old sister will be able to see the movie,” he explained. And I was sitting there, across the table from Son, next to the director, and all I could do was smile. Another thing I've learned from him is that ten years go by so fast. Happy birthday, Son. Happy birthday. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Wed, 21 Nov 2012 23:12:37 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no 1. When he was just three apples high, like the Smurfs, one of Son's favorite places to go to was the local park, because there were animals. Some sheep, some horses, some rabbits, some chicken. And a big rooster. Sometimes we took sandwiches with us, other times we bought some cookies or hotdogs there. This was one of the other times. Son got a hotdog in his hand, and he stood there on the park bench, quietly enjoying his hot dog, looking around. At one point, when he was looking around, the rooster snuck up on him, and snatched the hot dog out of his tiny hand. Early lesson to parents. Son can hold a grudge. We don’t like roosters much anymore. 2. Next time you hear somebody say “nobody dreams of becoming a referee”, tell them there’s a kid in Sweden who dislikes all ball games, but doesn’t mind handing out red cards to his buddies. Son has always been like that. When the kids in our apartment building played soccer in the backyard, he ran around blowing in his whistle, a yellow and a red card in his shirt pocket. When Daughter and I play soccer in our backyard these days, Son is on the balcony, calling the game. Either as a ref or as a play-by-play guy. 3. Some days I think he may be a genius. He’s simply so smart. And it makes me a little worried. I don’t mind being the second smartest guy in the room, but I can feel the responsibility of nurturing a budding genius. But then we watch America’s Funniest Home Videos together, I see him laugh at cats scratching a door, and I’m not as worried anymore. 4. The other day he looked at me and said: “You know, I know what I’m going to look like when I grow up. I’m going to look like you.” My little Mini Me. All my life, my father’s friends have told me how much I resemble my Dad. How much? A lot. “You know, people always tell me that I look like Grandpa,” I told Son. “Oh yeah?” “And I can sort of see it, but I think I also look a lot like Grandma.” “No, you don’t”. “Yes, I do.” “Not really.” “I think I do.” “No, Dad. Grandma never messes up her hair.” “Oh, yes she does. You have a photo of that.” “But that was just one time. And she was kidding.” 5. Last night, I was sitting at my desk, doing something, “work stuff” like I always tell Son and Daughter. Suddenly I realized that I heard talk from Son’s room, and when I turned to look, I saw that he was on his cell phone. “OK, see you soon,” he said and hung up. “Who was that?” I asked him. “Mom. She’s going to be a little late.” “Oh. Did she call you or did you call him?” “She called me.” “On your cell?” “That’s right.” “Huh. Why didn’t she call me, I wonder.” “Maybe she trusts me more. After all, I am her offspring, you’re just her husband.” 6. When Son was an only child, and Wife had gone back to work, I sometimes rode my bike across town to pick him up from kindergarten. As soon as I had got on my bike, Son would yell, “Tell me a storrrryyyyyy!” And for the entire nine kilometers, I would have to tell him a story. Or stories. “… And Lucky Luke rode into the sunset. The End. Nice story, right?” I’d say. “No. The Daltons escaped because they had magic paint!” “Fine, so, the Daltons escaped from the prison, using the magic paint that their Grandma had sent them, inside a loaf of bread. But when they came to their hideout, Luke was there waiting for them. The End…” “… But then, Grandma slammed a door in his face…” For a while, I had some concerns about Son always siding with the bad guys. Then I simply decided that he just never wanted the stories to end, so the bad guys had to get away. These days, when we drive through our old neighborhood, he asks me to tell the story about how he made me tell him stories. 7. Sometimes, I think he’s a little too smart. (Not simply a genius). He doesn’t have to persevere and fight for things. Everything’s easy. So I tell him that when I was a kid, I didn’t have any toys. Once I told him that story when my mother was here, and she took a little offense at that. “You had a lot of toys,” she told me. Son grinned. However, when Son makes up his mind, he can do anything. Just like Doc Brown said in “Back to the Future”: "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” Or, as Son would put it: “Just like Dad always says: "If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” This fall, like last fall, he went from door to door selling candy, books, DVDs and other things to the people in our neighborhood. He had a catalogue with him so he showed his customers the choices, took their orders, sent them in to the company behind it all, and then delivered the stuff, all the while hoping to reach prize level 8 and get his hands on that Samsung Galaxy Ace. A real smartphone. And he did. (See 5.) 8. I just played “Devil in disguise” on my laptop in our kitchen. “Oooooh, remember ten years ago,” said Wife. Sure I do. As a baby, Son showed his iron will by refusing to fall asleep. One of my tricks to get him to do that was to hold him real right in my arms, and then dance to “Devil in disguise”, and move him fast from left to right, and back. You look like an angel / walk like an angel / talk like an angel / but I got wise You're the devil in disguise (Oh, yes you are). But I’d also whisper, “No, you’re not.” And just 45 minutes later he’d be sleeping like the baby he was. Easy. 9. I’m an only child so I don’t know what it’s like to have a big brother. But I do know that Daughter is one lucky girl to have the big brother she has. She knows it, too, and that makes me one happy guy. 10. At Son’s christening, his Godfather told us to pay attention to not only what we can teach the child, but to what we can learn from him. It seemed like the sort of thing you say at an event like that, but I’ve often thought about how right he was. Son has taught me a lot. Some magic tricks, several good jokes, but mostly just how to be brave and confident. He knows who he is, and that’s why he wasn’t nervous going to a movie shoot a few weeks ago. That’s why he can sit down during the shoot’s lunch break next to the famous Swedish director and ask him if the movie’s going to be any good - “I think it’s going to be great”, Son assured him - and whether it’s going to be rated G. “I just wonder if my six-year-old sister will be able to see the movie,” he explained. And I was sitting there, across the table from Son, next to the director, and all I could do was smile. Another thing I've learned from him is that ten years go by so fast. Happy birthday, Son. Happy birthday. 67b6a17fd6bd40b2b2df9774d4fbc652 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/brother-can-you-spare-a-dime I missed him at first. I guess I was reading my book and, besides, it was the subway, so people are coming and going all the time. Even people with accordions, and guitars. Not that he had any of those. What made me pay attention was a word he used. “You wouldn’t happen to have a few bucks to give to an apartmentless man,” he said. I looked up, and saw that the apartmentless man was a tall, blonde man, all dressed up in denim, holding an empty paper cup in his hand. I know it was empty because he shook it, and I heard nothing. N ow, I never know what to say to people begging for money. I know my instinct is to just keep reading my book, and hope to avoid making an eye contact, but then I feel bad. And I decide to become a better person. Every time that happens, I think back at a trip to Canada when after a good dinner at a Vietnamese place, two of the people in my party - the two women holding the training session on environmental business - asked the waiter to wrap the food up, to go. On our way back to the hotel, they gave the food to a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against one of the downtown buildings. He was so happy that he gave everybody a hug. I once tried something similar in Helsinki. I saw a beggar on his knees at the intersection of Mannerheimintie and Bulevardi, and I saw one empty paper cup in front of him, and a coffee cup behind him. That, too, was empty. I went into the coffee shop in the corner, bought a cup of coffee, and gave it to the man. No hugs. He didn’t seem to appreciate it. O f course, I wasn’t alone in the subway car, and a young man next across the aisle told the man to wait. He’d have something. “That can’t be easy, being without an apartment,” he said, and stood up. “No, it’s not, you know, it’s not like I like doing this.” “I know, I had a buddy who was in the same situation,” said the young man, put his hand in his pocket, and reached for some cash. When he didn’t find anything, he looked dumbfounded. “Wait, wait,” he told the man, and tried his other pocket. Nothing. “It’s OK,” said the tall, blonde homeless man. “It’s fine, I understand.” “No, really, wait. I always have something,” said the man, and looked at his girlfriend who sat opposite to him. “Right?” he said, and she nodded. While he turned his attention to his duffel bag on the seat next to him, I put my hand in my pocket to see if I had any coins there. Meanwhile, the young man rummaged through his bag, but finally he looked at the man, and smiled a little. “I’m sorry. I usually always have something. A little cash. I’m sorry, man,” he said. “It’s OK, it’s OK,” said the homeless man, and looked at me. I smiled a little. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any money on me,” I said and pulled up my empty money clip for proof. “It’s OK. I understand,” he said. “I just have this … it’s made out of a fork,” I added. “It’s nice,” said the man, nodded his head to the couple across the aisle, and walked to the next car. When he had gone, the young man looked at me. “I usually always have money on me, you know,” he said, still frustrated. “Yeah. A bummer,” I said, and decided that the next time, so would I. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Sat, 17 Nov 2012 13:52:48 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no I missed him at first. I guess I was reading my book and, besides, it was the subway, so people are coming and going all the time. Even people with accordions, and guitars. Not that he had any of those. What made me pay attention was a word he used. “You wouldn’t happen to have a few bucks to give to an apartmentless man,” he said. I looked up, and saw that the apartmentless man was a tall, blonde man, all dressed up in denim, holding an empty paper cup in his hand. I know it was empty because he shook it, and I heard nothing. N ow, I never know what to say to people begging for money. I know my instinct is to just keep reading my book, and hope to avoid making an eye contact, but then I feel bad. And I decide to become a better person. Every time that happens, I think back at a trip to Canada when after a good dinner at a Vietnamese place, two of the people in my party - the two women holding the training session on environmental business - asked the waiter to wrap the food up, to go. On our way back to the hotel, they gave the food to a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against one of the downtown buildings. He was so happy that he gave everybody a hug. I once tried something similar in Helsinki. I saw a beggar on his knees at the intersection of Mannerheimintie and Bulevardi, and I saw one empty paper cup in front of him, and a coffee cup behind him. That, too, was empty. I went into the coffee shop in the corner, bought a cup of coffee, and gave it to the man. No hugs. He didn’t seem to appreciate it. O f course, I wasn’t alone in the subway car, and a young man next across the aisle told the man to wait. He’d have something. “That can’t be easy, being without an apartment,” he said, and stood up. “No, it’s not, you know, it’s not like I like doing this.” “I know, I had a buddy who was in the same situation,” said the young man, put his hand in his pocket, and reached for some cash. When he didn’t find anything, he looked dumbfounded. “Wait, wait,” he told the man, and tried his other pocket. Nothing. “It’s OK,” said the tall, blonde homeless man. “It’s fine, I understand.” “No, really, wait. I always have something,” said the man, and looked at his girlfriend who sat opposite to him. “Right?” he said, and she nodded. While he turned his attention to his duffel bag on the seat next to him, I put my hand in my pocket to see if I had any coins there. Meanwhile, the young man rummaged through his bag, but finally he looked at the man, and smiled a little. “I’m sorry. I usually always have something. A little cash. I’m sorry, man,” he said. “It’s OK, it’s OK,” said the homeless man, and looked at me. I smiled a little. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any money on me,” I said and pulled up my empty money clip for proof. “It’s OK. I understand,” he said. “I just have this … it’s made out of a fork,” I added. “It’s nice,” said the man, nodded his head to the couple across the aisle, and walked to the next car. When he had gone, the young man looked at me. “I usually always have money on me, you know,” he said, still frustrated. “Yeah. A bummer,” I said, and decided that the next time, so would I. 03637a327015413baf5ebd57ebbba12b http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/what-are-you-doing-face I’ve known you all my life, and I’ve always been very fond of you. Well, mostly always. I’m not very happy with you now and that’s why it’s time we have a little chat. Quite frankly, I’ve been putting this off long enough, and I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me in the past, so don’t think I’m going to enjoy this. Ahem. You need to shape up. You’re a little too loose these days. I liked you better when you were wound up tighter. It’s like you used to care but now you just let it all hang out in the wind. I think you’re not even trying anymore. I’m looking at you, face. You’ve changed before, I know. Those early versions weren’t your best work, I think we can agree on that, but even if they were disproportionate, and used way too much skin on the cheek parts, there still seemed to be an art to it, a plan, a roadmap. I also have to hand it to you, you’re brave–very brave. Just as I had got accustomed to the bigger model, with less cheek, and more jaw - which also tested well among young females - you added those red spots in the most visible places. Sure, it might have worked – in some other universe, maybe. They didn’t turn into the sort of fireworks you had planned, did they? Popping off at the wrong places and at the wrong times. Well, fortunately, that was just some weird 80s fad, and didn’t last, because I have to say that in the next ten years you produced your best work. The lips, the cheekbones, the jaw, all good stuff. Adding the hair was really a nice touch. Pure genius. Now, let’s be honest here for a second. Let me remind you that it wasn’t all just your doing, I did have some good ideas, too. Like throwing myself in front of that hockey puck which gave me the big lip. Even if it didn’t last, it was an innovation. I can’t take credit for the scar on my forehead, but neither can you. The ninja star hitting me there was pure serendipity. But we became a good team. I knew how to work you. If I lifted my head just so, and did that think with my cheeks, in the right light, we looked good. I couldn’t have been happier with you. During those ten years when you really hit your stride, even with the changes, you always got better, and I could see where you were going with your plan. Each new version was better than the previous one - except for that fat face - and each new version made me forget about the previous one. I remember sometimes looking at photos of older versions of you, and I’d shake my head and smile. You were so silly in the beginning. Then you went overboard again. I didn’t mind the little wrinkles around my eyes, but what’s this flesh hanging under my chin? Bags under my eyes? Another weird joke, I suppose. And the new color. Grey? I hate it. What’s with the ever growing nose? Seriously, my nose is bigger than ever before. You keep adding to the nose, you never go back, and it’s too big now. You should have quit while you were ahead. Also, that never-ending forehead? Not a big fan. I know it’s been all the rage, but it’s a little too radical for my taste. In short, I feel like you’re turning me into something else. Or somebody else. At first I was happy, and excited. When I saw the slightly wider jawline, I thought maybe I’d be like the 1990s Brad Pitt, or the 1960s Marlon Brando, or - I didn’t even have the guts to dream this dream, really - the 1950s Paul Newman. But I would have settled for less. Like my father. Even my grandmother, a handsome woman as she was. But not this. At the rate things are going, in a year or two, I’ll be like Gollum. However, I remain an optimist. I don’t think it’s too late to change back. I think we can turn things around but we have to work together so can you please drop your attitude, and stop mooning me? That is beyond rude. It makes me suspect that you’re trying to go back to one of the early versions, that baby phase - pun intended - and I don’t appreciate it. Let it be known that I would moon you back but, unfortunately, I’m not that flexible anymore. But if you don’t change your attitude and stop that, you can be sure I’ll be having a little chat with Hips, Groins, Back, and Knees, and then you’ll see what that feels like. I hope it won’t come to that. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Thu, 15 Nov 2012 18:27:55 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no I’ve known you all my life, and I’ve always been very fond of you. Well, mostly always. I’m not very happy with you now and that’s why it’s time we have a little chat. Quite frankly, I’ve been putting this off long enough, and I do appreciate everything you’ve done for me in the past, so don’t think I’m going to enjoy this. Ahem. You need to shape up. You’re a little too loose these days. I liked you better when you were wound up tighter. It’s like you used to care but now you just let it all hang out in the wind. I think you’re not even trying anymore. I’m looking at you, face. You’ve changed before, I know. Those early versions weren’t your best work, I think we can agree on that, but even if they were disproportionate, and used way too much skin on the cheek parts, there still seemed to be an art to it, a plan, a roadmap. I also have to hand it to you, you’re brave–very brave. Just as I had got accustomed to the bigger model, with less cheek, and more jaw - which also tested well among young females - you added those red spots in the most visible places. Sure, it might have worked – in some other universe, maybe. They didn’t turn into the sort of fireworks you had planned, did they? Popping off at the wrong places and at the wrong times. Well, fortunately, that was just some weird 80s fad, and didn’t last, because I have to say that in the next ten years you produced your best work. The lips, the cheekbones, the jaw, all good stuff. Adding the hair was really a nice touch. Pure genius. Now, let’s be honest here for a second. Let me remind you that it wasn’t all just your doing, I did have some good ideas, too. Like throwing myself in front of that hockey puck which gave me the big lip. Even if it didn’t last, it was an innovation. I can’t take credit for the scar on my forehead, but neither can you. The ninja star hitting me there was pure serendipity. But we became a good team. I knew how to work you. If I lifted my head just so, and did that think with my cheeks, in the right light, we looked good. I couldn’t have been happier with you. During those ten years when you really hit your stride, even with the changes, you always got better, and I could see where you were going with your plan. Each new version was better than the previous one - except for that fat face - and each new version made me forget about the previous one. I remember sometimes looking at photos of older versions of you, and I’d shake my head and smile. You were so silly in the beginning. Then you went overboard again. I didn’t mind the little wrinkles around my eyes, but what’s this flesh hanging under my chin? Bags under my eyes? Another weird joke, I suppose. And the new color. Grey? I hate it. What’s with the ever growing nose? Seriously, my nose is bigger than ever before. You keep adding to the nose, you never go back, and it’s too big now. You should have quit while you were ahead. Also, that never-ending forehead? Not a big fan. I know it’s been all the rage, but it’s a little too radical for my taste. In short, I feel like you’re turning me into something else. Or somebody else. At first I was happy, and excited. When I saw the slightly wider jawline, I thought maybe I’d be like the 1990s Brad Pitt, or the 1960s Marlon Brando, or - I didn’t even have the guts to dream this dream, really - the 1950s Paul Newman. But I would have settled for less. Like my father. Even my grandmother, a handsome woman as she was. But not this. At the rate things are going, in a year or two, I’ll be like Gollum. However, I remain an optimist. I don’t think it’s too late to change back. I think we can turn things around but we have to work together so can you please drop your attitude, and stop mooning me? That is beyond rude. It makes me suspect that you’re trying to go back to one of the early versions, that baby phase - pun intended - and I don’t appreciate it. Let it be known that I would moon you back but, unfortunately, I’m not that flexible anymore. But if you don’t change your attitude and stop that, you can be sure I’ll be having a little chat with Hips, Groins, Back, and Knees, and then you’ll see what that feels like. I hope it won’t come to that. 58e3ec106db746238d3e865af4c41091 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/one-poem-two-messages First in Swedish: Finns kiss? [Not.] Finns fart. Hit … Ned. Hit … Faster. Rita bad. Slut. And now in English: Finns kiss? [Not.] Finns fart. Hit … Ned. Hit … Faster. Rita bad. Slut. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Tue, 13 Nov 2012 20:00:43 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no First in Swedish: Finns kiss? [Not.] Finns fart. Hit … Ned. Hit … Faster. Rita bad. Slut. And now in English: Finns kiss? [Not.] Finns fart. Hit … Ned. Hit … Faster. Rita bad. Slut. a2756d35f2974150bf222f3525e8d20b http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/the-bicycle-grief Somebody stole my bike. My trusty sidekick, my ride, my wheels, my friend. Gone. It was so sudden, and so unexpected. I had ridden it to the mall, just a kilometer from our house, and left it at the almost-usual-spot. I usually parked my bike next to the hotel bikes, but since there were only a few bikes closer to the main door, I decided to leave it there. I went, got changed, walked around the gym, and walked out 35 minutes later. And just twenty minutes later, I had gone through all five stages of grief. 9:30 pm. Denial I walked out of the mall and got to the place where I expected to see my buddy. The spot was empty. The same old black bike that had been there before was still there but where my white Apollo was supposed to be, there was just an empty space. Instead of thinking that my bike had been stolen, I slapped my forehead. Silly me. I must have left it somewhere else, I thought. How could I forget such a thing, though? Weird. Could I have got confused with the days? Maybe I had parked it here yesterday… “Oh, now I know. Those kids I saw being rowdy on the escalator earlier. They had a strange look on their faces when I stopped to stare at them from the bottom of the stairs. Aaaah, now I know. They have moved my bike. What a prank,” I muttered to myself as I walked around the bike park. “Good one, guys. Good one. I bet it’s behind the dumpster.” It wasn’t. 9:33 Anger “Somebody stole my bike!” I yelled into the phone before anyone had even answered. “Hello?” said Wife. “My bike! It’s gone. Somebody’s stolen my bike. Those sonsabitches!” “No!” “Yes!” “NO!” “YES!” We went back and forth a couple of times like that while I walked back and forth outside the mall. Around the bike park once again, around the library, to the alley between the library and the mall, turning around, turning around again, and just as I was about to turn around a third time, to go back to the mall, I was stopped by a man. “Are you lost?” “No. I’M ANGRY!” The man looked confused. “Somebody stole my bike,” I said. “Oh. Sorry.” 9:36 Bargaining I walked back to the spot where I had left my Apollo just 45 minutes earlier. A cable used to attach bikes to the stand was lying on ground. The black bike that was still there was locked to the stand. “Why didn’t I do that? Had I locked it to the stand, they wouldn’t have been able to take it. Better yet, had I never gone to the gym, my bike wouldn’t have been here, and it wouldn’t have got stolen,” I said to myself again. I hadn’t really even wanted to go to the gym, but during the evening, I had changed my mind. And then I had changed it back. And then I again. It had gone on like that for a good twenty minutes, until I had had to rush out and take the bike if I wanted to get to the gym at all. I decided never to go to the gym again. With a little bit of anger left in my body, I decided to call on Universe’s help. Well, you know all those stories of people losing something, and then tweeting about it, and getting their phones/bikes/wallets back in an hour or so? That was my plan. I would tweet about my loss, my 629 Tweeps would rush to my aid, and we’d all look back at this and laugh. “Ok, Twitter. Stolen bike in Sollentuna. Disappeared 15 mins ago. Get to work, social media. /Sad and Angry”. 9:39 Depression Still in rage, I walked to the train station, expecting to see a man in a mask carry a white bike up the stairs. And the more I thought about it, the more real it began to sound, so I started to run because I didn’t want to miss him. Nobody carried a bike anywhere. I walked through the underpass, to the other side of the tracks - having decided that that’s where the masked man was - but didn’t catch the thief. My run turned into a walk, and my walked into a slow walk as I kicked rocks on the ground. Why me? Why my bike? Of all the bikes there, why mine? Because it was the best and the coolest, of course. And now I’d never see it again. I walked to the police station that was just around the corner, ready to report a theft. While I didn’t have forensic evidence from the crime scene, the trail was fresh. Surely the police could get on the case. The police station was dark, and empty, but the door was open. I walked in, and imagined going through a binder full of mug shots - although I obviously hadn’t been an eye witness - but instead was greeted by a blinking light for “799”. The last queue number they had served (and protected) that day. I left the police station, walked back to the mall, walked back inside the mall - maybe the kids’ prank had been even better that I thought and the bike was parked next to the cheese shop? - and then walked home. I remembered the first time my bike got stolen. It was the blue “Cross”, with the banana seat. That had been stolen from our apartment building. They had broken in through the bike storage entrance. Dad even found marks on the lock. I thought back to that autumn day when my moped was stolen from our front yard. I had been out playing hockey all day, in a tournament, and when I got back, the moped was gone. They had stolen it in broad daylight. And I hadn’t even been 15 so I hadn’t got to ride that moped much. And I remembered the bikes that disappeared from under our bedroom window six years ago. I never got them them back. I’d never get my Apollo back. 9:49 Acceptance I came home and Wife gave me a hug. “Those bastards!” she said. “I know, but what can you do.” “File a report with the police.” “I was there but the station was closed. But I will … I guess.” Wife said she’d keep an eye on the local Internet site where people buy and sell their possessions. I was going to do the same. And if my bike showed up, we’d go there, and buy the bike, with a police. Maybe with an undercover cop. I went into my little office to check Twitter. There were no retweets but I saw that I had got a reply. It was from a colleague in Vancouver. He wrote: “Just buy a new one.” I sighed, and then typed a reply. “Sure.” [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Sat, 10 Nov 2012 13:52:52 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no Somebody stole my bike. My trusty sidekick, my ride, my wheels, my friend. Gone. It was so sudden, and so unexpected. I had ridden it to the mall, just a kilometer from our house, and left it at the almost-usual-spot. I usually parked my bike next to the hotel bikes, but since there were only a few bikes closer to the main door, I decided to leave it there. I went, got changed, walked around the gym, and walked out 35 minutes later. And just twenty minutes later, I had gone through all five stages of grief. 9:30 pm. Denial I walked out of the mall and got to the place where I expected to see my buddy. The spot was empty. The same old black bike that had been there before was still there but where my white Apollo was supposed to be, there was just an empty space. Instead of thinking that my bike had been stolen, I slapped my forehead. Silly me. I must have left it somewhere else, I thought. How could I forget such a thing, though? Weird. Could I have got confused with the days? Maybe I had parked it here yesterday… “Oh, now I know. Those kids I saw being rowdy on the escalator earlier. They had a strange look on their faces when I stopped to stare at them from the bottom of the stairs. Aaaah, now I know. They have moved my bike. What a prank,” I muttered to myself as I walked around the bike park. “Good one, guys. Good one. I bet it’s behind the dumpster.” It wasn’t. 9:33 Anger “Somebody stole my bike!” I yelled into the phone before anyone had even answered. “Hello?” said Wife. “My bike! It’s gone. Somebody’s stolen my bike. Those sonsabitches!” “No!” “Yes!” “NO!” “YES!” We went back and forth a couple of times like that while I walked back and forth outside the mall. Around the bike park once again, around the library, to the alley between the library and the mall, turning around, turning around again, and just as I was about to turn around a third time, to go back to the mall, I was stopped by a man. “Are you lost?” “No. I’M ANGRY!” The man looked confused. “Somebody stole my bike,” I said. “Oh. Sorry.” 9:36 Bargaining I walked back to the spot where I had left my Apollo just 45 minutes earlier. A cable used to attach bikes to the stand was lying on ground. The black bike that was still there was locked to the stand. “Why didn’t I do that? Had I locked it to the stand, they wouldn’t have been able to take it. Better yet, had I never gone to the gym, my bike wouldn’t have been here, and it wouldn’t have got stolen,” I said to myself again. I hadn’t really even wanted to go to the gym, but during the evening, I had changed my mind. And then I had changed it back. And then I again. It had gone on like that for a good twenty minutes, until I had had to rush out and take the bike if I wanted to get to the gym at all. I decided never to go to the gym again. With a little bit of anger left in my body, I decided to call on Universe’s help. Well, you know all those stories of people losing something, and then tweeting about it, and getting their phones/bikes/wallets back in an hour or so? That was my plan. I would tweet about my loss, my 629 Tweeps would rush to my aid, and we’d all look back at this and laugh. “Ok, Twitter. Stolen bike in Sollentuna. Disappeared 15 mins ago. Get to work, social media. /Sad and Angry”. 9:39 Depression Still in rage, I walked to the train station, expecting to see a man in a mask carry a white bike up the stairs. And the more I thought about it, the more real it began to sound, so I started to run because I didn’t want to miss him. Nobody carried a bike anywhere. I walked through the underpass, to the other side of the tracks - having decided that that’s where the masked man was - but didn’t catch the thief. My run turned into a walk, and my walked into a slow walk as I kicked rocks on the ground. Why me? Why my bike? Of all the bikes there, why mine? Because it was the best and the coolest, of course. And now I’d never see it again. I walked to the police station that was just around the corner, ready to report a theft. While I didn’t have forensic evidence from the crime scene, the trail was fresh. Surely the police could get on the case. The police station was dark, and empty, but the door was open. I walked in, and imagined going through a binder full of mug shots - although I obviously hadn’t been an eye witness - but instead was greeted by a blinking light for “799”. The last queue number they had served (and protected) that day. I left the police station, walked back to the mall, walked back inside the mall - maybe the kids’ prank had been even better that I thought and the bike was parked next to the cheese shop? - and then walked home. I remembered the first time my bike got stolen. It was the blue “Cross”, with the banana seat. That had been stolen from our apartment building. They had broken in through the bike storage entrance. Dad even found marks on the lock. I thought back to that autumn day when my moped was stolen from our front yard. I had been out playing hockey all day, in a tournament, and when I got back, the moped was gone. They had stolen it in broad daylight. And I hadn’t even been 15 so I hadn’t got to ride that moped much. And I remembered the bikes that disappeared from under our bedroom window six years ago. I never got them them back. I’d never get my Apollo back. 9:49 Acceptance I came home and Wife gave me a hug. “Those bastards!” she said. “I know, but what can you do.” “File a report with the police.” “I was there but the station was closed. But I will … I guess.” Wife said she’d keep an eye on the local Internet site where people buy and sell their possessions. I was going to do the same. And if my bike showed up, we’d go there, and buy the bike, with a police. Maybe with an undercover cop. I went into my little office to check Twitter. There were no retweets but I saw that I had got a reply. It was from a colleague in Vancouver. He wrote: “Just buy a new one.” I sighed, and then typed a reply. “Sure.” 77908b43f1c2412d8b4e58f5f467d961 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home/item/behind-the-mask “They get paid for that? It’s their job ? I want that job!” – Daughter, having heard that you have to buy a ticket to a hockey game so that the clubs can pay the players’ salaries. I can understand that she didn’t know the players were pros but it had never occurred to me that Daughter wouldn’t know you had to pay to go to a game. Then again, kids think different. Back in the day when Dad started to take me to hockey games, the seats in the big Helsinki rink weren’t even seats, but long wooden benches, which made it easier for Dad and me, or Dad, his buddy, and me - two and a half men, if you will - to sit next to each other at games than it is now, with them fancy individual seats. (And yes, I’m bigger, too, wise guy). Now, for a four-year-old, a hockey game was much more than a game, it was a big, in some cases life-altering event, starting from the moment we walked in through the doors, and Dad gave his doorman buddy a piece of paper for him to tear as if it were a ticket, and heard the sound of kids selling popcorn and game programs. “POOOOOOOPCOOOOOOOOOORN!” yelled one, carrying a big box full of bags of popcorn around his neck. “PROGRAM FOR A FIVER!” replied his buddy standing in front of the next section. We walked in, often way up and to the side, because chances were there were empty spots. During the first period, Dad would then look around to see if there were empty seats in the lower sections, and if there were - which was often the case - we’d go down during the first intermission. The best time to do that was right after the end of the first period when people were leaving their seats, and everybody was coming and going which kept the ushers busy and preoccupied. Dad’s buddy would sometimes go get us some snacks, popcorn, or sausages, and we’d sit on our places and hold a seat for him. Back then, the intermission show was a slide show. As soon as the period ended, the rink went dark, and advertisements were projected on to the ice. Ads for Chicago chewing gum - click - and for motor oil. “FROM SHELL!” said a deep, deep, man’s voice. Click-a. Ads for shoes and clothes. Then the lights went back on, and the teams got back to the ice as the cloud of cigarette smoke floated in the air. I remember sitting there at a game, with my father and one of his buddies, watching another game, and suddenly realizing that the goalies sure were different from everybody else. The goalies looked different, very different, and what baffled me most, I never saw people like that on the streets. Somehow I understood that the skaters were men, just like Dad, but I couldn’t understand that goalies, too, were just regular men with different kind of equipment. They looked so strange. Surely there was a special breed of people for that job. But where were they? So I asked Dad. “Oh, they’re just regular people who wear masks and thick pads,” he said. “I can make you a mask like that if you’d like,” he added. I did. But every once in a while, I still think it’d be nice to meet one of them goalies on the street. [Podcast automatically created from feed http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php by podcastomatic.com.] Mon, 05 Nov 2012 16:26:12 +0000 http://www.ristopakarinen.com/home//xml-rss2.php no “They get paid for that? It’s their job ? I want that job!” – Daughter, having heard that you have to buy a ticket to a hockey game so that the clubs can pay the players’ salaries. I can understand that she didn’t know the players were pros but it had never occurred to me that Daughter wouldn’t know you had to pay to go to a game. Then again, kids think different. Back in the day when Dad started to take me to hockey games, the seats in the big Helsinki rink weren’t even seats, but long wooden benches, which made it easier for Dad and me, or Dad, his buddy, and me - two and a half men, if you will - to sit next to each other at games than it is now, with them fancy individual seats. (And yes, I’m bigger, too, wise guy). Now, for a four-year-old, a hockey game was much more than a game, it was a big, in some cases life-altering event, starting from the moment we walked in through the doors, and Dad gave his doorman buddy a piece of paper for him to tear as if it were a ticket, and heard the sound of kids selling popcorn and game programs. “POOOOOOOPCOOOOOOOOOORN!” yelled one, carrying a big box full of bags of popcorn around his neck. “PROGRAM FOR A FIVER!” replied his buddy standing in front of the next section. We walked in, often way up and to the side, because chances were there were empty spots. During the first period, Dad would then look around to see if there were empty seats in the lower sections, and if there were - which was often the case - we’d go down during the first intermission. The best time to do that was right after the end of the first period when people were leaving their seats, and everybody was coming and going which kept the ushers busy and preoccupied. Dad’s buddy would sometimes go get us some snacks, popcorn, or sausages, and we’d sit on our places and hold a seat for him. Back then, the intermission show was a slide show. As soon as the period ended, the rink went dark, and advertisements were projected on to the ice. Ads for Chicago chewing gum - click - and for motor oil. “FROM SHELL!” said a deep, deep, man’s voice. Click-a. Ads for shoes and clothes. Then the lights went back on, and the teams got back to the ice as the cloud of cigarette smoke floated in the air. I remember sitting there at a game, with my father and one of his buddies, watching another game, and suddenly realizing that the goalies sure were different from everybody else. The goalies looked different, very different, and what baffled me most, I never saw people like that on the streets. Somehow I understood that the skaters were men, just like Dad, but I couldn’t understand that goalies, too, were just regular men with different kind of equipment. They looked so strange. Surely there was a special breed of people for that job. But where were they? So I asked Dad. “Oh, they’re just regular people who wear masks and thick pads,” he said. “I can make you a mask like that if you’d like,” he added. I did. But every once in a while, I still think it’d be nice to meet one of them goalies on the street.