Lance Allred the official website of the Lance Allred who is not the professional Poker player

Merry Christmas-

I got to spend my first Christmas with my family at home in years…. for example, I spent my last christmas flying to Albuquerque, New Mexico to play a game the next day, but only ended up catching the flu anyway, making it all for naught.

Furthermore, with the downtime that I have very much appreciated, I was able to finish my book, God and Shield, my historical fiction about a teutonic knight. I have actually been working on that book since 2005, so I am grateful I finally finished it. It truly became a love/hate relationship with that book.

Lately, I have had many people run into me or send me emails lately about how much they enjoyed Longshot, but with the truth that they got it from the library. On one hand, I am grateful that they got to hear my story and it helped them in some way, but there is no sort of record that keeps track of how many times my book was checked from the library- only overall book sales. So, while yes, it is nice that people are growing to know my story, it does not help future prospects for more books to be published, when consumers get them from the library or even buy them used on amazon, because in the capitalist market we live in, if my books don’t sell, I can’t continue to write more books…. it’s a vicious catch-22 with the library system and amazon.

Who knew the public library system would actually become my enemy?

Here is to hoping the paperback, which will be much cheaper than the hardback, takes off when it comes out in May. I’ve always wanted to be a paperback writer…..

Happy New Year, and please do me a favor and don’t set a new year’s resolution, instead set a resolution today. You don’t need some abstract day called January 1st, to make a goal, when you can make one at any moment, whenever you want.

Dark Night of the Soul-

I have been home in the US now for near two weeks, confined away on a couch, reading, researching and pondering my own mind and YES… meditating, and experiencing the adrenaline rush that is fear of the unknown as the mind separates from the body. Not afraid to admit it anymore. We are all extensions of God. And we are all prophets.

While sitting here waiting to see where life next needs me in the world of basketball, I have been scheming and plotting the sequel to Longshot. I know the title, but won’t give it away now. And while it is still fueled by basketball, I will now be having a sharp turn from the norm, as I will now be talking of the Dark Night of the Soul, which I traversed in Italy and the enlightenment that followed, as well as the enlightenment I still chase. Existentialism? Quantum Physics? Transcendentalism? Basketball? Mafia? A perfect blend!

I have been thinking of the ways to tell the story without being a blowhard, as I have been pondering these thoughts and other meanings: to existence and God, and our realities and does the world need a savior, or does it already have/had many saviors through the ages, and was Jesus a truly enlightened being, who understood the power of thoughts, and knew that thoughts truly materialize into matter- thoughts are things. So he was a savior, and so was Buddha, so was Ghandi.

I have been hesitant to tell of these thoughts, especially now, since Dan Brown beat me to the punch. Recently, I cluelessly picked up Dan Brown’s new book, no clue what it was about. I had no idea I would literally be looking in the mirror and see all the thoughts I have been pondering over the last few months since the Dark Night, reflecting back to me. It was encouraging, and overwhelming as well. Yet, part of me was discouraged, feeling that Dan Brown stole my mojo…..but then again, Buddha, Mohammed and Jesus all beat us to the punch as well…. this is not a race. And knowledge is not limited to any one mind.

I am not too worried about gravitating or at least reaching out to welcome a new audience, while still hoping to maintain those who already follow me thanks to the game that is basketball. I understand that many felt I wrote too little of basketball, as well, there were some who felt I wrote too much of basketball. I will be second-guessed either way, and thus I must follow where the inspiration leads me. And hopefully as I do, newer readers will join, and many, if not all of my basketball followers will come with me as I continue to climb the ladder to “heaven,” that is my mind.

But don’t worry, there is still plenty of basketball to write about as well.

I have traversed through the Dark Night of the Soul, and I have lived to tell of it- And so I will.

Happy Thanksgiving…. To Me!

It appeared that the gods were smiling on me this year, and fortuitously allowing my contract in Pesaro to end just in time for me to fly back home for Thanksgiving! As I packed up my bags, not worrying about where the next job would be coming from, I was giddy with excitement, imagining the sweet potato and pecan pies, and the turkey and mashy tates.

Ali, the team manager picked me up at 4 am and drove me to Bologna, where I caught a flight to Paris, that then would be connected straight to Seattle, then to Missoula, Montana as the family is converging there this year… and I am very happy about that.

It was a grueling 10 hour flight, mostly because of the 18-month-old across the aisle from me that was something out of this world. He cried the WHOLE time. All 10 hours. I am not lying. Just sobbing and sobbing. While his mother and grandmother, both of whom wore Indian/Hindu attire, peacefully ignored him. About 2 hours into the flight my annoyance towards the young child soon turned to respect and even admiration, as this kid was not going to break. No. He was going to cry, tears streaming down his cheeks for 10 straight hours. Like a train wreck, I could not turn away. The need for sleep that could only be achieved if the kid would ever stop screaming, was soon trumped by my fascination as I just observed, with veneration, this demi-god in human baby form. “HE will eventually have to make himself sick,” I reasoned, believing that he could not go on that much longer screaming and wailing. “Or at least he will just tire himself out, and he will just pass out and go to sleep.”

Nope. This kid easily lost half of his body weight through tear drops in the ten hour flight, but as it was no matter, as damn it all, he was determined to cry the whole time. And he was going to do it. Oh yes, he was.
We landed and went through customs, allowing ourselves to believe it really is making a difference, and then I sat in Seattle for a 4 and a half hour layover. My agent John lives in Seattle, but he ignored me, as he no doubt was not wanting to have to share any pie with me, knowing full well that I would devour them.

Finally the plane begins to board to Missoula, Montana. I get on, and take my seat. Not a very full flight. I turn my hearing aids off as the sound of the jet engines, especially when the doors are still open, cause my hearing aids to go haywire. We take off. 45 min flight.

I look out the window as the plane descends and I am trying to find the familiar sights, but I am not seeing anything. What direction did we fly in from? I look over across the aisle and I see a canadian passport, and then another, and then another. I turn to the people behind, canadian passport. “Excuse me,” I ask politely. “This plane is going to Missoula, Montana right.”
A smile, but then a ghostly pale face of pity creeps on the lady’s face. “You’re joking right?” She sees my face. “Oh, please tell me you’re joking.”
“No.”
“Oh. No. We have just landed in Kelowna.”
I blink. “Is it then connecting to Missoula?”
“No.”
I then am taken back by a hot flash, as I begin to sweat in 3 seconds flat. I barely am able to murmur, “Um….. well, where is Kelowna?”
“British Columbia.”
I tried. Oh I tried, but I could not stop the tears welling up in my eyes, as I dropped my head and just started sobbing. Just like that little boy on the flight from Paris- He taught me well.

How does this happen?
Well, I don’t like to talk about my hearing very much. On poor quality intercoms and speakers, and even on the best of them, I don’t hear them well, the garbled, static swamped words. I just don’t. And I don’t admit it very well either.
And so when the intercom says, “we are now boarding to Kelowna,” it sounds like Missoula, at least to me it does, because I hear and count the 3 syllables….
KE-LOW-NA
MI-SOU-LA
And the vowels are not precise, but are similar in their tone and pronunciation.
And on the shoddy schedule board, it shows that Missoula is indeed up next to be departing from gate c-10.
How the ticket machine did not register, nor the gate attendant missed my ticket, I don’t know.
How I got on an international flight without showing my passport….. I don’t know.

And of course the one seat I am sitting in, 18-b, is a vacant seat on the plane to Kelowna, so nothing is brought up. Had someone been in that seat, obviously an awkward and embarrassing moment would have ensued and I would have taken a walk of shame of the plane. But I would rather have that and still have Thanksgiving dinner with my family for the first time in a long time, than sitting in the back of an emptying plane, somewhere in Canada, doing a sob of shame.

Furthermore, had I not turned my hearing aids off, like I usually do when boarding a plane, I might have heard the flight attendant say something about Canada….

It was just a perfect storm- concocted by the very gods that I thought were being gracious by letting me come home. Nope, they had to get one last laugh in, before cutting me free.

So, here I am now, in the hotel that the airline has arranged, as they will be flying me back to Seattle tomorrow and then connecting me to Missoula on the same flight I missed today. But, thankfully we call it Thanksgiving weekend for a reason, and my family will now be having Thanksgiving on Friday this year. But still, it would have been nice to be home today, on the real Thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving Mom…… hopefully next year.

Now…. let’s Google Kelowna and find out just where in the hell it is exactly.

Postcards from Urbino-

An excerpt from my most recent book and collection of short stories and poems, which I am about to complete, The Pesaro Poems

Hey Mom,

Hope you are well.

I finally found that great Medieval European City I have been hoping to find- Urbino. (Which is obvious from the postcard.)

It is a fantastic Renaissance era city, that was once home to Raphael, and only 30 minutes from Pesaro. It is by far my favorite city I have encountered in all my travels. I wish you could have been here today. I spent the day walking the old brick and stone streets, through narrow and wide alleyways, through grotto chapels and grandiose cathedrals, and Raphael’s house. Just outside of his house, I bought a gelato, as well as one for the little bambino next to me. But he forget to say Grazie, but I am sure it was because he was so surprised that I was either giving him an gelato cone or else at the sheer magnitude of my sheer; coy little bambino.

Urbino has completely captured my imagination. It is small enough to walk through and back in 2 hours, seeing everything that you need to see, at least within the old medieval walls, where the heart of the city and university reside, which rests atop its own hill among a landscape of many other hills that are spotted and checkered with patchwork of farm land and vineyards. Italians know how to get the most out of what land they have to work with.

It is beautiful. It is the picture perfect Italian setting I have imagined in my mind that I would hope to one day see.

Also, I found my favorite spot/seat in the entire world- It is on the western hill, above the city, where the old fort lies, overlooking the heart of Urbino and the great Cathedral and Ducal Palace. I discovered it as I was walking back to the car, when a tiny archway appeared in the old city wall, and I entered it out of curiosity, not sure where it led to, but I am big enough that I am never usually worried about someone mugging me, daring caution to come and do what it will.

When I ascended to the top of the staircase, it opened out into a courtyard, overlooking the city below. As I did, the church bell struck 5pm in perfect sequence, as the sun was setting and the old bricks of the palace and cathedral caught fire from the light.

I took a seat on a log, and I just sat there and marveled at this amazing renaissance city, nothing like I had ever seen, but had hoped to see for all my life. And to realize it was not a fantasy, but that such a place existed, was the greatest find I have ever happened upon in all of my travels across the globe. I sat there for an hour. Just sat there. Didn’t think about anything. I was just there. Present and aware. Watching.

I wish you could have been here to see it with me. It was a perfect day. A nice, crisp 59 degree fall day. Perfect for a long walk. I was only wearing a t-shirt and the Italians looked at me as though I was crazy, while they wore their winter blizzard coats, shivering their fears from their chatting teeth about how hyperthermia was soon about to set in for them at any moment. They have no idea what cold is.

“You should wear a coat,”an elderly lady chastised me after chatting with me about Pesaro Basket. “November comes.” I smiled conceding her point. But then my heart sank.

Yes, November comes.

A reminder that another thanksgiving away from home is coming my way. Too many Thanksgivings now have come and gone quietly, by myself with a makeshift dinner, while I can only hope the rest of my family is having a wonderful one. Too many come and gone. Too many missed Thursday morning flag football games and afternoon spectating, with you making your perfect meal, as I lazily slumber down for a nice nap, before and after dinner. Another missed day with my family. All for this game called basketball, that I could not tell you if I even love anymore.

It has been a tough fall. As you know, we are just waiting to see what happens when my contract expires in Pesaro in a few weeks, and all I can do is bide my time, and wait for the fates to send me wherever it is they would wish to send me.

How do I know I don’t love the game anymore? I don’t really know, or know the right words at least. I guess I just feel like I am the giver, in a relationship of unrequited love. It is not that much different from a human relationship really- I am too easy, I am too available to her. And thus she takes me for granted, while she chases after the boys who don’t give her enough attention, rewarding them with the love that I would kill for, and work so hard for, but can never have. It is a vicious cycle. It really is the only way to describe why and how it works, and that basketball is a living intelligence, and thus she is as flawed and fickle as the next human. And I am at this point where I am done giving, and I am done loving, until she decides she wants to own up to her part. And when I am gone, she can then realize how much she misses me and how she took me for granted, but I wont be holding my breathe for that day, for I will have moved on.

But there is another truth that I cannot avoid. And that is there is a part of me that does not care if she loves me back, because I do not expect it in return. I don’t love to be loved in return. I never have. This is not to say that I love, to be a martyr….. No. But that, I love, to love. I love just to be able to give love. I love so that I can feel life.

And so basketball chooses not to love me back with the love I have given her, that is fine, and there is a reason why she is dying. She has lost her soul. It has been gutted, and she has been blinded to all the lights and wealth and attention shown her way, and for awhile she could get away with it. But now, the game is dying, because she has forgotten to be grateful for the blue-collars like me and many others, who toil and work harder, for less, in the back rows, while she gives her lion’s-share to those with great, raw talent, but who couldn’t be less interested. She shares the same mortal flaws as we humans. But that is ok, because I still love her. And I always will. I guess MacLean said it best, when we can love someone, something completely, without completely understanding them. I don’t understand her, but I will always love her. Is it fair? No. But that is life.

And this is life. And this my life now. I feel like I haven’t seen you or Mac in 2 years, that is how dark and deep these trails have gone into the essence of who and what I choose to be. These last 2 months have been the hardest, but also the most triumphant of my life.

So, the game has not given me millions, like she has for others who have worked far less.

Nor have I received a multi-million dollar shoe contract or other endorsement offers, like some of the lucky ones.

But I have received something that cannot be bought and is worth more than anything that the game could ever offer me.

And I have only recently found it, somewhere on the beaches of Pesaro, and the streets of Urbino- Freedom from the opinions of others.

And that is why I am here. That is why I am in Italy. I would never have found it at home, in Cleveland or elsewhere in the NBA. Only here, after emerging from the fire, from the hell that almost sent me out a window, only here could I have found it. And it is mine.

I have won.

And that is reality.

This is my reality.

And God is reality.

And I cannot argue with God.

Keep a place for me at the table this Thanksgiving.

Loving you always,

From these immortal streets of Urbino,

Your Son,

Lance Collin Allred

Being-

Hey folks, you will be happy to know that I am nearly finished with my second book, as well as a compilation of poetry that I have blazed through while being here in Pesaro. The Adriatic unleashed the writer’s block that has been plaguing me for some time. Hence, the lack of writing on the blog….
I am headed over to Urbino today, to see the legendary Ducal Palace. Looking forward to that. I saw Gradara Castle a few days back. Too much to see. Too much.

Lance + Adriatic = BFF’s

I have recently made a very good friend- his name is the Adriatic Sea.

Lately I find myself walking down to the beach, a block from the hotel and I walk in the water and have good conversations with him. Not your usual, small talk mind you. But questions about life, reality, and is everything predestined? He is a very good listener. I can tell him anything, and he usually will answer by washing a rock or seashell onto the shore, and I will pick it up and take it back with me.

All we all just an extension of God? Does God experience life through us? If we all as a collective whole, comprise of God, when we pass over to the other side, is there a tangible, concrete face that we can look into, and talk to? Meaning: if like a human cell, all 6 billion of us are cells that make up God’s identity, is there ever a time where we will be able to have a face-to-face talk?

Or did God create us, and then we are entirely individual, separate entities?

These are the kind of questions I ask the Adriatic, as I look out onto the choppy water and sea the sailboats pass, seeing with them the thousands of ships before them, through the millienia, that have come and gone, to and fro, carrying millions of souls to their final destinations. I see Roman legions rowing their ships past, and I think how many of those men had the same questions I share with the Adriatic, and are we all just empty vessels that pass as quietly as we came?

But, the Adriatic hears my questions and lets me ask them, without fear of judgment or condescension. So far from home, in this new reality that I live in, one that is far away from where I expected to be, I now choose to accept this reality, and furthermore, love it. For in this reality, I can walk to the park and sit on a bench as the Adriatic tells me a story as well, if he is tired or stressed, or if he is in a pleasant mood, as he shares with me his hopes and fears, that I understand all too well: when this reality on this earth ends, will he be forgotten?

We are good friends.

Dear Readers-

I apologize for the lack of writing….
Due to no one’s fault but my own, my blog does not bode well with my main occupation of basketball during the basketball season, as I risk having much lost in translation and otherwise. Furthermore, when in the moment, when writing present tense, I do not have enough distance and perspective to be fair, and I can easily come across as quite sarcastic and condescending. I do not wish to have my words cause drama to any team, teammates or myself during the season and I will not be writing about anything basketball, during the basketball season. For that matter, I don’t see myself writing much of basketball until my next book, when I have had plenty of time to gain hindsight and analyze the experience as unbiasedly as I possibly can, with an historian’s objective.

I apologize to anyone who’s feelings I may have offended or hurt during these last few months since the launching of the website.

In truth, I have had serious time these last few weeks to truly sit back and analyze who I want to be and represent in this life. For the past while, I have grown quite dark and broody, resentful and bitter. Angry, that life has not gone according to plan, challenging my reality at every turn. And this resistance has only caused internal conflict, hinged on the fact that I put so much importance on basketball defining my self-worth. Dallying with the notion that because my stay in the NBA was not longer- I failed. That because I was not able to make it a home, that somehow I was not validated: silly thoughts. And only recently on a late night phone call, with a dear friend back home, did I truly come to see the error of my thinking and way of viewing life, when he asked, “Lance, so what if they validate you, and say you are the greatest player in the world…. then what? What are you going to do with that validation? Buy a loaf of bread?”

They- being those nameless faces that want to see my fail and delight in my shortcomings. But no matter what I do, I will never convince them to like me.

I had a serious wake up call. I often spend so much time analyzing the past, and trying to make sense of it, or trying to predict the future and steer it, that I often forget to live in the present.

So, I am not in NBA…. What can I do about it? Nothing. And that is my reality. And my reality is my present. All I can do is wake up in the morning and do the best that I can with each day. I can’t fight it, this reality, this path, anymore, and allow the bitterness to creep up inside me, as I have done. It has steered me along a detour filled with anger and malice, that I direct towards others, hurting and damaging relationships with my friends and loved ones, over petty, insincere comments, showing no empathy. Mostly, because I could give myself no empathy.

I have had many bouts of depression, but this, what I have been traveling through, not only this last month in Italy, but the last few months, if not year, is something entirely different. I saw no point in anything anymore. Why pray? Why meditate? What is the point? It is all a joke, a sick twisted joke. If it all ended it tomorrow, I guess that would be ok. These were the thoughts inside of my head.

A very close friend and mentor described it to me as a spiritual madness, or a Dark Night of the Soul. But whatever you call it, it was the darkest place I have ever been. And I lost sight of what was important- my loved ones, my family, my butties and myself. I am here on this earth on a journey, one that I cannot control or manipulate, but only experience and learn from. And that is my reality: Without doubt, the most painful and difficult I have to lean in this life.
I cannot fight my reality, and allow the internal conflict to arise, opening the door to self-loathing and resentment.

I realize I have hurt many people over this last year, and I have no excuses for it. My many snide comments, which I remember, for I remember seeing the looks on the faces of loved ones that received them, have not been callously forgotten. I am aware of my actions, I always am. And I can only apologize for them and say that it is time for me to grow up and accept this path of life that I am on, and not measure it to anyone else. It is mine, and mine alone. Just as anyone else’s is theirs alone.

To my family: I love you all. So much that it hurts sometimes, and I know I don’t express it very well, nor often or easily. This truth is due to the fact that I don’t or won’t allow myself to be loved, not only by others, but most importantly, by me.
And I am sorry.

I am now headed to Pesaro, for I decided to let the conflict inside of me go, and I know that allowed my exterior world and reality to shift and allow a good thing to come to me and send me to Pesaro, Italy. It is a good club, very professional, in a beautiful part of the world. And I just have to let it unfold, and see where life chooses to go with it. For that is all I can do, really.

Sorry

Sorry.