A possible conversation taking place somewhere in Great Britain...
Chap 1: "I say old chap, of all the reasons David Beckham could have chosen to go to America, what do you think could have been going through his old bean?"
Chap 2: "I'm as befuddled as you are, my good man. Of course, he could become a bigger star perhaps if he were playing overseas. They need a star footballer over there."
1: "Oh, hogwash. The sport will never be big over there because they're too low-class to appreciate it. Their three most popular sports are all way bigger than football, or soccer, which is what they call it. And it's disgusting the filth that permeates their sports culture."
2: "Well, sure, there's all the hippity-hop and bling-blung and whatever, but maybe it's not so bad for footballers. Besides, it's not like all the sports stars in America are thugs and bad blokes, just a bloody few."
1: "Oh yeah? Tell me, what do you think is the big story in the major sports over there? What's the first thing you think of when you think of baseball news?"
2: "I don't know."
1: "I'll tell you, it's that gargoyle Barry Bonds about to break the all-time home run record. I mean, never mind the fact that the most home runs hit were by Sadaharu Oh in the Japanese leagues. I understand they only want to acknowledge the major league record. That's their style, you see, ignore the rest of the world and only point out your own achievements. But fine, let's say Hank Aaron is the home run leader. This Bonds guy is obviously unnatural, you can just look at him and tell he uses some sort of supplement that no one else uses because no one else looks like him! His hat size grew about 3 full sizes in 8 years! He's a walking pharmacy, I tell you, but their commissioner just throws his hands in the air and says nothing. And Bonds even testified to a grand jury that he used a steroid, but he says he didn't know what it was. Come on, you think anyone, much less a world-class athlete, puts something in his body and doesn't bloody well know what it is?"
2: "That doesn't sound very bright, no."
1: "And what's the first thing in your mind when I mention basketball?"
2: "Why, Michael Jordan, of course. Is he still playing?"
1: "No, he finally retired years ago for the 7th time. You haven't heard what happened with the basketball officials?"
2: "No I haven't."
1: "They're on the bloody take! They found a guy who was an NBA official for I believe 13 years, and they say he was involved in the Mafia and had gambling debts, and agreed to lower his debts by calling a boatload of fouls and making his games tilt over the over-under number. Can you imagine? Their commissioner had all these silly rules for the players like a dress code and such, trying to control them like he was headmaster, and meanwhile his officials are fixing the games! You wonder how many other things they will find when they investigate. I mean, what's stopping other officials from getting in on the action, or even players? Hell, the commissioner wouldn't know. He's busy keeping an eye on whether Shaquille O'Neal is wearing a bloody sportcoat!"
2: "That is indeed scandalous."
1: "And what about American football? What do you think is the biggest story there?"
2: "Oh, I know this one. It's that one guy who was 'making it rain' throwing money in the gentleman's club, and then one of his buddies shot a man and paralyzed him. Pity."
1: "That's old news, pal. One of their star quarterbacks was just indicted because there was a house he owned but never lived in, and they found it was a house where he and his friends raised dogs to fight for money. And when there were dogs that wouldn't make good fighters, they would just kill them as if they didn't deserve to live. I'm talking electrocuting them, shooting them, firing them down to the ground until they stopped moving--vile, disgusting things."
2: "Fancy that. I've never heard of such a thing. They would make the dogs fight for money, you say? There were prizes for this?"
1: "No, no, folks would bet on which dog would win. It wasn't like a league where there was a champion--this was all underground stuff."
2: "That's sickening."
1: "Now what do you think about Beckham going to the United States?"
2: "That he's entering the gates of Hades?"
1: "Exactly."
Friday, July 27, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Lord Of The Houseflies
I recently moved to second shift on my job because I wanted to free up my mornings to eventually return to school, so coming home last Sunday night should not have been an unusual event. Oh, but it was. It was a humid day, so I didn't really freak out when I got home at 11:15P and saw a fly on my cabinet above my sink in the kitchen. I slowly took my shoe off and (I think) killed it. That would be that, I figured, until I spotted two more black dots in the darkness above my window. This was a little disturbing because I haven't had an insect problem in this house, at least since I moved out of the spider-infested basement, plus I had never opened my kitchen window at all, so I was wondering how they even got in. I hit the kitchen lights expecting to get a better view of those two flies, and there it was, much to my horror and surprise--a brood of flies hanging out on my window's blinds, and a group in the little window above my backdoor attracted to the hall light. It looked to be 30 to 50 of them at least. I did what any tough guy would do--scurried to my bedroom and shut the door. Two more flies came out of my bedroom window and startled me, and at that point I shut my window, eventually killed both of those flies, and wondered what the fuck was going on. Now, I'm not the cleanest person on the planet, but I did not have garbage lingering around in the house, nor did I have food left out anywhere. Hell, I had just washed my dishes the night before. There was no smell coming from my home, and I didn't sense any dead animals or horse shit outside the house. I called my girlfriend and expressed my anguish at the situation, then I decided to go to bed and hope that this was some kind of fluke that only science could understand and that my place would be back to normal the next day.
It wasn't.
The damn things seemed to multiply, numbering close to 100. I took out some garbage and left my backdoor open for a couple of hours because even though there's a second screened door that I can't keep open, the screen is broken, so if the flies wanted to leave, they easily could. Maybe I was hallucinating at this point, but I saw yet more flies on my blinds when I came back in the kitchen. I called my play aunt and asked for some bug spray, and her daughter came through the back hall and rang the bell. I was so skeezed out by my kitchen that I shouted for her to go around the front because I didn't want to even go in there. She had the biggest bug eyes when she got to the front because she could see the infestation in my window from the outside. Then I went in my bathroom for the first time that day. My bright, sunny bathroom where the window doesn't have blinds or shades. Fifteen or 20 flies were buzzing around, soaking up the sun. I used the bug spray to kill off as many as I could, but this stuff wasn't of the highest quality. Some flies got irritated and started flying back at me. My dining room, where I have big heavy wooden blinds that keep a lot of the sun out, seemed fine until I noticed one fly on the blinds, and when I took the little can of bug spray that my play aunt gave me and tried to get that one, 10 or 15 more flew up out of nowhere as if I had no right to disturb their play time.
That was my breaking point. It was time for the heavy duty stuff. I put on some clothes and walked to Walgreens and didn't hesitate to pay $7 for something called Cutter Bug Free Backyard Outdoor Fogger. I didn't know how effective the product would be, just that it would produce a cloud of poison that hopefully would create a mass genocide of all the flies in my kitchen, dining room, and bathroom. My bathroom was already a dead zone because of all the cheap bug spray I used earlier, so I tried it on my dining room blinds, and there weren't any more flies flying around after 20 seconds of spraying the fogger. So far, so good. I had to get my guts together and work up the gumption to go in the kitchen where the sheer number was to that point overwhelming, but I finally put on my Terminator persona, put on my headphones with some rap music pumping, shouted out "Die motherfuckers die!!!" and killed them all. Actually, the minute-long fogging stirred the fuckers around for a second, then they started to just collapse to the floor one by one. I left the kitchen to let them enjoy their last gasps, then the poison started overwhelming me, so I left the apartment for a half-hour and chilled in my play aunt's crib. When I came back, there were no more flies on my kitchen blinds. They were all on the floor, save for maybe ten on my windowsill. I actually had to battle in my mind whether I wanted to sweep them all up before I went to work, as if they would disappear if I left them there, but I took on the sickening task, then hopped in the shower and left.
Dammit if there weren't more flies on my kitchen blinds when I came home from work Monday evening. This time, I fogged in there, but didn't bother to sweep up. I did notice a bunch of flies on my screen when I went to work, and I said to myself if I see them again when I get home I'll fog the outside of my window. I saved that task for Tuesday. Once again, I slept in my humid bedroom with the ceiling fan whirring and the window closed, since I had no idea if the flies came through that window or any other window. I kept the bathroom door closed too, so Tuesday morning there was another congregation in the kitchen but not in the bathroom. I went outside to spray down the outside of my kitchen window, and I got a little batshit at that point because I started fogging my whole back hall and part of the backyard, as if my can of fogger would destroy every fly in the city or something. Sometime that morning I finally talked to my aunt, who owns the house, about the problem, and she informed me that she and her husband were at my house Sunday and saw a massive amount of flies in the back hall on the second floor, and her husband took out a window up there in order for them to get out. Sure enough, I went upstairs to check out the second floor, and I saw nothing. Apparently they all moved into my fucking house. My play aunt went to the basement that morning as well and saw a large number of flies down there, but there still was no obvious source that would answer what the hell would draw that many flies in the first place. There was even a theory that some flies were in the walls of the house making babies, but that's something that can't be proven unless a professional pest killer comes out and discovers it.
Unfortunately, that costs money, so my aunt hasn't done that. Her husband came over Tuesday and sprayed some stuff he bought in the basement. Combine that with all the killing I had been doing, a hard rain Tuesday and Wednesday, and a 20-degree temperature drop between Sunday and Wednesday, and predictably, I had a dramatic drop in insects--a few flies Wednesday morning and basically none since. But there's still no answer why there were so many and how the fuck they got into my house. And the weather is supposed to get hot and humid again next week. My aunt and her husband are sure there will not be a repeat of this week of horror, but they're not giving me an answer why they're so sure, they just are. I've been pissed because I honestly believe that if I were a regular tenant with no family ties, they would have called a professional and gotten to the bottom of this, or if this were their kitchen, spraying the basement and saying the flies shouldn't come back would not be acceptable. I hate the thought that I'm not a priority to them due to being a family member, and I was depressed for a day or two because I feel that if I had made something of myself, I could afford my own damn house, and this wouldn't be happening to me. There's really nothing I can do at this point except wait for next week's heat wave to come through and hope that it doesn't result in another pack of flies invading my kitchen. I sprayed so much crap in there that I can actually still smell spray when I walk in three days later. Thanks to nothing being done to find out why this happened, I may need to buy even more cans of fogger to protect the area where my food and cooking utensils are. Yeech.
It wasn't.
The damn things seemed to multiply, numbering close to 100. I took out some garbage and left my backdoor open for a couple of hours because even though there's a second screened door that I can't keep open, the screen is broken, so if the flies wanted to leave, they easily could. Maybe I was hallucinating at this point, but I saw yet more flies on my blinds when I came back in the kitchen. I called my play aunt and asked for some bug spray, and her daughter came through the back hall and rang the bell. I was so skeezed out by my kitchen that I shouted for her to go around the front because I didn't want to even go in there. She had the biggest bug eyes when she got to the front because she could see the infestation in my window from the outside. Then I went in my bathroom for the first time that day. My bright, sunny bathroom where the window doesn't have blinds or shades. Fifteen or 20 flies were buzzing around, soaking up the sun. I used the bug spray to kill off as many as I could, but this stuff wasn't of the highest quality. Some flies got irritated and started flying back at me. My dining room, where I have big heavy wooden blinds that keep a lot of the sun out, seemed fine until I noticed one fly on the blinds, and when I took the little can of bug spray that my play aunt gave me and tried to get that one, 10 or 15 more flew up out of nowhere as if I had no right to disturb their play time.
That was my breaking point. It was time for the heavy duty stuff. I put on some clothes and walked to Walgreens and didn't hesitate to pay $7 for something called Cutter Bug Free Backyard Outdoor Fogger. I didn't know how effective the product would be, just that it would produce a cloud of poison that hopefully would create a mass genocide of all the flies in my kitchen, dining room, and bathroom. My bathroom was already a dead zone because of all the cheap bug spray I used earlier, so I tried it on my dining room blinds, and there weren't any more flies flying around after 20 seconds of spraying the fogger. So far, so good. I had to get my guts together and work up the gumption to go in the kitchen where the sheer number was to that point overwhelming, but I finally put on my Terminator persona, put on my headphones with some rap music pumping, shouted out "Die motherfuckers die!!!" and killed them all. Actually, the minute-long fogging stirred the fuckers around for a second, then they started to just collapse to the floor one by one. I left the kitchen to let them enjoy their last gasps, then the poison started overwhelming me, so I left the apartment for a half-hour and chilled in my play aunt's crib. When I came back, there were no more flies on my kitchen blinds. They were all on the floor, save for maybe ten on my windowsill. I actually had to battle in my mind whether I wanted to sweep them all up before I went to work, as if they would disappear if I left them there, but I took on the sickening task, then hopped in the shower and left.
Dammit if there weren't more flies on my kitchen blinds when I came home from work Monday evening. This time, I fogged in there, but didn't bother to sweep up. I did notice a bunch of flies on my screen when I went to work, and I said to myself if I see them again when I get home I'll fog the outside of my window. I saved that task for Tuesday. Once again, I slept in my humid bedroom with the ceiling fan whirring and the window closed, since I had no idea if the flies came through that window or any other window. I kept the bathroom door closed too, so Tuesday morning there was another congregation in the kitchen but not in the bathroom. I went outside to spray down the outside of my kitchen window, and I got a little batshit at that point because I started fogging my whole back hall and part of the backyard, as if my can of fogger would destroy every fly in the city or something. Sometime that morning I finally talked to my aunt, who owns the house, about the problem, and she informed me that she and her husband were at my house Sunday and saw a massive amount of flies in the back hall on the second floor, and her husband took out a window up there in order for them to get out. Sure enough, I went upstairs to check out the second floor, and I saw nothing. Apparently they all moved into my fucking house. My play aunt went to the basement that morning as well and saw a large number of flies down there, but there still was no obvious source that would answer what the hell would draw that many flies in the first place. There was even a theory that some flies were in the walls of the house making babies, but that's something that can't be proven unless a professional pest killer comes out and discovers it.
Unfortunately, that costs money, so my aunt hasn't done that. Her husband came over Tuesday and sprayed some stuff he bought in the basement. Combine that with all the killing I had been doing, a hard rain Tuesday and Wednesday, and a 20-degree temperature drop between Sunday and Wednesday, and predictably, I had a dramatic drop in insects--a few flies Wednesday morning and basically none since. But there's still no answer why there were so many and how the fuck they got into my house. And the weather is supposed to get hot and humid again next week. My aunt and her husband are sure there will not be a repeat of this week of horror, but they're not giving me an answer why they're so sure, they just are. I've been pissed because I honestly believe that if I were a regular tenant with no family ties, they would have called a professional and gotten to the bottom of this, or if this were their kitchen, spraying the basement and saying the flies shouldn't come back would not be acceptable. I hate the thought that I'm not a priority to them due to being a family member, and I was depressed for a day or two because I feel that if I had made something of myself, I could afford my own damn house, and this wouldn't be happening to me. There's really nothing I can do at this point except wait for next week's heat wave to come through and hope that it doesn't result in another pack of flies invading my kitchen. I sprayed so much crap in there that I can actually still smell spray when I walk in three days later. Thanks to nothing being done to find out why this happened, I may need to buy even more cans of fogger to protect the area where my food and cooking utensils are. Yeech.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
The Benoit Tragedy--When Words Can't Do Justice
I haven't been struggling trying to figure out what I was going to say on my blog about the Chris Benoit situation because I don't have much to say. The information provided hasn't answered the question of why, and beyond that, what else is there to talk about? Yes, it's horrific, yes, it's another black eye for pro wrestling, and yes, it's a damn shame that a wife and innocent child were victims. From what I've read on the internet all week, any other commentary outside of that has been speculative, inflammatory, inaccurate, and probably should never have been said.
The Chris Benoit situation, for those who may not know, is this: From what I've read, to the best of my knowledge, 17-year veteran pro wrestler Chris Benoit did not make it to a wrestling pay-per-view show last Sunday night due to what WWE was claiming was a "family emergency," then Benoit, his wife (a former wrestling valet who divorced her wrestler husband while he was feuding with Benoit and went on to marry Benoit) and their son were found dead in their suburban Atlanta home. WWE aired a three-hour retrospective about Benoit Monday night; the next day details were released by the Atlanta police that indicated Benoit for reasons nobody knows strangled his wife with a cord, choked out his son, and then hung himself in his weight room. No suicide notes or any other indicators why Chris did this were left behind, just a Bible next to his wife and one left next to his son. WWE has taken on flak since then for airing a glowing tribute Monday to a guy who killed his family. I can't even comment on that because there's no way I can tell who knew what about Benoit's death when, and even if WWE and its Chairman Vince McMahon knew, it would be hard for me to come down on them for acknowledging one of its greatest in-ring performers because, again, no one knows for sure why he did this, and I can't decide if ignoring him and never mentioning his name on a wrestling broadcast again would be the right thing to do. Maybe, maybe not.
What I do want to talk about is the talking heads that have yapped about this thing all week. McMahon is still running scared from the feds taking him to trial for steroid possession and distribution in the 1990s (he beat the rap), so his main talking point on shows has been that Benoit was just a "monster" and that steroids and roid rage couldn't have had anything to do with this because the WWE has a wellness policy and Benoit passed his most recent test. Yeah, I'm sure the WWE steroid test is really difficult to beat. The fact is, McMahon has absolutely no idea if this was a roid rage incident and he was just trying to clear his name and the WWE before the info about roids being found in Benoit's home came out. I find that disgusting. Instead of saying that we have to wait for the whole truth to be uncovered, McMahon is busy covering his ass. The general commentary hasn't been much more intelligible. Some people are informed, but a lot, like the Fox News jokers, aren't, and almost everything they say comes out sounding like they still think pro wrestling is in its own bubble insulated from the outside world and that's why this horrific scene could occur, never mind that there's no evidence this has anything to do with wrestling. In fact, that was one of my first thoughts when I heard the news--how hard will the mainstream work to make a homicide-suicide by a pro wrestler look like it's wrestling's fault? They already hate wrestling, looking down on it as if only low-class individuals watch it, ignoring the high ratings every single week which indicate it's a widely popular program in any and all demographics. I was afraid they would try to paint this as something only a wrestler or a maniac could do, and that's been the case in some instances.
Or maybe I'm just hoping some excuse can come out to explain the unexplainable. Maybe I'm such a big Benoit fan that I can't believe he could do this without some sort of outside force causing him to snap and not realize what he was doing. I don't own a lot of wrestling DVDs because most of them out there are WWE products and I really hate putting money in the pockets of that pud McMahon. But the first one I ever bought a couple of years ago was "Hard Knocks," the Chris Benoit life story. He was that great to me. Every match he wrestled was hard-fought, stiff, and looked like it hurt him and the man he was working with. He put his body through hell every time out, and watching him talk about his career, you could tell it was what he loved to do and what he thought he was put here to do. The reason that resonated with me was because it reminded me of sports stars and the intensity and hard work they put themselves through to be at their peak physical best, and I respected the hell out of that. And so did the fans. Whether he was playing a good guy or a bad guy, Benoit had a section of every arena standing and applauding every time he hit the ring because they appreciated the fact that someone was going to get their ass kicked tonight. Believe it or not, there's not a great deal of wrestlers who inspire that feeling when they walk to the ring because so many of them are so light-hitting because they're afraid of hurting themselves or their opponents. Benoit wasn't concerned with that. He was concerned with having a match that looked and felt real, and it didn't go unnoticed by those of us who want to see guys display top-notch physical talent.
With that, here's one more theory of what could have made Chris do this other than just an animalistic drive to destroy himself, his family, and his legacy in one weekend. Like every other wrestler who wanted to put on a hardcore, realistic match every time out, Benoit over the years took many shots to and drops on his head. Since WWE--or, in fairness, any other wrestling federation--is loathe to give guys breaks or thorough physical exams, there's no telling how many concussions Benoit may have suffered over the years. He may never have reported any of them, either, since he wanted to be a tough guy and didn't want to be seen as weak for asking to be taken off a show due to headaches. Well, there was an ex-NFL player named Andre Waters who a few months ago killed himself due to feeling helpless from the neurological damage suffered from his numerous concussions. He was 43, but his brain had aged as if it was 73 from all the damage. The work to discover telltale signs of this damage to his brain was put in motion in part from the efforts of Chris Nowinski, a Harvard graduate and a man not yet 30 years old who was a WWE Superstar for a couple of years before quitting due to concussions. He is now pushing for former NFL players to get their heads examined, so to speak, so that they can see if they have issues with their brains and get treatment before it's too late. Nowinski wants to have the brain of Chris Benoit on his table to examine if there are the same symptoms of damage that were there in Andre Waters' brain, the same symptoms that led Waters to commit suicide. Last I read, Nowinski had thus far been rebuffed in his efforts to acquire Benoit's noodle. But if he gets that brain and finds that same kind of damage, at least there may be a small sense of closure and an answer to the question of why. And maybe McMahon will quit running around the country calling Benoit a monster, and maybe some sort of institutionalized health care will be instated by the WWE before McMahon can create more monsters.
The Chris Benoit situation, for those who may not know, is this: From what I've read, to the best of my knowledge, 17-year veteran pro wrestler Chris Benoit did not make it to a wrestling pay-per-view show last Sunday night due to what WWE was claiming was a "family emergency," then Benoit, his wife (a former wrestling valet who divorced her wrestler husband while he was feuding with Benoit and went on to marry Benoit) and their son were found dead in their suburban Atlanta home. WWE aired a three-hour retrospective about Benoit Monday night; the next day details were released by the Atlanta police that indicated Benoit for reasons nobody knows strangled his wife with a cord, choked out his son, and then hung himself in his weight room. No suicide notes or any other indicators why Chris did this were left behind, just a Bible next to his wife and one left next to his son. WWE has taken on flak since then for airing a glowing tribute Monday to a guy who killed his family. I can't even comment on that because there's no way I can tell who knew what about Benoit's death when, and even if WWE and its Chairman Vince McMahon knew, it would be hard for me to come down on them for acknowledging one of its greatest in-ring performers because, again, no one knows for sure why he did this, and I can't decide if ignoring him and never mentioning his name on a wrestling broadcast again would be the right thing to do. Maybe, maybe not.
What I do want to talk about is the talking heads that have yapped about this thing all week. McMahon is still running scared from the feds taking him to trial for steroid possession and distribution in the 1990s (he beat the rap), so his main talking point on shows has been that Benoit was just a "monster" and that steroids and roid rage couldn't have had anything to do with this because the WWE has a wellness policy and Benoit passed his most recent test. Yeah, I'm sure the WWE steroid test is really difficult to beat. The fact is, McMahon has absolutely no idea if this was a roid rage incident and he was just trying to clear his name and the WWE before the info about roids being found in Benoit's home came out. I find that disgusting. Instead of saying that we have to wait for the whole truth to be uncovered, McMahon is busy covering his ass. The general commentary hasn't been much more intelligible. Some people are informed, but a lot, like the Fox News jokers, aren't, and almost everything they say comes out sounding like they still think pro wrestling is in its own bubble insulated from the outside world and that's why this horrific scene could occur, never mind that there's no evidence this has anything to do with wrestling. In fact, that was one of my first thoughts when I heard the news--how hard will the mainstream work to make a homicide-suicide by a pro wrestler look like it's wrestling's fault? They already hate wrestling, looking down on it as if only low-class individuals watch it, ignoring the high ratings every single week which indicate it's a widely popular program in any and all demographics. I was afraid they would try to paint this as something only a wrestler or a maniac could do, and that's been the case in some instances.
Or maybe I'm just hoping some excuse can come out to explain the unexplainable. Maybe I'm such a big Benoit fan that I can't believe he could do this without some sort of outside force causing him to snap and not realize what he was doing. I don't own a lot of wrestling DVDs because most of them out there are WWE products and I really hate putting money in the pockets of that pud McMahon. But the first one I ever bought a couple of years ago was "Hard Knocks," the Chris Benoit life story. He was that great to me. Every match he wrestled was hard-fought, stiff, and looked like it hurt him and the man he was working with. He put his body through hell every time out, and watching him talk about his career, you could tell it was what he loved to do and what he thought he was put here to do. The reason that resonated with me was because it reminded me of sports stars and the intensity and hard work they put themselves through to be at their peak physical best, and I respected the hell out of that. And so did the fans. Whether he was playing a good guy or a bad guy, Benoit had a section of every arena standing and applauding every time he hit the ring because they appreciated the fact that someone was going to get their ass kicked tonight. Believe it or not, there's not a great deal of wrestlers who inspire that feeling when they walk to the ring because so many of them are so light-hitting because they're afraid of hurting themselves or their opponents. Benoit wasn't concerned with that. He was concerned with having a match that looked and felt real, and it didn't go unnoticed by those of us who want to see guys display top-notch physical talent.
With that, here's one more theory of what could have made Chris do this other than just an animalistic drive to destroy himself, his family, and his legacy in one weekend. Like every other wrestler who wanted to put on a hardcore, realistic match every time out, Benoit over the years took many shots to and drops on his head. Since WWE--or, in fairness, any other wrestling federation--is loathe to give guys breaks or thorough physical exams, there's no telling how many concussions Benoit may have suffered over the years. He may never have reported any of them, either, since he wanted to be a tough guy and didn't want to be seen as weak for asking to be taken off a show due to headaches. Well, there was an ex-NFL player named Andre Waters who a few months ago killed himself due to feeling helpless from the neurological damage suffered from his numerous concussions. He was 43, but his brain had aged as if it was 73 from all the damage. The work to discover telltale signs of this damage to his brain was put in motion in part from the efforts of Chris Nowinski, a Harvard graduate and a man not yet 30 years old who was a WWE Superstar for a couple of years before quitting due to concussions. He is now pushing for former NFL players to get their heads examined, so to speak, so that they can see if they have issues with their brains and get treatment before it's too late. Nowinski wants to have the brain of Chris Benoit on his table to examine if there are the same symptoms of damage that were there in Andre Waters' brain, the same symptoms that led Waters to commit suicide. Last I read, Nowinski had thus far been rebuffed in his efforts to acquire Benoit's noodle. But if he gets that brain and finds that same kind of damage, at least there may be a small sense of closure and an answer to the question of why. And maybe McMahon will quit running around the country calling Benoit a monster, and maybe some sort of institutionalized health care will be instated by the WWE before McMahon can create more monsters.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Friday, June 22, 2007
Not Your Usual Father Figure, Part Deux--The Interpretive Dancer
My dad picked me up from work this past Sunday in a different ratty van than the one he usually had. I almost didn't recognize it until I got close enough to see the garbage on the dashboard that signifies that it's owned by him. This one was black, and the one he's had the last few years was tan. "This is the van you're gonna inherit when I'm gone," he told me, ignoring the fact that every time he's told me I was going to have his ride when he died, I told him I wasn't interested. He came out of nowhere at one point with, "Well I guess (some woman) ain't gonna be my girlfriend no more. She moved up north, and she thinks I'm gonna drive around everywhere to see her. Shit, she moves all the time like some gypsy." He then tried to remember if the woman was a grandmother or a great-grandmother. Oh, boy. We headed to the near West Side, where he told me we would go for Father's Day to hear some guys he knew play music and to eat their barbecue. He told me all week leading up that we wouldn't be there long and that if I wanted to leave after a while, he would take me home.
So the first thing he does when we arrive at a vacant lot tricked out with an overhead tent ten feet wide for the band to sit under in case of rain or hardcore sun is to roll out his drum set. He never mentioned he was playing. I can go home early, my black ass. He saw the bass player walking around as he drove up and mumbled to me, "Stone cold drunk. He can play, but man, he's a total drunk." I also saw a white guy wearing a "Marithe and Francois Girbaud" shirt, which I hadn't seen since high school. Turned out, he was the lead guitar. And with that, another unique Father's Day was underway.
The set-up was so interesting to me that I calmed down from wanting to be upset long enough to take camera phone pictures and call my girlfriend to tell her I'd be out late. It was a typical empty vacant lot where a regular house could be built. In the middle of the lot was an RV parked sideways so that people could walk up the crudely built wooden patio to a window and take whatever they wanted from the people inside the RV, in this case barbecue, fries, and all the trimmings. The meat was being grilled on the patio outside the RV, but when it was finished, the griller passed it into the RV, and the women inside then prepared plates for whomever wanted some. Ten feet in front of this was one lonely patio table with four chairs that clearly had seen better days, and to the right of the table was a plain wooden bleacher bench. And five feet in front of the table was the "stage," or rather, the aforementioned overhead tarp covering a patch of grass, with another bleacher bench balancing on the uneven turf. Microphones, a speaker, and other electrical equipment also stayed under this tarp, protected from rain (unless it blew sideways). To the right of all this was more vacant land, maybe 100 feet, where people parked and in some cases hung out and drank. It was a simple, unrefined set-up, and at the same time, actually smart and cozy. I also took a picture of the fire hydrant that the local kids had opened up, because the sight of water shooting straight up in the air and little black children splashing around reminded me of days gone by.
I didn't take a bite of food because the guy running things saw me and my dad coming and remarked, "I only got enough food for so many folks, guys!," and that made me feel self-conscious. Also, I had a sub sandwich for lunch and wasn't hungry. Also, the guy at the grill was old, dark, and scuzzy, and I didn't want anything he was cooking. I did have two cans of pop and two cans of iced tea. I sat on the bench off to the right the whole time, acknowledging people who wanted to laugh and converse with a chuckle, but otherwise feeling like I was plopped into some family picnic for a family I didn't know. During a break, the bass player sat down next to my dad with a beer in one hand and a plastic cup with a clear liquid in the other. Double-fisting, I thought. Man, he is a drunk. Someone tried to pour some water into the guy's clear cup, and he pulled away and said, "Why?" "To cut it," the man with water said, whatever "it" was. The bass player relented and let him put as much water in the cup as there was the other fluid. He and a couple of other guys asked me if I played, and I solemnly shook my head. When my dad explains that I tried drums in high school but didn't take to it, I can feel the disappointment every time. And I do fantasize about taking the stage one day on a lark and screaming my lungs out to "Hotel California" or something by Incubus or Audioslave while banging away on the skins (this embarrassing scene shall play out at the celebration when/if I ever win the lottery). But I really think my dad assumed when I got labeled early as "genius" that I'd either be a doctor or lawyer, or idolize him and play music. Chalk it up as another way I failed my loved ones.
Several times during the quasi-concert, a few groups of younger women arrived, some with toddlers. One woman came without a kid and with a very small piece of cloth on for a dress, and my dad stalked over to her and struck up a conversation during another break. I didn't know what he was telling her, but because I know him too well, I felt the need to bust his game by walking over at one point and saying, "Whatever my dad is saying, I apologize in advance." The small crowd giggled. When the band started playing again, the lady took one of the patio seats in front of the band, conversing with another woman seated in the area. This allowed my dad to throw some flirtatious remarks in her direction during his set. Then, off-mike, he called me up to him, and I thought he was going to ask me to get something for him out of the van, but instead he asked me what I said to her while they were talking earlier. When I told him, without hesitation and with a devilish twinkle, he said, "But doesn't she look like your mother?" And for the first time, I looked at her and saw what my dad saw. Slim, tall, pretty in the face, an elegant way of doing her thing--yep, she certainly resembled my mom. "Okay, dad," was all I could say before shuffling back to my seat. I guess that's really his type, or maybe he's still looking for my mom, just like I feel like I'm still looking for her.
Another slim woman appeared on the scene as the sky started to turn dark, but she didn't resemble my mom. She was shorter, for one thing, but also, she seemed high. She rubbed her hand over my back and said "Happy Father's Day!" when she got there, but because I never saw her coming and didn't notice her until maybe five seconds after she touched me, I didn't respond, and she walked off. A few minutes later, I saw her in front of the band near the patio table, and the only reason I knew it was the same woman was the sound of her voice as she sang the lyrics of the blues songs while spinning with her hands floating around in the air as if she was doing an interpretive dance, such as one could interpret "Down Home Blues" and "Stormy Monday." My dad liked this too, because it gave him more excuses to be the hype man on the mike. "We got a dancer out there, go on girl!" he growled. The girl in the straw church hat and thin gray dress and no bra went on, twirling and strutting in her own little world, paying attention to no one and nothing while still occasionally shouting out to no one in particular, "Happy Father's Day!" I just smirked and shook my head.
When the band started playing, there was a guy singing lead who called himself Hurricane, and the Carl Weathers look-alike was fine, blowing his harmonica more than he actually sang. Then he would sit, and they would set the mike up for my dad, who did the few songs his gravelly voice is best for, "The Thrill Is Gone," "Baby Can I Change My Mind," and a couple others. Then an older gentleman with a black shirt with big white polka dots, purple pants, and--wait for it--matching purple socks would take the mike, and I had to stop myself from laughing out loud, not at his attire, but at the fact that he would name his song, the band would play it, and he would completely run off track and lose the rhythm of the song, singing lyrics out of place when the mood struck him. He would interject a little dance at times that looked more like an epileptic seizure than anything else, kicking up dirt with every gyration. "He's 70 years old, so you gotta let him do what he wants," my dad explained later. The band members had to break the songs down and end them on their own eventually because the older man would go on howling and dancing forever if they didn't, and at one point later I saw the man wave his hand dismissively at my dad, so he didn't appreciate this. But at least he didn't take the mic with no clue of the lyrics at all, as one guy did twice. He had a shaved head and needle tracks up and down his arms, and not only did he request a couple of songs that had already been done by the band, but he then kept saying the opening line of the songs over and over until the band ended the act.
As I figured he'd do, my dad drove me to a bus stop when I asked to leave so that he could get back to his gig faster. On the way, he told me why he didn't have a problem with the Interpretive Dancer, even if she may have been high. "You gotta have a woman at home like that, to bring you up when you're feeling down, son," he said. I thought about how I've always hated women who were all happy and loopy and bugging me because I was always low-key and introverted. Then I thought about my girlfriend, who is very even-keeled like me, but I would still describe as happy and loving life. I've got a woman at home (or I should say in Memphis but within the next few years will be here at home with me) who's on a natural high, she just knows when to take it down several levels. Maybe when you don't have the blues, you don't need to look for someone whose head is in the clouds. And maybe if he wasn't always looking in the clouds, my dad could find someone to be happy with and settle down.
So the first thing he does when we arrive at a vacant lot tricked out with an overhead tent ten feet wide for the band to sit under in case of rain or hardcore sun is to roll out his drum set. He never mentioned he was playing. I can go home early, my black ass. He saw the bass player walking around as he drove up and mumbled to me, "Stone cold drunk. He can play, but man, he's a total drunk." I also saw a white guy wearing a "Marithe and Francois Girbaud" shirt, which I hadn't seen since high school. Turned out, he was the lead guitar. And with that, another unique Father's Day was underway.
The set-up was so interesting to me that I calmed down from wanting to be upset long enough to take camera phone pictures and call my girlfriend to tell her I'd be out late. It was a typical empty vacant lot where a regular house could be built. In the middle of the lot was an RV parked sideways so that people could walk up the crudely built wooden patio to a window and take whatever they wanted from the people inside the RV, in this case barbecue, fries, and all the trimmings. The meat was being grilled on the patio outside the RV, but when it was finished, the griller passed it into the RV, and the women inside then prepared plates for whomever wanted some. Ten feet in front of this was one lonely patio table with four chairs that clearly had seen better days, and to the right of the table was a plain wooden bleacher bench. And five feet in front of the table was the "stage," or rather, the aforementioned overhead tarp covering a patch of grass, with another bleacher bench balancing on the uneven turf. Microphones, a speaker, and other electrical equipment also stayed under this tarp, protected from rain (unless it blew sideways). To the right of all this was more vacant land, maybe 100 feet, where people parked and in some cases hung out and drank. It was a simple, unrefined set-up, and at the same time, actually smart and cozy. I also took a picture of the fire hydrant that the local kids had opened up, because the sight of water shooting straight up in the air and little black children splashing around reminded me of days gone by.
I didn't take a bite of food because the guy running things saw me and my dad coming and remarked, "I only got enough food for so many folks, guys!," and that made me feel self-conscious. Also, I had a sub sandwich for lunch and wasn't hungry. Also, the guy at the grill was old, dark, and scuzzy, and I didn't want anything he was cooking. I did have two cans of pop and two cans of iced tea. I sat on the bench off to the right the whole time, acknowledging people who wanted to laugh and converse with a chuckle, but otherwise feeling like I was plopped into some family picnic for a family I didn't know. During a break, the bass player sat down next to my dad with a beer in one hand and a plastic cup with a clear liquid in the other. Double-fisting, I thought. Man, he is a drunk. Someone tried to pour some water into the guy's clear cup, and he pulled away and said, "Why?" "To cut it," the man with water said, whatever "it" was. The bass player relented and let him put as much water in the cup as there was the other fluid. He and a couple of other guys asked me if I played, and I solemnly shook my head. When my dad explains that I tried drums in high school but didn't take to it, I can feel the disappointment every time. And I do fantasize about taking the stage one day on a lark and screaming my lungs out to "Hotel California" or something by Incubus or Audioslave while banging away on the skins (this embarrassing scene shall play out at the celebration when/if I ever win the lottery). But I really think my dad assumed when I got labeled early as "genius" that I'd either be a doctor or lawyer, or idolize him and play music. Chalk it up as another way I failed my loved ones.
Several times during the quasi-concert, a few groups of younger women arrived, some with toddlers. One woman came without a kid and with a very small piece of cloth on for a dress, and my dad stalked over to her and struck up a conversation during another break. I didn't know what he was telling her, but because I know him too well, I felt the need to bust his game by walking over at one point and saying, "Whatever my dad is saying, I apologize in advance." The small crowd giggled. When the band started playing again, the lady took one of the patio seats in front of the band, conversing with another woman seated in the area. This allowed my dad to throw some flirtatious remarks in her direction during his set. Then, off-mike, he called me up to him, and I thought he was going to ask me to get something for him out of the van, but instead he asked me what I said to her while they were talking earlier. When I told him, without hesitation and with a devilish twinkle, he said, "But doesn't she look like your mother?" And for the first time, I looked at her and saw what my dad saw. Slim, tall, pretty in the face, an elegant way of doing her thing--yep, she certainly resembled my mom. "Okay, dad," was all I could say before shuffling back to my seat. I guess that's really his type, or maybe he's still looking for my mom, just like I feel like I'm still looking for her.
Another slim woman appeared on the scene as the sky started to turn dark, but she didn't resemble my mom. She was shorter, for one thing, but also, she seemed high. She rubbed her hand over my back and said "Happy Father's Day!" when she got there, but because I never saw her coming and didn't notice her until maybe five seconds after she touched me, I didn't respond, and she walked off. A few minutes later, I saw her in front of the band near the patio table, and the only reason I knew it was the same woman was the sound of her voice as she sang the lyrics of the blues songs while spinning with her hands floating around in the air as if she was doing an interpretive dance, such as one could interpret "Down Home Blues" and "Stormy Monday." My dad liked this too, because it gave him more excuses to be the hype man on the mike. "We got a dancer out there, go on girl!" he growled. The girl in the straw church hat and thin gray dress and no bra went on, twirling and strutting in her own little world, paying attention to no one and nothing while still occasionally shouting out to no one in particular, "Happy Father's Day!" I just smirked and shook my head.
When the band started playing, there was a guy singing lead who called himself Hurricane, and the Carl Weathers look-alike was fine, blowing his harmonica more than he actually sang. Then he would sit, and they would set the mike up for my dad, who did the few songs his gravelly voice is best for, "The Thrill Is Gone," "Baby Can I Change My Mind," and a couple others. Then an older gentleman with a black shirt with big white polka dots, purple pants, and--wait for it--matching purple socks would take the mike, and I had to stop myself from laughing out loud, not at his attire, but at the fact that he would name his song, the band would play it, and he would completely run off track and lose the rhythm of the song, singing lyrics out of place when the mood struck him. He would interject a little dance at times that looked more like an epileptic seizure than anything else, kicking up dirt with every gyration. "He's 70 years old, so you gotta let him do what he wants," my dad explained later. The band members had to break the songs down and end them on their own eventually because the older man would go on howling and dancing forever if they didn't, and at one point later I saw the man wave his hand dismissively at my dad, so he didn't appreciate this. But at least he didn't take the mic with no clue of the lyrics at all, as one guy did twice. He had a shaved head and needle tracks up and down his arms, and not only did he request a couple of songs that had already been done by the band, but he then kept saying the opening line of the songs over and over until the band ended the act.
As I figured he'd do, my dad drove me to a bus stop when I asked to leave so that he could get back to his gig faster. On the way, he told me why he didn't have a problem with the Interpretive Dancer, even if she may have been high. "You gotta have a woman at home like that, to bring you up when you're feeling down, son," he said. I thought about how I've always hated women who were all happy and loopy and bugging me because I was always low-key and introverted. Then I thought about my girlfriend, who is very even-keeled like me, but I would still describe as happy and loving life. I've got a woman at home (or I should say in Memphis but within the next few years will be here at home with me) who's on a natural high, she just knows when to take it down several levels. Maybe when you don't have the blues, you don't need to look for someone whose head is in the clouds. And maybe if he wasn't always looking in the clouds, my dad could find someone to be happy with and settle down.
Friday, June 08, 2007
And Now, My One Good Deed Of The Year
I will be attending the annual Walk-Jog-Bike-A-Thon tomorrow, Saturday, June 9, on the lake at 31st St. here in Chicago. As I chronicled in My History (5th In A Series), my mother was the victim of sickle cell disease when she was almost 32, and my uncle has been part of the Sickle Cell Disease Association of Illinois ever since, helping to raise money. I couldn't attend this event for a long time because I was avoiding all memories of my mother. Dealing with a painful loss can do that, but I went a few years ago as a visitor, and a couple of years ago as an active walker, though I didn't walk very far. I won't walk far tomorrow either, but I will walk, so if you've ever wanted to shout obscenities at me or kick me in the groin or just say hi, here's your chance. I'll be the 900-lb. black guy with the shaved head and white headband. Oh, and if you want to help the cause, visit http://www.sicklecelldisease-illinois.org for more information.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
America--Where You're Responsible For Other People's Mistakes
Here's something that made me take time from my daily routine of going to work, playing bad poker, and going to bed to make a blog entry. St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock a month ago killed himself when he drove drunk into a tow truck assisting another car on the side of the road Hancock was trying to drive on. Last week it was reported that Hancock's father is suing everyone involved with the crash, including the restaurant where Hancock bought the drinks that impaired him, the tow truck company, the driver of the tow truck helping this other car, and, naturally, the driver of the other car that had been spun out long before Hancock approached the scene and therefore could not possibly have been set up to distract Hancock and make him kill himself. I don't even have the words to describe how disgusted I was when I heard about this lawsuit. In what world does this guy's father live where his grown son can't be held responsible for purchasing the drinks that got him drunk and crashing his car while in this impaired state? How the hell is this the bar's fault, or the tow truck driver's fault, or the fault of the poor guy that was wrecked through no fault of his own before Hancock got out on the damn road? Can you imagine going through your day and living your life when all of a sudden you are in a car accident, getting that taken care of by a helpful tow truck guy when his truck gets rear-ended by some drunken fool, and later you get a suit delivered to your door by the fool's dad faulting you for his son's actions? What would you do in that circumstance? Well, my bad temper is legendary, as you already know if you have read my previous posts, but my first reaction is to find this Hancock's father and end him. If I didn't, then I'd have to deal with the court appearance time and the lawyer's fees to defend myself against this suit which exists only because the dad wants some cash, and I couldn't handle the thought of allowing him to put me through that. This kind of shit has to stop somewhere. People with money can bully and shove around people with no money simply because they can afford to, and it's an atrocity. Of course, if you take cues from the elected leaders of our country, shoving around those who can't defend themselves is the American way, so this suit is horrifying but not surprising, and it's representative of the times. It seems that people see it as their God-given right not just to get shit-faced fucked-up, but to also get behind the wheel and take a chance that they can make it home without murdering innocent bystanders or committing suicide. And when the California courts rule that Paris Hilton should be put behind bars because she continued to drive despite previous lapses in judgment resulting in her license being suspended, petitions pop up to save her from taking responsibility for her actions. (Full disclosure--there's also a petition to make her serve her time.) I continue to be stunned by the hypocrisy that says certain mind-altering drugs are horrible and should result in mandatory jail time, but others are fine. When faced with that gap in logic, it's no surprise that seemingly no one wants to take responsibility for themselves. Why should they?
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Yes, I'm Still Alive (For Now)
The issue with not doing stupid things with my life and making bad decisions is that I don't feel the need to do frequent blog updates. There's just not much drama to talk about. In addition, I'm able to get the everyday mundane things out of my system by having a great girlfriend who actually listens to me. Not all of my past posts were reports on the latest crazy escapade I got tied up in. Some were just regular old gripes about the shit that all of us go through, and I am able to vent that out every other night on the phone now. In other words, there's really nothing to talk about on this post either. I just hadn't been here in almost a month, and I wanted to write something.
I did watch WrestleMania a few weeks ago at my uncle's house, and it was very interesting because the older I get, the more in-depth I get into the politics of pro wrestling and who gets pushed to the front of the line and why. So I really watched this event with an eye towards what the future is supposed to look like in wrestling and what was going to happen at WrestleMania to advance in that direction. As a result, nothing that happened surprised me very much, except maybe the older ECW guys winning their match with the "New Breed" of stars (I just knew they would bury the older guys once and for all, but then they would have to find a new direction for the New Breed during the weekly TV shows, and it's easier to keep them fighting with the old guys). There was a lot of publicity about the match in which WWE Chairman Vince McMahon put a guy against the chosen guy of mogul Donald Trump, with the losing "billionaire" getting his head shaved. I even heard some folks convinced that Trump would be the loser because McMahon had too big of an ego to let his head get shaved. Well, what kind of ego do you think Trump had? And how could anyone with half a brain think that Trump would ever get involved in this whole scenario unless he was going to come out on top? When you see a huge celebrity involved in pro wrestling who you never would think would be involved, 99% of the time that celebrity will come out looking like a Mensa member because that's how you convince them to get involved--by promising them that they will come out looking smarter and sharper than the "rasslers." Plus, as much as I hate McMahon and what he's done to wrestling, I had no doubt from the beginning that he would let his head get shaved for the good of the business and to deliver the payoff for those who specifically paid the $50 to order WrestleMania to see McMahon or Trump get their head shaved as promised. To deliver a screwjob ending where neither got shaved would have been a horrible business decision and would have alienated any number of customers, so someone was going to have to deliver that payoff, and McMahon was the logical choice. On top of everything else, he was the bad guy, and traditionally the Big Match in wrestling scripts where things will be settled Once And For All goes to the good guy.
My job continues to create new guidelines and rules daily in an attempt to royally piss me off. The latest is to make us take our morning break and lunch separately because some people were abusing the ability to combine them and taking off an hour before quitting time. Well, the nature of our job makes it very hard to get up and take a break early in the morning because most of our work comes via FedEx and DHL and UPS early in the morning, and it doesn't slow down until maybe 12:30 or 1:00P. I mean, you can leave, but that's always made the people working with you look at you askew because they are working as hard as they can to get the mail processed in a timely manner, and there you are walking away. That's what made me combine my break and lunch, because it's been implied since I've started working there that to leave before your morning assignments are done is disrespectful to your colleagues. We all get yelled at if we have accounts that sent mail to us overnight and paid extra for it and the mail doesn't get done before that account's cut-off time. In addition, it's very hard to find something to eat in a half-hour in downtown Chicago unless you like swallowing food whole without chewing. We can't even bring lunch back to our desks because some fool got jelly or some substance like jelly on a piece of mail and when the image lab tried to make copies of that mail, the image machine got gummed up. So it's beneficial to everyone if we're able to combine our breaks and lunches. I actually haven't split mine up yet, even though it's been a couple of weeks since the mandate came down. I'm waiting for someone to have a problem with what time I take my lunch so that I can ask them why it's an issue. But our area is a bit of a mess right now, because our usual team leader is on maternity leave, and often we either have a team lead for the day who isn't very experienced and doesn't have time to worry about what time people are taking lunch, or don't have a team lead at all. This is an example of why it's so funny that for the last six months, I've been a member of the Q-Board Team, a group that gathers the production and error numbers and holds a monthly meeting with the entire floor talking about those numbers and what we can do to improve. Imagine, crazy, nutjob me, a responsible member of a J.P. Morgan Chase committee. If only they read this blog...but anyhow, I've still got some wild hairs, and if something happens or is mandated that I don't agree with, I have a hard time going along with the company line. In some worlds, the word for that is "asshole." But I'm sorry, if you're going to give me an instruction that doesn't make sense to me, and you don't give a good reason, I'm going to challenge it. That's not the way to go about moving up the corporate ladder, but I have a feeling that my attitude will be very important in other areas of life, and that's worth more to me. I'm smart enough to give the impression to those that matter that I'm going along with the plan. But sometimes taking my own path is the only option, such as a couple of months ago, when I had to be the watchdog who questioned a new method introduced that was incorrect. If there aren't assholes around like me to question things, we all could be doing our jobs wrong.
My health has been a bit of a problem lately. A few weeks ago, I woke up one morning and there was a sharp pain in my right knee, right on the top of my kneecap, like someone snuck in overnight and whacked it with a steel pipe. This coincided with a bad snap of weather, complete with rain, snow, and temperatures in the 30s and 40s. It got worse and worse, almost made me miss work, then went away after maybe a week and a half. I was supposed to go bowling with my family a couple of weekends ago, but at the beginning of the week, I woke up with a sharp pain in my left knee, at the top of the kneecap, like someone snuck in overnight and whacked it with a steel pipe. "Jacob" was in town for the Geek Convention, er, I mean our annual baseball fantasy draft, so this happened after three nights of dinner with Jacob and his friend, and I wondered if I had just been a little too active and twisted something. The weather was getting worse again as well. Also, the night before, I had a 1-lb. burger at Bennigan's, so perhaps it was a gout attack in my knee joint triggered by the mountain of undercooked ground beef. In any event, despite consuming several Aleve Gelcaps in the days leading up to the bowling outing, I decided to do the smart thing and not bowl, which saddened me because I bowl so wildly and out of control that some folks were really looking forward to seeing me. I hated to disappoint those who had not seen someone lift the ball higher than their head on his backswing before. I still attended and had a great time, though. But the thing with my knees was very strange. I don't want to go to a doctor now to find out what the deal was, because the pain is gone and the doc may not have any idea either. I have it narrowed down to accidental twisting that didn't affect me until the knee stiffened up overnight; changes in the weather affecting my joints; gout attack from something I ate; or someone came in during the night and whacked me.
Of course, the whacking thing is not viable, but perhaps someone out there (besides my exes) really does want to hurt me. Last Wednesday, I got a phone call on my home phone, from a name I didn't recognize, so I let my answering machine take it. My outgoing message doesn't say my name, and the message didn't refer to me by name. The message said, verbatim: "Told you nigger. I'm a chop your head off. Punk." No one has threatened me in any way before, so I'm 99% sure it's a case of mistaken identity and this guy would like to chop some other nigger's head off. Nonetheless, I've had my head on a swivel the last week. Hopefully, it won't be on a stick soon. The sad part is, my girlfriend pointed out, some dude out there is about to get his head cut off and doesn't know it. I'm just amazed that this shithead wasn't bright enough to block his phone number from popping up on caller ID before he started calling wrong phone numbers throwing out threats. Since my loved ones received the same e-mail of this moron's name and phone number, if I come up missing, the police will know where to start immediately. And that's no one's fault but his. If you're going to be a criminal, you really should have a criminal mind.
I did watch WrestleMania a few weeks ago at my uncle's house, and it was very interesting because the older I get, the more in-depth I get into the politics of pro wrestling and who gets pushed to the front of the line and why. So I really watched this event with an eye towards what the future is supposed to look like in wrestling and what was going to happen at WrestleMania to advance in that direction. As a result, nothing that happened surprised me very much, except maybe the older ECW guys winning their match with the "New Breed" of stars (I just knew they would bury the older guys once and for all, but then they would have to find a new direction for the New Breed during the weekly TV shows, and it's easier to keep them fighting with the old guys). There was a lot of publicity about the match in which WWE Chairman Vince McMahon put a guy against the chosen guy of mogul Donald Trump, with the losing "billionaire" getting his head shaved. I even heard some folks convinced that Trump would be the loser because McMahon had too big of an ego to let his head get shaved. Well, what kind of ego do you think Trump had? And how could anyone with half a brain think that Trump would ever get involved in this whole scenario unless he was going to come out on top? When you see a huge celebrity involved in pro wrestling who you never would think would be involved, 99% of the time that celebrity will come out looking like a Mensa member because that's how you convince them to get involved--by promising them that they will come out looking smarter and sharper than the "rasslers." Plus, as much as I hate McMahon and what he's done to wrestling, I had no doubt from the beginning that he would let his head get shaved for the good of the business and to deliver the payoff for those who specifically paid the $50 to order WrestleMania to see McMahon or Trump get their head shaved as promised. To deliver a screwjob ending where neither got shaved would have been a horrible business decision and would have alienated any number of customers, so someone was going to have to deliver that payoff, and McMahon was the logical choice. On top of everything else, he was the bad guy, and traditionally the Big Match in wrestling scripts where things will be settled Once And For All goes to the good guy.
My job continues to create new guidelines and rules daily in an attempt to royally piss me off. The latest is to make us take our morning break and lunch separately because some people were abusing the ability to combine them and taking off an hour before quitting time. Well, the nature of our job makes it very hard to get up and take a break early in the morning because most of our work comes via FedEx and DHL and UPS early in the morning, and it doesn't slow down until maybe 12:30 or 1:00P. I mean, you can leave, but that's always made the people working with you look at you askew because they are working as hard as they can to get the mail processed in a timely manner, and there you are walking away. That's what made me combine my break and lunch, because it's been implied since I've started working there that to leave before your morning assignments are done is disrespectful to your colleagues. We all get yelled at if we have accounts that sent mail to us overnight and paid extra for it and the mail doesn't get done before that account's cut-off time. In addition, it's very hard to find something to eat in a half-hour in downtown Chicago unless you like swallowing food whole without chewing. We can't even bring lunch back to our desks because some fool got jelly or some substance like jelly on a piece of mail and when the image lab tried to make copies of that mail, the image machine got gummed up. So it's beneficial to everyone if we're able to combine our breaks and lunches. I actually haven't split mine up yet, even though it's been a couple of weeks since the mandate came down. I'm waiting for someone to have a problem with what time I take my lunch so that I can ask them why it's an issue. But our area is a bit of a mess right now, because our usual team leader is on maternity leave, and often we either have a team lead for the day who isn't very experienced and doesn't have time to worry about what time people are taking lunch, or don't have a team lead at all. This is an example of why it's so funny that for the last six months, I've been a member of the Q-Board Team, a group that gathers the production and error numbers and holds a monthly meeting with the entire floor talking about those numbers and what we can do to improve. Imagine, crazy, nutjob me, a responsible member of a J.P. Morgan Chase committee. If only they read this blog...but anyhow, I've still got some wild hairs, and if something happens or is mandated that I don't agree with, I have a hard time going along with the company line. In some worlds, the word for that is "asshole." But I'm sorry, if you're going to give me an instruction that doesn't make sense to me, and you don't give a good reason, I'm going to challenge it. That's not the way to go about moving up the corporate ladder, but I have a feeling that my attitude will be very important in other areas of life, and that's worth more to me. I'm smart enough to give the impression to those that matter that I'm going along with the plan. But sometimes taking my own path is the only option, such as a couple of months ago, when I had to be the watchdog who questioned a new method introduced that was incorrect. If there aren't assholes around like me to question things, we all could be doing our jobs wrong.
My health has been a bit of a problem lately. A few weeks ago, I woke up one morning and there was a sharp pain in my right knee, right on the top of my kneecap, like someone snuck in overnight and whacked it with a steel pipe. This coincided with a bad snap of weather, complete with rain, snow, and temperatures in the 30s and 40s. It got worse and worse, almost made me miss work, then went away after maybe a week and a half. I was supposed to go bowling with my family a couple of weekends ago, but at the beginning of the week, I woke up with a sharp pain in my left knee, at the top of the kneecap, like someone snuck in overnight and whacked it with a steel pipe. "Jacob" was in town for the Geek Convention, er, I mean our annual baseball fantasy draft, so this happened after three nights of dinner with Jacob and his friend, and I wondered if I had just been a little too active and twisted something. The weather was getting worse again as well. Also, the night before, I had a 1-lb. burger at Bennigan's, so perhaps it was a gout attack in my knee joint triggered by the mountain of undercooked ground beef. In any event, despite consuming several Aleve Gelcaps in the days leading up to the bowling outing, I decided to do the smart thing and not bowl, which saddened me because I bowl so wildly and out of control that some folks were really looking forward to seeing me. I hated to disappoint those who had not seen someone lift the ball higher than their head on his backswing before. I still attended and had a great time, though. But the thing with my knees was very strange. I don't want to go to a doctor now to find out what the deal was, because the pain is gone and the doc may not have any idea either. I have it narrowed down to accidental twisting that didn't affect me until the knee stiffened up overnight; changes in the weather affecting my joints; gout attack from something I ate; or someone came in during the night and whacked me.
Of course, the whacking thing is not viable, but perhaps someone out there (besides my exes) really does want to hurt me. Last Wednesday, I got a phone call on my home phone, from a name I didn't recognize, so I let my answering machine take it. My outgoing message doesn't say my name, and the message didn't refer to me by name. The message said, verbatim: "Told you nigger. I'm a chop your head off. Punk." No one has threatened me in any way before, so I'm 99% sure it's a case of mistaken identity and this guy would like to chop some other nigger's head off. Nonetheless, I've had my head on a swivel the last week. Hopefully, it won't be on a stick soon. The sad part is, my girlfriend pointed out, some dude out there is about to get his head cut off and doesn't know it. I'm just amazed that this shithead wasn't bright enough to block his phone number from popping up on caller ID before he started calling wrong phone numbers throwing out threats. Since my loved ones received the same e-mail of this moron's name and phone number, if I come up missing, the police will know where to start immediately. And that's no one's fault but his. If you're going to be a criminal, you really should have a criminal mind.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
The Threatening Beggar
The heat sometimes brings out the crazies in a big city like Chicago, and Monday was a record-high 77 degrees, a great day especially considering the record-low February we just endured. So people were walking around everywhere in light clothing feeling really good and enjoying themselves. Some of us had the misfortune of being around the unwashed, thawed-out homeless folks, however, and they can make the most beautiful day seem awful. As I left my workplace around 1:30 to go to lunch, there was an angry man with grays in his hair and beard and no shirt on holding his hand out and walking right up on people as if he was going to do bodily harm to them if they didn't give him something, money, weed, I don't know exactly what. Since I don't know what's in the head of people like that, I avoided him and started walking across the street. The guy decided to make me his new friend for the next half-block or so. "What you say to me? I'll kick your ass too!" he mumbled just low enough so that I may not have caught it. I did have my headphones on, but my radio was off, so I could hear him just fine. "What you say? Come on Biggie Smalls, I ain't scared of you!" I didn't respond to him at all, didn't even look in his direction. He did come rather close to me at one point, maybe five feet away, but I sped up my walk and ducked into a restaurant figuring he wouldn't follow me into a somewhat classy-looking public place. He didn't. I only stayed for maybe a minute, and when I left, he had completely vanished.
I really don't like the idea of having to take someone on for no reason than the guy wants some action on this particular day. If I piss someone off with my diarrhea of the mouth, that's one thing. But this fucker was just following folks around looking for a confrontation, starting arguments in his head. There's absolutely no telling if the guy is insane and is looking to start something so he has an excuse to whip out a weapon from his pants pocket. Just because he had no sleeves to hide a knife doesn't mean he didn't have a shank stuck in his waistband. Because I don't know where his mind is, if he had gotten within arm's length, I would have dropped him where he stood with one punch. I have no desire to wait until he does something to defend myself. I'm sure a lot of people would have a problem with my approach because I'd be committing an assault on someone with little or no provocation, but the way I see it, it's either him or me. I haven't been in a fight since grade school, and that's part of the reason why I would knock him out first--because I don't have any practice at defending myself in a one-on-one situation, so "sucker punch" is option #1 on my list. It may not be the politically correct course of action, but it's the one that will keep me from getting attacked by a random nutcase.
I really don't like the idea of having to take someone on for no reason than the guy wants some action on this particular day. If I piss someone off with my diarrhea of the mouth, that's one thing. But this fucker was just following folks around looking for a confrontation, starting arguments in his head. There's absolutely no telling if the guy is insane and is looking to start something so he has an excuse to whip out a weapon from his pants pocket. Just because he had no sleeves to hide a knife doesn't mean he didn't have a shank stuck in his waistband. Because I don't know where his mind is, if he had gotten within arm's length, I would have dropped him where he stood with one punch. I have no desire to wait until he does something to defend myself. I'm sure a lot of people would have a problem with my approach because I'd be committing an assault on someone with little or no provocation, but the way I see it, it's either him or me. I haven't been in a fight since grade school, and that's part of the reason why I would knock him out first--because I don't have any practice at defending myself in a one-on-one situation, so "sucker punch" is option #1 on my list. It may not be the politically correct course of action, but it's the one that will keep me from getting attacked by a random nutcase.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Submission
I've been running on fumes the last few weeks. Cleaning my apartment for my girlfriend's visit last weekend was a larger task than I expected, and I've felt wiped out ever since. The visit was nice, though. It may have lasted only one day, but it was a very nice day. We did nothing but sit around and watch college hoops all day, and my play aunt made lasagna for us. Holding my girlfriend's body in my bed for the first time was something that felt very natural. Every night since, I've imagined that feeling, and I'm looking forward to many, many more nights in that position, among others. Working one day of overtime a month ago has also contributed to my weariness. I almost feel like I've never recovered from that. And work itself has been nuts because absolutely no one is on the same page there. Two women who are "coaches" led groups of us associates into a conference room Saturday and had four separate meetings informing us of a new method we were to start using immediately. But when I pulled aside the general manager Monday to ask a question about this new method, she expressed surprise and claimed she didn't know anything about it. It drives me crazy that I had to be the one who asked about this because I don't get paid nearly enough to be the watchdog in the office. I can't be the only person there who gives a fuck, but it sure seems that way sometimes.
Something that has been on my mind a lot is the subject of religion. My girlfriend and I discuss it sometimes because she's devout and I'm not. She tries to convey the message that it's OK, but I get the feeling that it's something she worries about. The last time we had a long talk about it, I told her that one of the reasons I'm having trouble getting closer to my God is because it takes a tremendous amount of submission for a man (or woman) to live life in a way that pleases God. Believing that those who wrong you will be punished and judged by Him instead of getting your own revenge, being grateful of your blessings instead of envious of others...it's not something I'm good at wrapping my little brain around. I've been trying, and I've made progress over the last couple of years, but I still feel a little lightheaded and weak when I think of living what I think would be a life that God would approve of. I guess that's the symptoms I should feel when I entertain the idea of submitting myself. I'm not sure how others do it. Giving tithe, attending church devoutly--I feel like my time and money and lifestyle are things I've always had total control over, and surrendering any or all of that control is scary. Then there's people like the slut in Wisconsin, who talked about church and even said she went on vacations with her parents and their church. She and many others are trying to walk some kind of line where they live like demons and then turn over their sins and ask for forgiveness with no remorse. I can't do that either. I would feel like a hypocrite, even more than the hypocrite I've been at times in my life. I don't know who I'm supposed to talk to about this either. There are so many churches and clergypersons, I couldn't possibly pick one to counsel with. I really am grateful for every day I get. But there's this nagging sensation that to submit to a fully appreciative way of living would somehow rob me of happiness or joy. And that can't be true. There has to be a way for me to live in a way that pleases God and myself, and where I'm not a lying hypocrite. I continue to work on finding that way.
Something that has been on my mind a lot is the subject of religion. My girlfriend and I discuss it sometimes because she's devout and I'm not. She tries to convey the message that it's OK, but I get the feeling that it's something she worries about. The last time we had a long talk about it, I told her that one of the reasons I'm having trouble getting closer to my God is because it takes a tremendous amount of submission for a man (or woman) to live life in a way that pleases God. Believing that those who wrong you will be punished and judged by Him instead of getting your own revenge, being grateful of your blessings instead of envious of others...it's not something I'm good at wrapping my little brain around. I've been trying, and I've made progress over the last couple of years, but I still feel a little lightheaded and weak when I think of living what I think would be a life that God would approve of. I guess that's the symptoms I should feel when I entertain the idea of submitting myself. I'm not sure how others do it. Giving tithe, attending church devoutly--I feel like my time and money and lifestyle are things I've always had total control over, and surrendering any or all of that control is scary. Then there's people like the slut in Wisconsin, who talked about church and even said she went on vacations with her parents and their church. She and many others are trying to walk some kind of line where they live like demons and then turn over their sins and ask for forgiveness with no remorse. I can't do that either. I would feel like a hypocrite, even more than the hypocrite I've been at times in my life. I don't know who I'm supposed to talk to about this either. There are so many churches and clergypersons, I couldn't possibly pick one to counsel with. I really am grateful for every day I get. But there's this nagging sensation that to submit to a fully appreciative way of living would somehow rob me of happiness or joy. And that can't be true. There has to be a way for me to live in a way that pleases God and myself, and where I'm not a lying hypocrite. I continue to work on finding that way.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
A Little Progress
OK, I'm still a pig of a man when it comes to keeping up my home, but it's not quite as bad as it used to be. My girlfriend is visiting for one day and two nights this coming weekend, and I've known about it for a month, but I'm just now starting to clean up my place and attempt to make it look like a human lives here and not a feral animal. However, when I think about all the women who visited my place when I had a Lake View apartment between 2002 and 2005, I realize that I've come a long way. "Shelley" tore a hole in her jeans when she walked too close to a broken chair that had a metal piece sticking out that I had neglected to throw away even though I broke it more than a year before Shelley came. In fact, each woman who came there either noticed the chair and was careful to avoid it while cursing me out or never noticed the chair, and instead of just throwing it away, I would just cringe every time one of them walked past the chair hoping they wouldn't slice themselves open. It's funny that Shelley was the one person who damaged her clothing, because she went on to make thousands of dollars by conning me into co-signing her student loan. Guess I paid for the jeans, and then some. "Karen" visited for an hour on Christmas morning 2003 before we spent the day with my family, and she was supposed to be my future housemate and potential wife and all that jazz, yet I still had to kick old newspapers underneath the chair she sat in. And this was three days after "Sarah" spent some time with me for my birthday, so it would have been worse had she not helped me clean up a little. In fact, the first time Sarah came to see me, she spontaneously plopped on the floor and started picking up my junk mail and other garbage and filled a few garbage bags for me. That was her maternal instinct. My apartment was always a little better off after Sarah left, not to mention my cock.
So my place now isn't nearly that bad. There are no broken chairs, and if there was, I'd just take it out because I honestly don't know why I would hang on to a broken chair. There's still some old newspapers lying around because that's my weakness; I hate grabbing a paper and not reading the whole thing, so instead of throwing out the part I've read I'll hold on to all of it and vow to read it when I have time. There's some dust bunnies making families in various corners as I type this, but I'll be zapping the little buggers today and tomorrow. The mop and Pine-Sol is ready and waiting for me to attack the kitchen floor and bathroom. The house won't be spotless for my girlfriend when she arrives this weekend, but it won't skeeze her out either. And most importantly, I'm actually going to make the effort to clean the place instead of kicking some garbage around and trying to hide it, and that's a reflection on how I feel about myself. A few years ago, I felt like a dirty, lazy piece of shit, so that's how I treated my apartment and my relationships. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm certainly making some progress taking better care of myself and the things I care about.
So my place now isn't nearly that bad. There are no broken chairs, and if there was, I'd just take it out because I honestly don't know why I would hang on to a broken chair. There's still some old newspapers lying around because that's my weakness; I hate grabbing a paper and not reading the whole thing, so instead of throwing out the part I've read I'll hold on to all of it and vow to read it when I have time. There's some dust bunnies making families in various corners as I type this, but I'll be zapping the little buggers today and tomorrow. The mop and Pine-Sol is ready and waiting for me to attack the kitchen floor and bathroom. The house won't be spotless for my girlfriend when she arrives this weekend, but it won't skeeze her out either. And most importantly, I'm actually going to make the effort to clean the place instead of kicking some garbage around and trying to hide it, and that's a reflection on how I feel about myself. A few years ago, I felt like a dirty, lazy piece of shit, so that's how I treated my apartment and my relationships. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I'm certainly making some progress taking better care of myself and the things I care about.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
The NBA's New Slogan: Ride Or Die
Just a tremendous column by AOL's Jason Whitlock today concerning the thug element in Las Vegas this past weekend at the NBA All-Star festivities. I don't have much to add myself. Vegas from what I understand is lawless anyway, especially the Strip, and tossing the hundreds of sycophants and groupies that always hover around the NBA into the mix made for what I'm sure was a truly frightening weekend. I can only imagine what that town smelled like Monday morning. I actually don't blame the stars for having thick entourages surrounding them at all times--the more bodies between them and potential bullets, the better.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
It Starts
Yes folks, you know spring training has finally begun when Kerry Wood finds a way to injure himself. Again. It's a rite of spring, as consistent as a sunrise.
God, I've missed baseball.
God, I've missed baseball.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Maturation
Today is the one-year anniversary of me being an associate at J.P. Morgan Chase. Only nine more years before they can kick me out on my ass like CBOE did. But seriously, I have been taking steps to distinguish myself at this gig, like volunteering for the quality team, which makes a presentation once a month talking about productivity numbers and error rates and what we can do to improve our performance and stop pissing off our customers. The first time I spoke at a Q-board meeting was the end of December, and although I was nervous and monotone because of my lack of public speaking skillz, I could feel a sense of newfound respect from my co-workers, like they saw me in a whole new light. And I saw myself differently as well. I only volunteered for the team because my old supervisor told me that it should push me into the highest level as far as my reviews go when combined with my nearly flawless productivity numbers. But now that I've been doing it for three months, I feel more responsible, more in-the-loop with those in charge, and more of a leader when I'm doing my job because people who have questions see me as a go-to guy after hearing me preach about asking more questions and reducing errors. Last month, that's what I spoke about, customer service and paying attention to the critical care list, which contains accounts that have complained about various mistakes we've made. My old supervisor told me about a conference call headed up by the C.E.O. of Chase, Jamie Dimon, who said that other banks can get the ear of customers on our list and tell them to take their business away from us. Those banks can say, "We won't make those mistakes," whether that's true or not. I relayed that story during my speech, and the floor went silent, so at least my co-workers were listening for a second. I was told later that some higher-ups heard the part about Jamie Dimon's remarks and said, "Yeah! That's what we need! Someone to talk about those kind of things!" So I'm starting to make some kind of impression. I've stopped coming in late, I stay until all of my work is done, and I even take out the garbage at the end of the day because my team lead is preggers. (No, I didn't do it.) Somewhere in the last calendar year, I've matured a lot. I'm not totally sure why. I think it's some combination of my personal life becoming much calmer and more peaceful, my living arrangements becoming settled, and my being scared shitless by not finding a full-time job for thirteen months. Whatever happens with this gig, I'm not going down without making as hard an effort as possible to step up in the food chain and distinguish myself. This job is something I have been able to sink my teeth into because there are a ton of standard operating procedures to follow, and being an asshole perfectionist, I get off on coming up with the right procedure when everyone else is scratching their heads. In other words, I'm starting to like it here.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Well, That Was Uglier Than A Bowling Shoe
Super Bowl XLI was not actually a bad game, just not very pretty. The Colts took what the Bears offered them, in the above pic's case Rex Grossman's ass, but most of the time it was well-timed running plays and swing passes to running backs. And when the Bears had the momentum in the 1st quarter and were about to sack Peyton Manning, he took what was offered at that point, which was a completely wide-open Reggie Wayne 52 yards away. The Bears were still within a touchdown of winning in the 4th quarter, but when your QB can't hold on to the fucking football, whether it's fumbling the snap or the patented Grossman Close-Your-Eyes-And-Throw-A-Wobbling-Duck move, it's a lost cause. So congrats to the much better team, the Colts. And as for the Bears, it seems like they have made the mistake of getting married to one of their players, which happens when an organization develops an attachment to someone and ignores all of their flaws and shortcomings. The Bears will not give up on Rex Grossman because they feel like they've stuck with him for so long that they're now obligated to hang on and give him every chance to succeed until he leaves the team on his own volition. It is clear to me and others that Grossman is too immature to be a great or even good quarterback right now. Will he ever be successful? Maybe. But there are a lot of veterans on that Bears team who won't be playing football anymore by the time Grossman figures it out, and I guarantee you, they are some angry men right now because there are veterans on other teams, and in the case of Brian Griese, maybe a vet on their own team, who would have discovered that secret of holding on to the damn ball that Peyton Manning discovered and would have given them at least a chance to win the Super Bowl. That's a chance the Bears had not received in 21 years, and it may be another 21 before they receive it again. Hopefully they won't be married to an erratic QB by then.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Super Bowl Fever
Or perhaps this is pneumonia I am feeling, since it has been 15 degrees or less every day this week. Anyway, some final thoughts the morning before Le Grande Game:
- This town has lost all reasoning when it comes to breaking down the actual game and how it's going to go. Because every single soul on ESPN and most of the "experts" in the local papers picked the Saints to beat the Bears in the NFC title game, basically everyone is overcompensating now and calling a Bears victory in a game in which they're a touchdown underdog. That's ridiculous for the entire sports community in Chicago to seriously believe that. Some people, yeah, but not virtually all. The national sports talk shows that were stationed in Miami this week, the host city of the Super Bowl, were reporting that you could hardly find anyone picking the Bears. So how do all of our guys figure that the Bears are gonna wipe the Colts out? It's like Da Superfans have all infiltrated the spirits of our normally (somewhat) civil-minded people. Honestly, it seems like every caller to the local sports talk shows were trying to look at the game rationally before their minds warped and spit out the party line. "Well, the Bears can rush the QB and have a chance that way, but Peyton Manning usually gets rid of the ball quickly, so it might be up to the offense to score a lot in order for us to have a chance...uh...but we all know what's gonna happen, Grossman will trow 5 TDs, and we're gonna pound Manning into da ground. Bears 43, Colts 6...DAAAA BEARRRSSS!" I haven't seen overcompensation like this since--nah, I won't say it. I'm trying to be nice.
- As one of the local afternoon sports talk shows signed off Friday, one of the co-hosts said, "And if the Bears win, please people--riot safely." The response from the producer, who is black, was one of the funniest things I ever heard on the radio, and it will probably get him fined, if not fired. He says, "And don't destroy your own communities in celebration." The white co-hosts agree on that point. Then the producer says, "Go destroy the white folks' communities. Do something different this time." The co-hosts go virtually silent, then one of them chuckles nervously and says, "I can't believe you said that!" before they go off the air.
- I'm very excited about the quality of the game because of how the past week unfolded. There wasn't any bulletin board material, except for Bears QB Rex Grossman, he of the 20 interceptions this season, telling some members of the media that they were ignorant and didn't know what kind of offense the Bears were trying to run. What, the close-your-eyes-and-throw-the-fucking-ball-to-the-other-team offense? I didn't know teams actually called plays for that. But I was impressed by the poise and calm both teams showed, at least externally. The Bears played that "No one respects us" role even though they were favored in nearly every game this year. That's fine, and it even works sometimes. But the Colts were so relaxed, it seemed like nothing could faze them. Their QB, Peyton Manning, who in the past has always let pressure consume him and make him curl up in the fetal position, was cool, calm, humorous, breezy, and really seemed like nothing affected him. He mentioned that he hasn't felt this nervous since performing the tango on stage in high school, then mentioned that no one should try to look for the tape of that because it was "deep in the Manning vault." The next day, said tape was all over SportsCenter. I bet that tape wasn't deep in the vault at all, and I bet Manning mentioned it because he knew people would run and find that tape and give him and his teammates something else to laugh at him about besides the bulge of commercials he's filmed. And he did it because it's something to focus on besides the actual game. The Bears are going to come on the field fired up and spitting about no one giving them a chance because of their bad QB and their status as champs of a shit conference, the NFC. This would theoretically put the pressure on the Colts, since they're supposed to take this group of Bears and handle them. It would be a beautiful thing if Manning led the team on the field and all of them were doing the tango. But even if they're not, I guarantee they have all screened the tape of the tango within the last 32 hours and belly-laughed until they were nauseous, and the effect that has of bringing a team together in a way that takes their minds off the game is huge. The Colts should win, but if they don't, it won't be because they were too nervous in the big moment. All indications are that they are not feeling the pressure at all. If they lose, it will be because the Bears flat-out beat them. Either way, I'm getting a feeling that this game will be one of the best of all time. I cannot wait.
Monday, January 29, 2007
You Mean, Some People Still Value Their Parents??
Me: "I wouldn't just want you to move up here to Chicago for the closeness. I could use a roommate to split these bills with too. I'm holding out hope that I can possibly talk you into moving in with me in the future."
My 40-year-old girlfriend: "My mom would absolutely kill me!"
She is just too precious.
My 40-year-old girlfriend: "My mom would absolutely kill me!"
She is just too precious.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
I Might Actually Have Made A Correct Prediction
That was some ugly-ass football played at Soldier Field on Sunday, and I didn't even see it happen. I was working, and my Walkman wasn't getting good AM reception where I was stationed, so I had to listen to the first half on the FM feed--in Spanish. But even then, I could tell that the Saints-Bears NFC title game was fugly because there was a steady rhythm of crowd cheering, crowd deflating from a bad Rex Grossman throw or a run play that didn't work, followed by the polite clapping after another Robbie Gould field goal. And the Saints managed to rack up almost 400 yards of offense by the 3rd quarter but couldn't put more than 14 points on the board. That's actually hard to do. I was at home watching the Seahawks-Bears game the week before, and I spontaneously yelled out at least 5 times during that game, "This conference sucks!", because the Seahawks should have lost to the Cowboys if not for Tony Romo getting Carrie Underwood's pussy juice on his fingers and letting the ball slip through at the last second, and now they were going toe to toe with the NFC's "best," Da Bears. And I'm sure I would have yelled something about the NFC sucking another 12 times if I had to watch that game Sunday. How Rex Grossman managed to not throw the ball to the other team 8 times like he had done in half the games in the regular season is beyond me. But they did it, and now the town is in a holding pattern for the next two weeks until the big game in Miami on February 4. I already have the day off.
This is actually bringing back fun memories of the Super Bowl Shuffle Bears from 22 years ago, when I was 9 years old. It's not exactly the same because this team has so many holes, it's very hard to imagine them going all the way. I would have never picked this team to make it this far, so this isn't quite as joyous, but it's still cool to live through. Back then, in 1986, we all expected the Super Bowl to be the coronation of one of the great teams ever, yet there was still a bit of nervousness because, being Chicago, we were used to coming close and falling short--the White Sox in '83, the Cubs in '84, and the Bulls were nothing at the time. It made the win over New England so much sweeter because the Bears were holding up Chicago where the other teams had failed. I was trying to save my bag of Soft Batch chocolate chip cookies and 2-liter of Pepsi for the game itself, but they were consumed before the kickoff, if I recall correctly. I fought off the nausea from being nervous and swallowing that much sugar to cheer like crazy throughout the whole slaughter. And I still have the Super Bowl Shuffle on vinyl.
This will be a different story. The Indianapolis Colts are not those New England Patriots, who were lucky to make the Super Bowl. Peyton Manning is not Steve Grogan, nor is he Tony Eason. And most importantly, these Bears are not almost perfect killing machines like those monsters in '86. There's no Fencik in our secondary to make receivers pay for going over the middle. There's no McMahon under center to coolly perform under pressure. And there's no overmatched team on the other side of the field. The Colts, unfortunately, can play. I picked the Colts to win it all before the playoffs began, and I'm sticking to my guns. I'm calling Colts 38, Bears 13.
And I'm guaranteeing that the Bears will fuck me over and win because I'm putting money on the Colts. I'll be watching the whole way with my Soft Batch cookies and Pepsi. Go Bears!
This is actually bringing back fun memories of the Super Bowl Shuffle Bears from 22 years ago, when I was 9 years old. It's not exactly the same because this team has so many holes, it's very hard to imagine them going all the way. I would have never picked this team to make it this far, so this isn't quite as joyous, but it's still cool to live through. Back then, in 1986, we all expected the Super Bowl to be the coronation of one of the great teams ever, yet there was still a bit of nervousness because, being Chicago, we were used to coming close and falling short--the White Sox in '83, the Cubs in '84, and the Bulls were nothing at the time. It made the win over New England so much sweeter because the Bears were holding up Chicago where the other teams had failed. I was trying to save my bag of Soft Batch chocolate chip cookies and 2-liter of Pepsi for the game itself, but they were consumed before the kickoff, if I recall correctly. I fought off the nausea from being nervous and swallowing that much sugar to cheer like crazy throughout the whole slaughter. And I still have the Super Bowl Shuffle on vinyl.
This will be a different story. The Indianapolis Colts are not those New England Patriots, who were lucky to make the Super Bowl. Peyton Manning is not Steve Grogan, nor is he Tony Eason. And most importantly, these Bears are not almost perfect killing machines like those monsters in '86. There's no Fencik in our secondary to make receivers pay for going over the middle. There's no McMahon under center to coolly perform under pressure. And there's no overmatched team on the other side of the field. The Colts, unfortunately, can play. I picked the Colts to win it all before the playoffs began, and I'm sticking to my guns. I'm calling Colts 38, Bears 13.
And I'm guaranteeing that the Bears will fuck me over and win because I'm putting money on the Colts. I'll be watching the whole way with my Soft Batch cookies and Pepsi. Go Bears!
Friday, January 19, 2007
Another Wrestler Gone In A Flash
Completely unprovoked, I watched a Bam Bam Bigelow pro wrestling match I have on tape against Taz Wednesday just because it's one of my favorite matches. I missed watching Bigelow wrestle, because he was a good 350 or 360 pounds but moved around the ring with freakish agility while still fighting a stiff style that made every move seem like it hurt like hell, which it probably did. Bigelow was found dead in his home this morning in Florida at the age of 45. The medical reports are not available yet, but it almost doesn't matter. An enormous number of pro wrestlers, by nature of their occupation, feel the need to take enough painkillers to make every horse in the Kentucky Derby drop dead. With no evidence whatsoever, I assume Bigelow was no different. It catches up to you eventually. Maybe not after a year, maybe not after a few years, but eventually your body adds up all the things wrong with it that you don't know about because pain, which warns your body that something is wrong, is not being felt due to the numbing medicine you're piling into your system. The funny thing is, if Bigelow had died ten years ago, before literally dozens of wrestlers started dying suddenly at very young ages, some folks could have looked at his size and tossed off some aside about trying to be an athlete at his weight catching up to him. Believe me, it wasn't his fucking weight that killed him. It wasn't weight that killed the 210-lb. Eddie Guerrero in his early 40s, the 235-lb. Curt Hennig in his early 40s, the 280-lb. (mostly muscle) Mike Hegstrand (Road Warrior Hawk) in his early 40s, the 230-lb. Chris Candido in his 30s...I could go on forever. But it's easy for me to rail against painkillers because I never had the balls to go for the brass ring and pursue a career as a wrestler. If I had, who knows what measures I would go through to maintain my "spot" and keep living my dream. But I have a feeling that if those in charge of wrestling would have a heart and provide health care for their employees instead of calling them "independent contractors" and turning their backs on them, better alternatives could be provided than 20 soma pills and a bottle of vodka.
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