This is the most wonderful time of the year. You want to know why? Because now I can go another 11 months or so without having to hear "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Or any other Christmas music, for that matter.
That's right. I'm I'm coming out against carols, those sappy, sentimental staples of the Christmas season.
I don't expect this to be a popular opinion. After all, who could be opposed to Bing Crosby crooning "White Christmas" or Nat King Cole doing "Silent Night"? Who could find it in their heart to hate the festive, trampling-based humor of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer"?
Well, I could.
It's not that there there are no good Christmas songs, because many are lovely. It's not even that from mid-November through the end of December stores everywhere have Bing and Nat and Johnny Mathis on a continuous loop. I just can't get behind any music that only qualifies to be played once a year.
That holds regardless of the season or the holiday involved. I went to college in New Orleans, and as most people know Mardi Gras is a big deal in the Big Easy. It's like Christmas and a drinking binge and a trip to a particularly sleazy strip club all rolled into one. The holiday's theme song is something called "The Mardi Gras Mambo." It's a terrible song, and there's really no reason to ever listen to it. But for two weeks each year it's everywhere. It's like some evil force overtakes the part of everyone's brain that decides whether music is good or bad. I imagine it's the same thing that happens to people who buy Celine Dion albums.
It's the same thing with Christmas. I'll admit some Christmas songs have appeal. "White Christmas" is nice if you're spending wintry night lounging by the fire. And there was even a time I found "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" kind of funny. I was 8, but still. But when the malls and the radio stations and everyone homeowner taken over by the Holiday Spirit decides we need a steady diet of Christmas music and nothing but that things get dicey.
Then there's the fact Christmas albums have become the easy way for musicians to cash in. You're not really a successful recording artist these days until you've recorded a collection of Christmas standards. So, for example, Christina Aguilera, who called her second CD "Stripped," released a near-pornographic video to accompany one of her songs and made out with Madonna on some MTV awards show can now be heard singing "Oh Holy Night" and "Angels We Have Heard on High." Presumably, these particular angels have nipple rings.
These kinds of Christmas CDs are nothing new, of course. Elvis has several Christmas CDs. Even Kiss has one. Amazon.com currently offers a jazz Christmas CD, a Motown Christmas CD, even a CD of Christmas music played on steel drums. Because nothing says Christmas like "O Come All Ye Faithful" infused with the rhythm of the tropics.
Imagine if this trend extended beyond Christmas. Imagine every holiday had its own collection of traditional songs. Easy listening station would jump from all Christmas, all the time straight to marathons of New Year's Day songs ("Auld Lang Syne" on repeat, baby!) and from there to its catalog of Valentine's Day ballads. By the time we got to Thanksgiving we'd all be ready to gouge our ears out with a turkey baster.
I don't begrudge people their Christmas music. I know it helps get people in the holiday spirit. I can respect that.
I just don't think I should be held accountable for my actions if I someone puts on their copy of "Ultimate Christmas" when I'm in the room this week and I'm forced to listen to Kenny G's rendition of "Silver Bells."
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Friday, December 22, 2006
Congratulations, everyone
I am Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2006, and I have to say it's about time. I'm thrilled to know the letters I've been sending finally got through to someone.
To be fair, Time Magazine has apparently chosen to name every man, woman and child in American -- or maybe the world -- its Person of the Year this year.
The reasoning behind Time's decision, it seems, is that the Internet's power to bring people together and give everyone his or her own voice gave unprecedented power to the individual. The popularization of blogs gave everyone the potential to be a terrible journalist, and sites like YouTube meant we had a central location where we could see all those stupid movie clips we once had to wait for our friends to e-mail us. And honestly, who can get enough pictures of rapping grannies and monkeys smelling their own rear ends? Take that, America's Funniest Videos.
If you ask me, the whole thing sounds like a big cop-out. The Time editors probably just forgot they were supposed to choose someone and made up some junk about learning America's true nature by watching the videos they choose to post online. I know what that's like. Once, in college, I put off writing a paper because the bar on campus was showing Ferris Beuller's Day Off. These things happen. But if watching a minute and 15 seconds of some dude hand-farting the Star Spangled Banner really reveals the character of this country I'm going to think seriously about moving to Canada. First we've got photographers camped out hoping to get pictures of Britney Spears without her underpants and now this? It's almost too much to take.
But let's take a minute to consider Time's point of view. Clearly, many people have made a notable contribution online. Sites like Wikipedia have tapped the communal knowledge of geeks everywhere to build a kind of living encyclopedia, and bloggers have in some cases helped keep mainstream journalists honest. Blogs have also allowed real journalists -- you know, hard-working folks like me who make their livings writing jokes about Britney Spears' underpants -- to keep our fingers on the pulse of America without leaving our desks. Talk to people to find out how they feel about an issue? The heck with that, I'm going to go to blogspot .com and pull quotes from a bunch of anonymous people who seem to think the world cares what they think about when they're sitting in front of their computers in their jammies. I'm in favor of that, although it would help if I could find a few more blogs where people expressed opinions about Rosemount.
But think about this: If Time is naming everyone Person of the Year, we have to take the good with the bad. We have to take Britney, for example. And we have to concede that her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, is also worthy of being considered Person of the Year, even though all he did was get someone pregnant, marry her and release a terrible, terrible rap CD. We also have to welcome to the club people like the guy who earlier this year called police to report his quarter-pound of marijuana had been stolen, then showed up at the police station to identify his drugs. Or the countless teens who used MySpace , another one of those wonderful community-building online tools Time is so excited about, to post details of the crimes they had either committed or planned to commit. Then there's my favorite local Person of the Year, the guy who, pulled over by police, claimed to have a bunch of cocaine in his truck's spare tire, only to claim it was a joke when police didn't find anything. We even have to accept the hand-farting guy, who has apparently done an entire hand-farting series, including performances of the Jeopardy theme and Happy Birthday.
I'm not sure this is a road we're really willing to go down. I'm not confident we as a nation are ready to come together as a collective Person of the Year when we can't even get together long enough to agree it's OK to wish people a Merry Christmas.
I don't care, though. I'm still putting it on my resume. At least until People finally gets around to naming me Sexiest Man Alive.
To be fair, Time Magazine has apparently chosen to name every man, woman and child in American -- or maybe the world -- its Person of the Year this year.
The reasoning behind Time's decision, it seems, is that the Internet's power to bring people together and give everyone his or her own voice gave unprecedented power to the individual. The popularization of blogs gave everyone the potential to be a terrible journalist, and sites like YouTube meant we had a central location where we could see all those stupid movie clips we once had to wait for our friends to e-mail us. And honestly, who can get enough pictures of rapping grannies and monkeys smelling their own rear ends? Take that, America's Funniest Videos.
If you ask me, the whole thing sounds like a big cop-out. The Time editors probably just forgot they were supposed to choose someone and made up some junk about learning America's true nature by watching the videos they choose to post online. I know what that's like. Once, in college, I put off writing a paper because the bar on campus was showing Ferris Beuller's Day Off. These things happen. But if watching a minute and 15 seconds of some dude hand-farting the Star Spangled Banner really reveals the character of this country I'm going to think seriously about moving to Canada. First we've got photographers camped out hoping to get pictures of Britney Spears without her underpants and now this? It's almost too much to take.
But let's take a minute to consider Time's point of view. Clearly, many people have made a notable contribution online. Sites like Wikipedia have tapped the communal knowledge of geeks everywhere to build a kind of living encyclopedia, and bloggers have in some cases helped keep mainstream journalists honest. Blogs have also allowed real journalists -- you know, hard-working folks like me who make their livings writing jokes about Britney Spears' underpants -- to keep our fingers on the pulse of America without leaving our desks. Talk to people to find out how they feel about an issue? The heck with that, I'm going to go to blogspot .com and pull quotes from a bunch of anonymous people who seem to think the world cares what they think about when they're sitting in front of their computers in their jammies. I'm in favor of that, although it would help if I could find a few more blogs where people expressed opinions about Rosemount.
But think about this: If Time is naming everyone Person of the Year, we have to take the good with the bad. We have to take Britney, for example. And we have to concede that her ex-husband, Kevin Federline, is also worthy of being considered Person of the Year, even though all he did was get someone pregnant, marry her and release a terrible, terrible rap CD. We also have to welcome to the club people like the guy who earlier this year called police to report his quarter-pound of marijuana had been stolen, then showed up at the police station to identify his drugs. Or the countless teens who used MySpace , another one of those wonderful community-building online tools Time is so excited about, to post details of the crimes they had either committed or planned to commit. Then there's my favorite local Person of the Year, the guy who, pulled over by police, claimed to have a bunch of cocaine in his truck's spare tire, only to claim it was a joke when police didn't find anything. We even have to accept the hand-farting guy, who has apparently done an entire hand-farting series, including performances of the Jeopardy theme and Happy Birthday.
I'm not sure this is a road we're really willing to go down. I'm not confident we as a nation are ready to come together as a collective Person of the Year when we can't even get together long enough to agree it's OK to wish people a Merry Christmas.
I don't care, though. I'm still putting it on my resume. At least until People finally gets around to naming me Sexiest Man Alive.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
What's that smell?
The Christmas season is upon us, and people everywhere are looking for the perfect gifts to give their loved ones. Perfumes and colognes are one time-tested option, and now more than ever our celebrities are giving of themselves and providing opportunities for their adoring public to smell like them.
This is not an altogether new thing. Celebrities have been involved in the fragrance business since a soft-focused Elizabeth Taylor thought her white diamonds would give some anonymous gambler good luck. But the famous-person-odor market is getting more crowded all the time. I bring it up now because I just saw a commercial for a new fragrance from Antonio Banderas.
You know Antonio, right? Played Zorro? Was the voice of Puss in Boots in the most recent Shrek movie? Married to that blond chick from Working Girl? Yeah, that guy. Apparently he's got his own cologne now. Or maybe it's perfume. The commercial wasn't clear.
And Banderas isn't even the only Zorro castmember with his own signature scent. Catherine Zeta-Jones has one, too. Presumably it's a special concoction formulated to attract older men who look more like the Crypt Keeper every year.
There are plenty of others, too. Cher has one. She keeps threatening to pull it from the market, but it never seems to go away. So does supermodel Naomi Campbell, whose scent has "a blend of sensual and warm notes," sure to make you want to abuse your personal assistant. Celine Dion has one, too. I can only assume it is overpowering and not at all subtle with "piercing high notes."
Famous rich person Donald Trump has his own scent, which he presumably found easier to market than a line of hair care products. Substanceless pop star/ actress Hillary Duff has a fragrance that features the scent of something called Mangosteen fruit, which, according to an ad elsewhere in last week’s issue, cures more ills than Dr. McGillicuddy's Miracle Tonic in addition to making people smell good.
Even athletes have their own fragrances, although the idea of smelling like a locker room seems less than appealing. Basketball star Michael Jordan has one with "spicy lavender amber fragrance." I have no idea what amber smells like. I just know if you find a bug trapped in it you can make dinosaurs. Famous tennis player Andy Roddick has his own scent. It comes in an attractive bottle but despite early promise never seems to last as long as you think it should.
You don't even have to be a person to have your own fragrance. There are new scents available named after television shows like The O.C. and Desperate Housewives. Apparently desperation is an attractive odor.
I'm not really a fragrance person, but thanks to a website called kidzworld.com, I know what celebrity fragrance is right for me. Although some of the questions it asked about my ideal boyfriend were a little troubling, the site seems confident something called Taste by Jessica Simpson is right up my alley and will make me "kissable and smoochable" and "harder for peeps to resist." Sweet!
There are more options than I have space to mention here, but what follows are some of what my perfume-industry sources tell me are among the best soon-to-be released celebrity scents:
• Liberation, a new scent for men by recently-divorced Britney Spears ex Kevin Federline. It smells like Cheetos, Pabst Blue Ribbon, pot smoke and desperation.
• Top Gun, by Tom Cruise. A closet's worth of fruity scents that evokes enthusiasm, denial and general insanity. Scientology-approved.
• Reasonable Doubt, but O.J. Simpson. The former football star and accused murderer is not saying he's releasing this speculative fragrance, but if he did it would smell like leather gloves and cold steel.
There are even a couple of local options:
• Game Manager, by Vikings Quarterback Brad Johnson. An enduring scent that never seems to get its due. Everyone calls it an unremarkable scent that won't offend anyone but never seems to help you score.
• Trade Rumor by Kevin Garnett. Get it now. If news reports are to be believed it might not be around next week.
This is not an altogether new thing. Celebrities have been involved in the fragrance business since a soft-focused Elizabeth Taylor thought her white diamonds would give some anonymous gambler good luck. But the famous-person-odor market is getting more crowded all the time. I bring it up now because I just saw a commercial for a new fragrance from Antonio Banderas.
You know Antonio, right? Played Zorro? Was the voice of Puss in Boots in the most recent Shrek movie? Married to that blond chick from Working Girl? Yeah, that guy. Apparently he's got his own cologne now. Or maybe it's perfume. The commercial wasn't clear.
And Banderas isn't even the only Zorro castmember with his own signature scent. Catherine Zeta-Jones has one, too. Presumably it's a special concoction formulated to attract older men who look more like the Crypt Keeper every year.
There are plenty of others, too. Cher has one. She keeps threatening to pull it from the market, but it never seems to go away. So does supermodel Naomi Campbell, whose scent has "a blend of sensual and warm notes," sure to make you want to abuse your personal assistant. Celine Dion has one, too. I can only assume it is overpowering and not at all subtle with "piercing high notes."
Famous rich person Donald Trump has his own scent, which he presumably found easier to market than a line of hair care products. Substanceless pop star/ actress Hillary Duff has a fragrance that features the scent of something called Mangosteen fruit, which, according to an ad elsewhere in last week’s issue, cures more ills than Dr. McGillicuddy's Miracle Tonic in addition to making people smell good.
Even athletes have their own fragrances, although the idea of smelling like a locker room seems less than appealing. Basketball star Michael Jordan has one with "spicy lavender amber fragrance." I have no idea what amber smells like. I just know if you find a bug trapped in it you can make dinosaurs. Famous tennis player Andy Roddick has his own scent. It comes in an attractive bottle but despite early promise never seems to last as long as you think it should.
You don't even have to be a person to have your own fragrance. There are new scents available named after television shows like The O.C. and Desperate Housewives. Apparently desperation is an attractive odor.
I'm not really a fragrance person, but thanks to a website called kidzworld.com, I know what celebrity fragrance is right for me. Although some of the questions it asked about my ideal boyfriend were a little troubling, the site seems confident something called Taste by Jessica Simpson is right up my alley and will make me "kissable and smoochable" and "harder for peeps to resist." Sweet!
There are more options than I have space to mention here, but what follows are some of what my perfume-industry sources tell me are among the best soon-to-be released celebrity scents:
• Liberation, a new scent for men by recently-divorced Britney Spears ex Kevin Federline. It smells like Cheetos, Pabst Blue Ribbon, pot smoke and desperation.
• Top Gun, by Tom Cruise. A closet's worth of fruity scents that evokes enthusiasm, denial and general insanity. Scientology-approved.
• Reasonable Doubt, but O.J. Simpson. The former football star and accused murderer is not saying he's releasing this speculative fragrance, but if he did it would smell like leather gloves and cold steel.
There are even a couple of local options:
• Game Manager, by Vikings Quarterback Brad Johnson. An enduring scent that never seems to get its due. Everyone calls it an unremarkable scent that won't offend anyone but never seems to help you score.
• Trade Rumor by Kevin Garnett. Get it now. If news reports are to be believed it might not be around next week.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Taking the reins, selling them back
When he accepted basketball coach Dan Monson's resignation last week, University of Minnesota Athletic Director Joel Maturi announced anyone interested in replacing Monson would be a candidate for the job. Since then, there has been a lot of speculation about who might become the next Gopher coach. Some have called for Flip Saunders, the formerTimberwolves coach who once played for the Gophers. Some have suggested former Utah coach Rick Majerus , although the fact he weighs something like 300 pounds and his heart may explode at any moment would seem to make him a liability. You don't want to have to deal with something like that during a TV timeout.
A few people have even suggested Bob Knight, the insane former coach of Indiana who is currently the insane coach at Texas Tech. Presumably any deal with Knight would include a provision to station someone with a tranquilizer dart gun near the court at every game.
There are a number of people out there who are qualified for the job. But I have another suggestion. Me.
I realize this might seem unorthodox at first. I have never coached any sport at any level, unless you count the seasons I've run through on Madden football. I agree that's a strike against me. But former Gopher star Trent Tucker has never coached, either, and that doesn't keep him from getting mentioned as a top candidate.
I also have the advantage of being associated with the Gopher program longer than Mr. Tucker. I've been going to Gopher games since the days I was the only one short enough to see past the overhanging upper deck and read the scoreboard. Considering I'm now 6-6, it's been a while. I've been going to games long enough to see two coaches forced out amid scandal and one pushed to resign. I attended NCAA tournament games in San Antonio that according to record books never even happened. I don't claim to know the ins and outs of a zone defense and I might not know exactly what "palming" is (it sounds kind of dirty) but that kind of dedication has to count for something, doesn't it?
Still, I imagine some might have concerns. How will I win games? How will I bring fans back to Williams Arena? Consider, though, that Dan Monson returned academic credibility to a program that lost that under former coach Clem Haskins. I don't promise to make the team any better on the court, but I promise I will continue making them go to class. Plus, I promise to give away $1,000 a night to a randomly selected fan. That should get people in the seats.
Still not enough? I understand. And if everything goes according to my plan I can guarantee my inept coaching will never sully the record of the Gopher basketball team. I'm talking about a buyout.
As a fan, I only want what is best for this team. And despite my affection for inspirational sports movies like Hoosiers and The Mighty Ducks, clearly I will never have any success as a major-college coach. I recognize that now, before I take the reins, is the time for me to turn the reins of the program over to someone who has a better chance to bring the Gophers success on the court. I am happy now, before I have had a chance to damage the good (well, sort of good) name of Gopher basketball, to step aside.
For a healthy payout, of course. I'm shooting for a cool million, but I might be willing to settle for less. Maybe half a mil. Certainly not less than $75.50. Just one quick payment and the overwhelmingly disappointing Nathan Hansen coaching era can be over even before it starts. Everyone wins.
Dan Monson reportedly accepted a $1.3 million buyout to leave his job. He got that money despite the fact his contract called for a $1 million buyout if he was fired. You can see why I think I might have a shot in this negotiating process.
A few people have even suggested Bob Knight, the insane former coach of Indiana who is currently the insane coach at Texas Tech. Presumably any deal with Knight would include a provision to station someone with a tranquilizer dart gun near the court at every game.
There are a number of people out there who are qualified for the job. But I have another suggestion. Me.
I realize this might seem unorthodox at first. I have never coached any sport at any level, unless you count the seasons I've run through on Madden football. I agree that's a strike against me. But former Gopher star Trent Tucker has never coached, either, and that doesn't keep him from getting mentioned as a top candidate.
I also have the advantage of being associated with the Gopher program longer than Mr. Tucker. I've been going to Gopher games since the days I was the only one short enough to see past the overhanging upper deck and read the scoreboard. Considering I'm now 6-6, it's been a while. I've been going to games long enough to see two coaches forced out amid scandal and one pushed to resign. I attended NCAA tournament games in San Antonio that according to record books never even happened. I don't claim to know the ins and outs of a zone defense and I might not know exactly what "palming" is (it sounds kind of dirty) but that kind of dedication has to count for something, doesn't it?
Still, I imagine some might have concerns. How will I win games? How will I bring fans back to Williams Arena? Consider, though, that Dan Monson returned academic credibility to a program that lost that under former coach Clem Haskins. I don't promise to make the team any better on the court, but I promise I will continue making them go to class. Plus, I promise to give away $1,000 a night to a randomly selected fan. That should get people in the seats.
Still not enough? I understand. And if everything goes according to my plan I can guarantee my inept coaching will never sully the record of the Gopher basketball team. I'm talking about a buyout.
As a fan, I only want what is best for this team. And despite my affection for inspirational sports movies like Hoosiers and The Mighty Ducks, clearly I will never have any success as a major-college coach. I recognize that now, before I take the reins, is the time for me to turn the reins of the program over to someone who has a better chance to bring the Gophers success on the court. I am happy now, before I have had a chance to damage the good (well, sort of good) name of Gopher basketball, to step aside.
For a healthy payout, of course. I'm shooting for a cool million, but I might be willing to settle for less. Maybe half a mil. Certainly not less than $75.50. Just one quick payment and the overwhelmingly disappointing Nathan Hansen coaching era can be over even before it starts. Everyone wins.
Dan Monson reportedly accepted a $1.3 million buyout to leave his job. He got that money despite the fact his contract called for a $1 million buyout if he was fired. You can see why I think I might have a shot in this negotiating process.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Back in my day...
I dread the day I start referring to my younger years as the Good Ol' Days, but there are times it starts to feel inevitable.
I get that feeling when I read about parents attacking referees at their son's little league games. Or when I hear about someone suing McDonald's for making them fat. And I get that feeling when I read stories like the ones I've seen recently about schools around the country banning tag and other so-called "chase games."
I only have one specific tag-related memory. I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I was a student at Afton-Lakeland Elementary School, which put it somewhere between second and fourth grades. We were playing tag on the playground during recess and one of my classmates, Bob Zajac, got away from a tag -- I might have been it, but I'm not sure -- by diving headfirst down a tube-shaped metal slide. I remember thinking it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen another person do (it's since been surpassed by that Japanese dude who eats all the hot dogs) and knowing that if I ever tried it myself I would brain myself on the slide's edge or twist my arm under my body maybe just miss altogether. Naturally graceful I was not.
Now, the game is disappearing from playgrounds nationwide. According to a Los Angeles Times story reprinted in Tuesday's St. Paul Pioneer Press, some parents are worried about their children getting hurt when a playground game turns rough and administrators are worried about the chance the parent of a child injured running either toward or away from a classmate might turn around and sue the school.
There was a time that idea would have seemed ridiculous (the early 1980s, say, when I was playing tag with Bobby Zajac) but times have changed. According to the group Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, a Montana man who legally changed his name to Jack Ass sued the people behind the MTV television show Jackass in 2002 for "giving him a bad name." Mr. Ass, who apparently changed his name in an effort to raise awareness about the dangers of drunk driving (I don't understand it either) asked for $10 million for defamation of character.
So, maybe the schools have a little bit of a point. If a person who voluntarily calls himself Jack Ass can blame someone else for giving him a bad name, nobody's safe. Still, other justifications for the bans make me want to cry.
In Santa Monica, an elementary school principal worried about the "emotional injuries" children suffered while playing tag.
"Little kids were coming in and saying 'I don't like it,'" principal Pat Samarge told Fox News. "[The] children weren't feeling good about it."
Somehow, and I'm still not clear exactly how, the next logical step became canceling tag for everyone, not just telling the kids who didn't like the game to go play on the swings.
Covering schools, I encounter this kind of attitude from time to time. Students don't get to win as often as they used to, because that would mean someone would have to lose. And that might make them sad. I once had a group of kindergarten teachers ask me if every kindergarten student in their building could be chosen Student of the Week because they didn't want to single one student out as "better" than the others. On one hand, I'm glad people are taking our Student of the Week designations so seriously. On the other hand, it made me want to go into those kindergarten classes and give the students the kind of speech I got from famous heart surgeon Michael Debakey when I graduated from college. Essentially, he told the entire graduating class they shouldn't set their goals too high because they'll only be disappointed.
True story.
These bans are taking their toll on kids. According to an October story in the Washington Times students at one Massachusetts school have created code words for banned games like tag. One parent declined to give the Times those names for fear students would face repercussions. Although it is far from clear how using code words would hide the fact kids were chasing after each on the playground.
"Hey, you kids running around after each other. Are you playing tag?"
"No, teacher. We're playing agt."
"Oh. OK, then."
This is what it's come to. We've turned an innocent kids' game into a taboo. We've told our children there is no such thing as a winner or a loser. And in an age when McDonald's and Burger King are making kids fatter by the minute we've discouraged them from playing a game that requires them to run as fast as they can.
Things just weren't like that in the good ol' days.
I get that feeling when I read about parents attacking referees at their son's little league games. Or when I hear about someone suing McDonald's for making them fat. And I get that feeling when I read stories like the ones I've seen recently about schools around the country banning tag and other so-called "chase games."
I only have one specific tag-related memory. I don't remember exactly how old I was, but I was a student at Afton-Lakeland Elementary School, which put it somewhere between second and fourth grades. We were playing tag on the playground during recess and one of my classmates, Bob Zajac, got away from a tag -- I might have been it, but I'm not sure -- by diving headfirst down a tube-shaped metal slide. I remember thinking it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen another person do (it's since been surpassed by that Japanese dude who eats all the hot dogs) and knowing that if I ever tried it myself I would brain myself on the slide's edge or twist my arm under my body maybe just miss altogether. Naturally graceful I was not.
Now, the game is disappearing from playgrounds nationwide. According to a Los Angeles Times story reprinted in Tuesday's St. Paul Pioneer Press, some parents are worried about their children getting hurt when a playground game turns rough and administrators are worried about the chance the parent of a child injured running either toward or away from a classmate might turn around and sue the school.
There was a time that idea would have seemed ridiculous (the early 1980s, say, when I was playing tag with Bobby Zajac) but times have changed. According to the group Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, a Montana man who legally changed his name to Jack Ass sued the people behind the MTV television show Jackass in 2002 for "giving him a bad name." Mr. Ass, who apparently changed his name in an effort to raise awareness about the dangers of drunk driving (I don't understand it either) asked for $10 million for defamation of character.
So, maybe the schools have a little bit of a point. If a person who voluntarily calls himself Jack Ass can blame someone else for giving him a bad name, nobody's safe. Still, other justifications for the bans make me want to cry.
In Santa Monica, an elementary school principal worried about the "emotional injuries" children suffered while playing tag.
"Little kids were coming in and saying 'I don't like it,'" principal Pat Samarge told Fox News. "[The] children weren't feeling good about it."
Somehow, and I'm still not clear exactly how, the next logical step became canceling tag for everyone, not just telling the kids who didn't like the game to go play on the swings.
Covering schools, I encounter this kind of attitude from time to time. Students don't get to win as often as they used to, because that would mean someone would have to lose. And that might make them sad. I once had a group of kindergarten teachers ask me if every kindergarten student in their building could be chosen Student of the Week because they didn't want to single one student out as "better" than the others. On one hand, I'm glad people are taking our Student of the Week designations so seriously. On the other hand, it made me want to go into those kindergarten classes and give the students the kind of speech I got from famous heart surgeon Michael Debakey when I graduated from college. Essentially, he told the entire graduating class they shouldn't set their goals too high because they'll only be disappointed.
True story.
These bans are taking their toll on kids. According to an October story in the Washington Times students at one Massachusetts school have created code words for banned games like tag. One parent declined to give the Times those names for fear students would face repercussions. Although it is far from clear how using code words would hide the fact kids were chasing after each on the playground.
"Hey, you kids running around after each other. Are you playing tag?"
"No, teacher. We're playing agt."
"Oh. OK, then."
This is what it's come to. We've turned an innocent kids' game into a taboo. We've told our children there is no such thing as a winner or a loser. And in an age when McDonald's and Burger King are making kids fatter by the minute we've discouraged them from playing a game that requires them to run as fast as they can.
Things just weren't like that in the good ol' days.
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Camping for geeks
Last week nerds by the thousands nationwide dedicated days of their lives to the Playstation 3, the newest and most powerful video game system to hit the market. According to the multitude of news stories that accompanied the occasion these brave geeks suffered cold weather and muggers and ridicule from friends and family all for the chance Friday to spend upwards of $600 on what is essentially the latest evolution of Pong.
Apparently at this level of evolution there is a lot more cleavage and wanton destruction than there was in the old days. If Ms.Pac Man were created today she'd have silicone implants and carry an Uzi.
The release two days later of Nintendo's Wii, the next-generation game system voted most likely to inspire sophomoric jokes, did not receive quite as much attention. When I stopped by a Best Buy store in Woodbury on Saturday, the day before the Wii was unveiled to the public, only a couple of people were camped out. Although one of them was dressed as the Super Mario Bros. character Luigi, so that ratcheted the dork factor up quite a bit.
My own history with video game consoles goes back to Christmas of 1983, when my brother and I received as gifts both the Nintendo Entertainment System and the competing Sega Master System. We continued to own systems from both companies through several subsequent generations, and when I got to college in 1993 I started to add more computer gaming to the mix. On at least two occasions I played online games with my friends for more than 12 consecutive hours, a fact women almost never find impressive when I bring it up in bars.
I once paid to take part in a video game competition. That's when I realized there were many people either more dedicated to gaming than I was or less dedicated to spending time outside. That was pretty much the end of my dreams of becoming a professional gamer.
What I'm trying to say is I've got some experience with this whole video gaming thing. I still own a Dreamcast, Sega's last attempt at making a game console before the company decided it could no longer keep up with Nintendo in the ridiculous-name department, and the just-replaced Playstation 2. I haven't turned either one on in more than a month, but they're there and both have logged their share of use.
I understand the appeal of the new systems. The Playstation 3 can produce graphics that border on photorealistic, and Nintendo's system has an innovative controller and a name that provides the opportunity for endless jokes about playing with your Wii.
Still, I have trouble understanding people willing to camp outside an electronics store to buy either system on the day it's released. The list of products I'm willing to camp out for begins and ends with Knight Rider DVD box sets.
Then again, many of the people who camped out for first-day Playstations turned around and sold them on ebay for $2,000 or more. I saw a couple that had bids above $30,000 on launch day and on Monday night Playstations were still going for more than $2,000 each and Wiis for more than $1,000. You can buy a whole lot of David Hasseloff posters for that kind of money.
These days, of course, people find reasons to be down on video games. Video games get blamed for everything from kids being out of shape to teenagers shooting up their schools. For the record, I don't believe Grand Theft Auto is responsible for Columbine any more than Lolita was responsible for deviant behavior, Ozzy Osbourne was responsible for devil worship, or Martha Stewart's television show is responsible for a growth in insider trading among housewives.
I'll admit I'm intrigued by this next generation of video gaming, including Microsoft's XBox 360, which has been available for a year already and has a name that isn't remotely funny. There may come a time when I'll buy one or the other of them. But I can guarantee you if I do there will not be tents involved.
Apparently at this level of evolution there is a lot more cleavage and wanton destruction than there was in the old days. If Ms.Pac Man were created today she'd have silicone implants and carry an Uzi.
The release two days later of Nintendo's Wii, the next-generation game system voted most likely to inspire sophomoric jokes, did not receive quite as much attention. When I stopped by a Best Buy store in Woodbury on Saturday, the day before the Wii was unveiled to the public, only a couple of people were camped out. Although one of them was dressed as the Super Mario Bros. character Luigi, so that ratcheted the dork factor up quite a bit.
My own history with video game consoles goes back to Christmas of 1983, when my brother and I received as gifts both the Nintendo Entertainment System and the competing Sega Master System. We continued to own systems from both companies through several subsequent generations, and when I got to college in 1993 I started to add more computer gaming to the mix. On at least two occasions I played online games with my friends for more than 12 consecutive hours, a fact women almost never find impressive when I bring it up in bars.
I once paid to take part in a video game competition. That's when I realized there were many people either more dedicated to gaming than I was or less dedicated to spending time outside. That was pretty much the end of my dreams of becoming a professional gamer.
What I'm trying to say is I've got some experience with this whole video gaming thing. I still own a Dreamcast, Sega's last attempt at making a game console before the company decided it could no longer keep up with Nintendo in the ridiculous-name department, and the just-replaced Playstation 2. I haven't turned either one on in more than a month, but they're there and both have logged their share of use.
I understand the appeal of the new systems. The Playstation 3 can produce graphics that border on photorealistic, and Nintendo's system has an innovative controller and a name that provides the opportunity for endless jokes about playing with your Wii.
Still, I have trouble understanding people willing to camp outside an electronics store to buy either system on the day it's released. The list of products I'm willing to camp out for begins and ends with Knight Rider DVD box sets.
Then again, many of the people who camped out for first-day Playstations turned around and sold them on ebay for $2,000 or more. I saw a couple that had bids above $30,000 on launch day and on Monday night Playstations were still going for more than $2,000 each and Wiis for more than $1,000. You can buy a whole lot of David Hasseloff posters for that kind of money.
These days, of course, people find reasons to be down on video games. Video games get blamed for everything from kids being out of shape to teenagers shooting up their schools. For the record, I don't believe Grand Theft Auto is responsible for Columbine any more than Lolita was responsible for deviant behavior, Ozzy Osbourne was responsible for devil worship, or Martha Stewart's television show is responsible for a growth in insider trading among housewives.
I'll admit I'm intrigued by this next generation of video gaming, including Microsoft's XBox 360, which has been available for a year already and has a name that isn't remotely funny. There may come a time when I'll buy one or the other of them. But I can guarantee you if I do there will not be tents involved.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Nap? Nope
I'm not a nap person. Never have been. I just don't like the idea of sleeping in the middle of a perfectly good weekend day when there are other, more valuable things I could be doing. Things like watching Hudson Hawk on Comedy Central or televised poker on any of the 73 channels that show it every weekend. Important stuff that shouldn't be slept through.
I had all of this reinforced Saturday afternoon when, for the first time in years, I decided there was little enough else going on I could lie back on the couch and close my eyes for a while. I'm not sure why. It could be I was tired from the biking I'd done that morning. Or it could have been the fact Comedy Central really was showing Hudson Hawk, the terrible Bruce Willis vehicle from 1991. And it was the best thing on TV. Couldn't anybody get the rights to Ishtar?
But nothing about this nap went right. I closed my eyes at 1 p.m. and when I got up a few hours later I felt more tired than when I started. I had pillow marks on my face and I felt like I'd wasted most of an afternoon. I wasn't relaxed or refreshed at all. I might as well have spent three hours cleaning my bedroom or going for a walk or even writing this column. I don't know if the column would have made any more sense if I'd done it then, but on the bright side I'd probably be writing about something more interesting than naps.
Oh well. Live and learn, I guess.
I'm not sure what the problem was. Maybe I'm just not a very good napper. Presumably there was a time -- during pre-school, probably, or maybe even as recently as kindergarten -- when I was as good as anybody else at dozing during the afternoon. Maybe I'm just out of practice. I probably had flaws in my napping technique a more experienced napper never would have made.
Take my choice of nap location, for example. This particular couch was not especially long. I, on the other hand, am. My head was on one armrest but my legs stuck well beyond another. If I angled them right I could rest them on another couch set up nearby. Otherwise, my only choice was to curl up into a kind of fetal ball, a position that probably hasn't been great for getting rest since I actually was a fetus. I'm sure none of that was conducive to a restful afternoon.
Maybe I made other mistakes, too. The kind of errors only a true rookie napper would commit. Maybe I chose the wrong time of day. Would early afternoon have been better? Would I have had more success if I'd been sleeping through the late college football games rather than Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello mugging at the camera? Should I have closed the blinds? Turned off the lights? Turned more lights on?
Did I sleep too long? Did I doze beyond the boundaries of a true nap and into the realm of the too-short night's sleep?
I could ask someone, I suppose. I could find myself a nap guru and sit at his feet while he explains the finer points of catching 40 winks on a Saturday afternoon. My nephew will be five next month. I bet he knows a thing or two about this.
Or maybe I should just let it go. Maybe I'm just not ready to handle that kind of break in my day. Maybe, like I said at the start of this column, I'm just not a nap person.
Whatever the case, I need to do something to put all this behind me. All these questions are enough to keep a guy awake at night.
I had all of this reinforced Saturday afternoon when, for the first time in years, I decided there was little enough else going on I could lie back on the couch and close my eyes for a while. I'm not sure why. It could be I was tired from the biking I'd done that morning. Or it could have been the fact Comedy Central really was showing Hudson Hawk, the terrible Bruce Willis vehicle from 1991. And it was the best thing on TV. Couldn't anybody get the rights to Ishtar?
But nothing about this nap went right. I closed my eyes at 1 p.m. and when I got up a few hours later I felt more tired than when I started. I had pillow marks on my face and I felt like I'd wasted most of an afternoon. I wasn't relaxed or refreshed at all. I might as well have spent three hours cleaning my bedroom or going for a walk or even writing this column. I don't know if the column would have made any more sense if I'd done it then, but on the bright side I'd probably be writing about something more interesting than naps.
Oh well. Live and learn, I guess.
I'm not sure what the problem was. Maybe I'm just not a very good napper. Presumably there was a time -- during pre-school, probably, or maybe even as recently as kindergarten -- when I was as good as anybody else at dozing during the afternoon. Maybe I'm just out of practice. I probably had flaws in my napping technique a more experienced napper never would have made.
Take my choice of nap location, for example. This particular couch was not especially long. I, on the other hand, am. My head was on one armrest but my legs stuck well beyond another. If I angled them right I could rest them on another couch set up nearby. Otherwise, my only choice was to curl up into a kind of fetal ball, a position that probably hasn't been great for getting rest since I actually was a fetus. I'm sure none of that was conducive to a restful afternoon.
Maybe I made other mistakes, too. The kind of errors only a true rookie napper would commit. Maybe I chose the wrong time of day. Would early afternoon have been better? Would I have had more success if I'd been sleeping through the late college football games rather than Bruce Willis and Danny Aiello mugging at the camera? Should I have closed the blinds? Turned off the lights? Turned more lights on?
Did I sleep too long? Did I doze beyond the boundaries of a true nap and into the realm of the too-short night's sleep?
I could ask someone, I suppose. I could find myself a nap guru and sit at his feet while he explains the finer points of catching 40 winks on a Saturday afternoon. My nephew will be five next month. I bet he knows a thing or two about this.
Or maybe I should just let it go. Maybe I'm just not ready to handle that kind of break in my day. Maybe, like I said at the start of this column, I'm just not a nap person.
Whatever the case, I need to do something to put all this behind me. All these questions are enough to keep a guy awake at night.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Please don't shoot; I'm not a deer
Riding a bike through northern Minnesota woods can be a very pleasant experience. It can also be a little nerve-wracking. It’s all about the timing.
For example: riding through the woods during the peak of the fall color season is beautiful. Riding through the same woods on the first day of deer hunting season, though? That’s enough to make a guy a little apprehensive.
I can picture the hunter now, fingers and other important extremities numb from sitting in a tree stand since before dawn and eager to shoot something so he can go home and take a hot shower, seeing me, my dad and my brother riding by.
“Well,” he might think, “they’re about the right size to be a deer. They’re moving fast like a deer, even if they’re not quite so bouncy as a deer usually is. They appears to be wearing yellow jackets, though.Hmmm. Could be a trick.”
In retrospect, we might have been pushing our luck when we stuck those twigs in our helmets.
We saw several hunters along the path as we pedaled north, each dressed in blaze orange. A couple of times we saw deer standing along the path. Both times we waited for the gunshot, not entirely clear whether the bullet would be coming for us or for the deer. Or, for that matter, how we would feel about seeing Bambi get offed right in front of us.
It's scary enough just being in the woods during hunting season. But on the first day? When everybody's a little twitchy and eager to shoot at something? Well, maybe it wasn't the best idea. So far as I could tell blaze orange was the color of choice in the north woods last weekend for everything from walking the dog to mowing the lawn to showering. Fortunately, our bright yellow jackets seemed to be close enough.
Poor timing aside, there was a reason for this particular bike ride. Or, if not a reason, at least a goal. The three of us set out a little before 7 a.m. from Hugo and biked north to Duluth. Like I said, "reason" might be a little strong for this particular situation. Our reason for biking to Duluth is a lot like a mountain climber's reason for going up Everest: because it's there, and it's a challenge and we can tell attractive women we did it and make them think we're manly and want to buy us drinks. At least that's what I'm hoping.
In any case, our bike trip involved significantly less chance of falling off a cliff or dying of frostbite. And we didn't need to hire asherpa.
The ride is a long one, about 140 miles in all. But it's almost all on flat bike trails. The nice thing about biking 140 miles on trails that used to be railroad tracks is that there are no big hills to go up. The unfortunate thing is that there are no hills to go down. That's a whole lot of pedal strokes without a lot of chance for a break.
It can be mildly depressing to look ahead of you and see nothing but a perfectly straight trail disappearing somewhere over the horizon. This was the perfect ride for someone who has yet to master the art of turning a bicycle.
And scenery? Northern Minnesota is beautiful early in the fall, when the leaves are changing. Once they're all gone, though, that's a whole lot of naked trees and empty fields to stare at. It doesn't exactly stir the soul.
All told the trip took us about seven hours and 40 minutes of riding time. That's a lot of opportunity to think about hunters or how uncomfortable your bike seat has gotten in the past 20 miles or how warm you'd be if you were still in bed. Or how maybe attractive women aren't as turned on as we might hope by stories of long, flat, non-scenic bike rides. At least outside of Belgium.
It was hard. The last six miles, riding into a stiff wind from the end of the trail to our hotel, was the worst. We were tired at the end, but not exhausted. Overall we averaged just over 18.2 miles per hour. We felt like we had accomplished something.
And best of all, we didn't get shot.
For example: riding through the woods during the peak of the fall color season is beautiful. Riding through the same woods on the first day of deer hunting season, though? That’s enough to make a guy a little apprehensive.
I can picture the hunter now, fingers and other important extremities numb from sitting in a tree stand since before dawn and eager to shoot something so he can go home and take a hot shower, seeing me, my dad and my brother riding by.
“Well,” he might think, “they’re about the right size to be a deer. They’re moving fast like a deer, even if they’re not quite so bouncy as a deer usually is. They appears to be wearing yellow jackets, though.Hmmm. Could be a trick.”
In retrospect, we might have been pushing our luck when we stuck those twigs in our helmets.
We saw several hunters along the path as we pedaled north, each dressed in blaze orange. A couple of times we saw deer standing along the path. Both times we waited for the gunshot, not entirely clear whether the bullet would be coming for us or for the deer. Or, for that matter, how we would feel about seeing Bambi get offed right in front of us.
It's scary enough just being in the woods during hunting season. But on the first day? When everybody's a little twitchy and eager to shoot at something? Well, maybe it wasn't the best idea. So far as I could tell blaze orange was the color of choice in the north woods last weekend for everything from walking the dog to mowing the lawn to showering. Fortunately, our bright yellow jackets seemed to be close enough.
Poor timing aside, there was a reason for this particular bike ride. Or, if not a reason, at least a goal. The three of us set out a little before 7 a.m. from Hugo and biked north to Duluth. Like I said, "reason" might be a little strong for this particular situation. Our reason for biking to Duluth is a lot like a mountain climber's reason for going up Everest: because it's there, and it's a challenge and we can tell attractive women we did it and make them think we're manly and want to buy us drinks. At least that's what I'm hoping.
In any case, our bike trip involved significantly less chance of falling off a cliff or dying of frostbite. And we didn't need to hire asherpa.
The ride is a long one, about 140 miles in all. But it's almost all on flat bike trails. The nice thing about biking 140 miles on trails that used to be railroad tracks is that there are no big hills to go up. The unfortunate thing is that there are no hills to go down. That's a whole lot of pedal strokes without a lot of chance for a break.
It can be mildly depressing to look ahead of you and see nothing but a perfectly straight trail disappearing somewhere over the horizon. This was the perfect ride for someone who has yet to master the art of turning a bicycle.
And scenery? Northern Minnesota is beautiful early in the fall, when the leaves are changing. Once they're all gone, though, that's a whole lot of naked trees and empty fields to stare at. It doesn't exactly stir the soul.
All told the trip took us about seven hours and 40 minutes of riding time. That's a lot of opportunity to think about hunters or how uncomfortable your bike seat has gotten in the past 20 miles or how warm you'd be if you were still in bed. Or how maybe attractive women aren't as turned on as we might hope by stories of long, flat, non-scenic bike rides. At least outside of Belgium.
It was hard. The last six miles, riding into a stiff wind from the end of the trail to our hotel, was the worst. We were tired at the end, but not exhausted. Overall we averaged just over 18.2 miles per hour. We felt like we had accomplished something.
And best of all, we didn't get shot.
Friday, November 03, 2006
Watch out for the cursed carrots
I don't get the haunted hayride concept. Every year around this time businesses and civic groups in the Twin Cities around the country who have an interest in scaring a population primed by Halloween (and possibly campaign ads) to be frightened. Presumably this is because they lack ready access to an appropriately spooky old house.
These groups assemble scary scenes, hire local teenagers to dress in masks and face paint and load wagons with bales of hay to haul people through the woods late at night.
But a hayride is not inherently scary. Hayrides are about harvests and full moons and the bounty of the earth. Sometimes they are about moonshine, I think. They are not about demons and witches and trying to make people wet their pants with fear.
I can't imagine someone ever saying, while being pulled on a haywagon under a harvest moon, "I sure wish I could enjoy myself, but I can't shake the feeling a serial killer might come lurching out of that thicket." Sitting in hay just makes a person feel safe. And nobody makes horror movies about cursed soybean fields.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just not a haunted hayride kind of guy. Maybe the fact I haven't done much to acknowledge Halloween's existence since I was about 15 plays into the equation.
Or, maybe I just got a bum hayride. Admittedly, while the people behind this particular hayride put some work into the scenes on display -- the giant, animated demon-thing that appeared to have been inspired by the computer game Doom clearly either took a whole lot of work or cost a whole lot of money -- the hearts of the hayride haunters themselves did not seem to be into the activity.
There's nothing frightening about a teenager in a gorilla mask and a jean jacket. Not even a little. And if the costume didn't make it clear enough this particular employee was thinking more about the next day's English test or the girl he has a crush on or Deal or No Deal host Howie Mandel's disturbing shaved-head look, the quiet "rawr" he gave while ambling alongside the wagon was a pretty good sign. (I'm honestly not sure what the best way is to write out a half-hearted roar. I did the best I could).
Granted, this particular hayride had some other factors working against it. It was really cold Monday night. And it was windy. And since attending was a last-minute decision the only jacket I had was a windbreaker. So it was a little uncomfortable at times.
And that doesn't even take into account the drunk girls. They seemed less bothered by the cold. Or, for that matter, by just about anything else going on around them outside of taking pictures of each other and nearly falling into my lap a few times.
Or, there was the girl who asked nearly every hayride monster for his phone number. Actually, that's not true. She only asked the ones who had face paint, not the ones with masks. She wanted to be able to see their bone structure, she said. A girl's gotta have standards.
There were distractions, is what I'm saying. So maybe under other circumstances I would have been terrified. Maybe if it had been warmer or if it had been earlier of if I had been 9 I would be afraid to go to sleep tonight because I knew I would have nightmares about the guy dressed up like Halloween serial killer Michael Meyers. Instead, I was confused why I was supposed to be scared by a character that hasn't been in a decent horror movie for about 20 years. Do kids today know who Michael Meyers is? Do they confuse him with the Austin Powers guy? I'm confused about this hayride's target market, I guess.
Like I said, though, I could be wrong. Some people on this particular hayride seemed genuinely frightened from time to time. Although the fact they were just as frightened by the same thing over and over might mean they're not entirely credible.
The only chills I got, though, were from the wind.
These groups assemble scary scenes, hire local teenagers to dress in masks and face paint and load wagons with bales of hay to haul people through the woods late at night.
But a hayride is not inherently scary. Hayrides are about harvests and full moons and the bounty of the earth. Sometimes they are about moonshine, I think. They are not about demons and witches and trying to make people wet their pants with fear.
I can't imagine someone ever saying, while being pulled on a haywagon under a harvest moon, "I sure wish I could enjoy myself, but I can't shake the feeling a serial killer might come lurching out of that thicket." Sitting in hay just makes a person feel safe. And nobody makes horror movies about cursed soybean fields.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just not a haunted hayride kind of guy. Maybe the fact I haven't done much to acknowledge Halloween's existence since I was about 15 plays into the equation.
Or, maybe I just got a bum hayride. Admittedly, while the people behind this particular hayride put some work into the scenes on display -- the giant, animated demon-thing that appeared to have been inspired by the computer game Doom clearly either took a whole lot of work or cost a whole lot of money -- the hearts of the hayride haunters themselves did not seem to be into the activity.
There's nothing frightening about a teenager in a gorilla mask and a jean jacket. Not even a little. And if the costume didn't make it clear enough this particular employee was thinking more about the next day's English test or the girl he has a crush on or Deal or No Deal host Howie Mandel's disturbing shaved-head look, the quiet "rawr" he gave while ambling alongside the wagon was a pretty good sign. (I'm honestly not sure what the best way is to write out a half-hearted roar. I did the best I could).
Granted, this particular hayride had some other factors working against it. It was really cold Monday night. And it was windy. And since attending was a last-minute decision the only jacket I had was a windbreaker. So it was a little uncomfortable at times.
And that doesn't even take into account the drunk girls. They seemed less bothered by the cold. Or, for that matter, by just about anything else going on around them outside of taking pictures of each other and nearly falling into my lap a few times.
Or, there was the girl who asked nearly every hayride monster for his phone number. Actually, that's not true. She only asked the ones who had face paint, not the ones with masks. She wanted to be able to see their bone structure, she said. A girl's gotta have standards.
There were distractions, is what I'm saying. So maybe under other circumstances I would have been terrified. Maybe if it had been warmer or if it had been earlier of if I had been 9 I would be afraid to go to sleep tonight because I knew I would have nightmares about the guy dressed up like Halloween serial killer Michael Meyers. Instead, I was confused why I was supposed to be scared by a character that hasn't been in a decent horror movie for about 20 years. Do kids today know who Michael Meyers is? Do they confuse him with the Austin Powers guy? I'm confused about this hayride's target market, I guess.
Like I said, though, I could be wrong. Some people on this particular hayride seemed genuinely frightened from time to time. Although the fact they were just as frightened by the same thing over and over might mean they're not entirely credible.
The only chills I got, though, were from the wind.
Look me in the eye -- it's really clean
Apparently, I have poor eyelid hygiene.
I didn't even realize there was such a thing.
Granted, it's been a while since I covered this topic. I was a student at Oak-Land Junior High School when I tool home economics. This was back in the days before it was called family and consumer science. Although, if I'm honest, there was nothing either economical or scientific about anything I did there. Mostly I baked cakes nobody would actually want to eat and sewed felt pillows that were too small to be functional and too ugly to be decorative. I think there was a crude cutout of a dolphin on it.
One of the other things we covered in home ec had to do with personal hygiene, a topic of particular importance in a school filed with students all hitting puberty at roughly the same time. I remember learning about the importance of daily showers. And of washing all parts of the body thoroughly. And of paying particular attention to often-neglected areas like armpits and bottoms of feet. But I swear nobody ever told me my eyelids deserved any special attention. As far as I was concerned, they were just another part of my face, remarkable only for their ability to block out the light when I needed to sleep and to provide some degree of protection in the event of a Three Stooges-style eye-poking. That's all.
Apparently, I was wrong. Apparently eyelids are sensitive instruments requiring the same kind of specialized attention given to teeth or high-end swiss timepieces.
Last week, I got my eyes checked. In part I did this because it has been something like five years since the last time I'd seen an optometrist. In perhaps larger part, though, it was because the Nicollet County Attorney's office said I had to if I wanted them to dismiss a ticket I got last month for driving without the glasses my license said I needed.
I thought the fact I'd passed the driver's license eye exam again since then would be enough, but apparently those don't actually measure what you can see.
Actually, when you consider the way some people drive, they might have a point there.
Anyway, during the exam I complained to the optometrist about having a sensation best described as the corners of my eyelids had been sticking to my eyes. I'd been dealing with the problem by frequently either blinking or opening my eyes wide. This provided temporary relief and had the added benefit of driving my mom crazy. But it wasn't really a long-term solution.
According to the optometrist, my problems were the result of clogged glands in my eyelids. Apparently, the oils the glands were producing were not getting either onto or around my eye -- I didn't ask for details; for all I know it's the oil's responsibility to contract out eye-unsticking duties -- and the result is something called Blepharitis, which sounds kind of like the title of a Judy Blume book.
According to the information I was given Blepharitis is very common. Actually, it sounds like I've gotten off pretty easy. At their worst my symptoms included sticky and maybe occasionally tired eyes. Other symptoms include excessive tearing; red, swollen eyelids, crusting and scaling around the eyelashes and frothy tears.
In other words, ew. I mean, frothy tears? In other words, this is a condition that can make people look like the world's creepiest liquid soap dispensers?
The optometrist gave me something called eyelid scrub to take care of the problem. I'm not sure how it's different than ordinary soap, except it costs $13.50 per bottle. Getting diagnosed meant my insurance covered the visit, though, and saved me more than $100 so I didn't ask too many questions. The bottle claims the stuff is pre-lathered, which is nice because it saves me seconds of difficult work.
I'm a little worried the fact I have specialized eyelid scrub means I've become one of those metrosexuals everyone was talking about so much a few months ago. But I can't complain too much. My eyes feel less sticky. And there are hardly any eyelid scales.
I didn't even realize there was such a thing.
Granted, it's been a while since I covered this topic. I was a student at Oak-Land Junior High School when I tool home economics. This was back in the days before it was called family and consumer science. Although, if I'm honest, there was nothing either economical or scientific about anything I did there. Mostly I baked cakes nobody would actually want to eat and sewed felt pillows that were too small to be functional and too ugly to be decorative. I think there was a crude cutout of a dolphin on it.
One of the other things we covered in home ec had to do with personal hygiene, a topic of particular importance in a school filed with students all hitting puberty at roughly the same time. I remember learning about the importance of daily showers. And of washing all parts of the body thoroughly. And of paying particular attention to often-neglected areas like armpits and bottoms of feet. But I swear nobody ever told me my eyelids deserved any special attention. As far as I was concerned, they were just another part of my face, remarkable only for their ability to block out the light when I needed to sleep and to provide some degree of protection in the event of a Three Stooges-style eye-poking. That's all.
Apparently, I was wrong. Apparently eyelids are sensitive instruments requiring the same kind of specialized attention given to teeth or high-end swiss timepieces.
Last week, I got my eyes checked. In part I did this because it has been something like five years since the last time I'd seen an optometrist. In perhaps larger part, though, it was because the Nicollet County Attorney's office said I had to if I wanted them to dismiss a ticket I got last month for driving without the glasses my license said I needed.
I thought the fact I'd passed the driver's license eye exam again since then would be enough, but apparently those don't actually measure what you can see.
Actually, when you consider the way some people drive, they might have a point there.
Anyway, during the exam I complained to the optometrist about having a sensation best described as the corners of my eyelids had been sticking to my eyes. I'd been dealing with the problem by frequently either blinking or opening my eyes wide. This provided temporary relief and had the added benefit of driving my mom crazy. But it wasn't really a long-term solution.
According to the optometrist, my problems were the result of clogged glands in my eyelids. Apparently, the oils the glands were producing were not getting either onto or around my eye -- I didn't ask for details; for all I know it's the oil's responsibility to contract out eye-unsticking duties -- and the result is something called Blepharitis, which sounds kind of like the title of a Judy Blume book.
According to the information I was given Blepharitis is very common. Actually, it sounds like I've gotten off pretty easy. At their worst my symptoms included sticky and maybe occasionally tired eyes. Other symptoms include excessive tearing; red, swollen eyelids, crusting and scaling around the eyelashes and frothy tears.
In other words, ew. I mean, frothy tears? In other words, this is a condition that can make people look like the world's creepiest liquid soap dispensers?
The optometrist gave me something called eyelid scrub to take care of the problem. I'm not sure how it's different than ordinary soap, except it costs $13.50 per bottle. Getting diagnosed meant my insurance covered the visit, though, and saved me more than $100 so I didn't ask too many questions. The bottle claims the stuff is pre-lathered, which is nice because it saves me seconds of difficult work.
I'm a little worried the fact I have specialized eyelid scrub means I've become one of those metrosexuals everyone was talking about so much a few months ago. But I can't complain too much. My eyes feel less sticky. And there are hardly any eyelid scales.
Thursday, October 19, 2006
Taking politics at face value
You know what would suck about being President? You could never, ever grow a beard.
I mean, I can’t grow a beard. But that’s a matter of genetics, not my position as the most powerful man in the free world. Give me a couple of weeks and I could come back with some facial hair. It would be the kind of thin, patchy beard that most people wouldn’t actually notice. It would look terrible and probably make small children weep. But I would know it was there and that’s what really matters.
Can you imagine what would happen if George Bush showed up at a press conference with the beginnings of a goatee? Nobody would hear a word he said. Every newscast for weeks would lead off with speculation about the Presidential facial hair and what it might mean for the country’s fortunes in Iraq or its plans for Iran. Is the President trying to impress someone? Did he lose his razor? Does he have an exit plan for this pseudo-hipster fashion statement?
It would be the most talked-about facial hair of all time, with the possible exception of Luke Perry’s soul patch on Beverly Hills 90210.
In fact, if the Republicans really want to get past this whole Mark Foley thing, they just need to talk George Bush into trying out a mustache. Maybe one of those curly Rollie Fingers/barbershop quartet deals.
It's not that beards can't be Presidential. According to CNN.com, five U.S. Presidents — Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison — had full beards when they served. A handful more had facial hair of some kind. Martin Van Buren had mutton chop sideburns, which is kind of like a beard for quitters. Of the 12 presidents between Lincoln and Taft, only two were entirely clean-shaven.
But things have gone downhill for hirsute Commanders in Chief in the century-plus since then. Harrison, elected in 1888, was the last President to serve with a beard, and Thomas Dewey, who had a mustache when he ran for President in 1944 and 1948, was the last candidate-with-facial-hair to have much success with voters. Jesse Jackson doesn't count.
But even Lincoln, our most famously bearded President -- to the point he looks mildly creepy in pictures where he doesn't have one -- didn't win election with a fuzzy face. He was clean-shaven when he worked as a lawyer in Illinois and still hadn't tossed the razor when he was first elected in 1860. He grew the beard between election and inauguration, reportedly at the advice of an 11-year-old girl, probably one of the best-qualified political advisers of all time. Then again, Lincoln didn't have CNN and Fox news standing ready to analyze the the socio-political implications of his five o'clock shadow. Presumably by the time he was up for re-election in 1864 the whole freed-the-slaves-and-restored-the-Union thing carried enough residual good will to overcome any hit in the polls caused by a few chin whiskers.
I don't know why we as a country prefer clean-shaven Presidents, but more than a century of election results don't lie. Even during periods when beards were fashionable for the general public, they were taboo at the ballot boxes. Were we afraid beards made our leaders look too sinister? Too creepy? Too much like Fidel Castro?
Why do we want our elected leaders to be powerful enough to command the world's greatest army but not so masculine-looking they could put on a flannel shirt and film a guest spot in a Brawny commercial?
Why is it OK for George W. Bush to show off for TV cameras by clearing brush on his ranch but not OK for the President of the United States to grow a Van Dyke if thinks it makes him look cool?
Some of you probably think this is a frivolous question. You think this is all just coincidence. But what did Al Gore do as soon as he lost the election in 2000? No, I mean after he complained about voter fraud and demanded a recount. You know, once he actually accepted it was over? That's right. He grew a big ol' beard.
Think about that for a second and tell me I'm wrong.
I mean, I can’t grow a beard. But that’s a matter of genetics, not my position as the most powerful man in the free world. Give me a couple of weeks and I could come back with some facial hair. It would be the kind of thin, patchy beard that most people wouldn’t actually notice. It would look terrible and probably make small children weep. But I would know it was there and that’s what really matters.
Can you imagine what would happen if George Bush showed up at a press conference with the beginnings of a goatee? Nobody would hear a word he said. Every newscast for weeks would lead off with speculation about the Presidential facial hair and what it might mean for the country’s fortunes in Iraq or its plans for Iran. Is the President trying to impress someone? Did he lose his razor? Does he have an exit plan for this pseudo-hipster fashion statement?
It would be the most talked-about facial hair of all time, with the possible exception of Luke Perry’s soul patch on Beverly Hills 90210.
In fact, if the Republicans really want to get past this whole Mark Foley thing, they just need to talk George Bush into trying out a mustache. Maybe one of those curly Rollie Fingers/barbershop quartet deals.
It's not that beards can't be Presidential. According to CNN.com, five U.S. Presidents — Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison — had full beards when they served. A handful more had facial hair of some kind. Martin Van Buren had mutton chop sideburns, which is kind of like a beard for quitters. Of the 12 presidents between Lincoln and Taft, only two were entirely clean-shaven.
But things have gone downhill for hirsute Commanders in Chief in the century-plus since then. Harrison, elected in 1888, was the last President to serve with a beard, and Thomas Dewey, who had a mustache when he ran for President in 1944 and 1948, was the last candidate-with-facial-hair to have much success with voters. Jesse Jackson doesn't count.
But even Lincoln, our most famously bearded President -- to the point he looks mildly creepy in pictures where he doesn't have one -- didn't win election with a fuzzy face. He was clean-shaven when he worked as a lawyer in Illinois and still hadn't tossed the razor when he was first elected in 1860. He grew the beard between election and inauguration, reportedly at the advice of an 11-year-old girl, probably one of the best-qualified political advisers of all time. Then again, Lincoln didn't have CNN and Fox news standing ready to analyze the the socio-political implications of his five o'clock shadow. Presumably by the time he was up for re-election in 1864 the whole freed-the-slaves-and-restored-the-Union thing carried enough residual good will to overcome any hit in the polls caused by a few chin whiskers.
I don't know why we as a country prefer clean-shaven Presidents, but more than a century of election results don't lie. Even during periods when beards were fashionable for the general public, they were taboo at the ballot boxes. Were we afraid beards made our leaders look too sinister? Too creepy? Too much like Fidel Castro?
Why do we want our elected leaders to be powerful enough to command the world's greatest army but not so masculine-looking they could put on a flannel shirt and film a guest spot in a Brawny commercial?
Why is it OK for George W. Bush to show off for TV cameras by clearing brush on his ranch but not OK for the President of the United States to grow a Van Dyke if thinks it makes him look cool?
Some of you probably think this is a frivolous question. You think this is all just coincidence. But what did Al Gore do as soon as he lost the election in 2000? No, I mean after he complained about voter fraud and demanded a recount. You know, once he actually accepted it was over? That's right. He grew a big ol' beard.
Think about that for a second and tell me I'm wrong.
Sky high shopping
I have no idea who Northwest Airlines' SkyMall catalog is for. Presumably, it's targeted at either people who have so much money they can afford to drop $300 on a pair of loafers while they're in the air somewhere over Topeka or people who shop so compulsively they can't go the length of a redeye to Cleveland without making some kind of purchase, even if it's something as seemingly unnecessary as the world's largest write-on map mural or the snow flurry projector, an outdoor lamp that shines what the catalog claims is "the illusion of gently falling snow" (in the picture, it looks more look like "the illusion of giant, mutant fireflies") on the front of your house.
It's hard to pin down a target audience here. The catalog I picked up on my recent flight back from California has everything from shoes and clothes to lawn furniture to stuff to help you organize your garage. It's a catalog for the well-dressed handyman who likes to entertain people in the backyard after showing off his color-coded garden tools, I guess.
Pet convenience is a big thing here. The catalog has a ramp to help your dog get into your van and two separate options for people who want to provide stairs to help their tiny dogs get up onto their couches. Presumably if you're the kind of person who believes your dog's comfort is important enough it shouldn't have to go through the strain of jumping, like, ever, you're also not the type who believes maybe the dog shouldn't be on the couch in the first place. Although the catalog also offers an electronic device to keep your pets off of furniture and counter tops. Talk about mixed messages.
There are $600 watches in the catalog, perfect for people wondering when the damn beverage cart is going to come by. There are video goggles you can plug into your iPod. There's a $300 heart monitor but, so far as I can tell, no defibrillator.
There's even an $800 crystal chandelier. Let me tell you, nothing says "high society" like buying showy light fixtures with some guy's seatback wedged against your knees and a baby crying in your ear.
There's luggage, which makes a certain amount of sense. And there is a carpet steamer, which really doesn't. A travel outlet adapter, which does. And a $200 chrome tool set. If you buy it on a plane, shouldn't you be able to carry it on? You think you can get a hammer and a hacksaw through security? We couldn't even make it to the plane with a tub of sea salt and brown sugar body scrub. Apparently airborne exfoliation is an issue.
There is a wine cooler and a hot dog cooker. There's a fish finder and a bird feeder. There are drink dispensers shaped like fire hydrants and orange traffic cones that read "Caution, party zone: Beware of falling guests." I assume these are for people who like to throw parties but don't have any friends.
The catalog has all manner of overpriced toys. A radio controlled hovercraft and a remote control "reconnaissance plane," complete with removable spy camera. Use the plane's 1,000 foot range to snap top secret, really grainy photos of, um, the neighbor's patio. Although the neighbors might get suspicious when the big silver plane keeps flying by 50 feet over their heads. So, maybe secret is an overstatement.
My favorite, though, is the $100 radio-controlled shark, with a battery that, according to the description, runs for 15 minutes on a one-hour charge. Not since the invention of Sudoku has the effort-to-payoff balance been so lopsided.
Basically, SkyMall is all of the useless junk you find in the Sharper Image and Hammacher Schlemmer collected in one, high-altitude place. With patio furniture. And plasma TVs.
Oh, and really trashy dresses.
So, you know, it's not all bad.
It's hard to pin down a target audience here. The catalog I picked up on my recent flight back from California has everything from shoes and clothes to lawn furniture to stuff to help you organize your garage. It's a catalog for the well-dressed handyman who likes to entertain people in the backyard after showing off his color-coded garden tools, I guess.
Pet convenience is a big thing here. The catalog has a ramp to help your dog get into your van and two separate options for people who want to provide stairs to help their tiny dogs get up onto their couches. Presumably if you're the kind of person who believes your dog's comfort is important enough it shouldn't have to go through the strain of jumping, like, ever, you're also not the type who believes maybe the dog shouldn't be on the couch in the first place. Although the catalog also offers an electronic device to keep your pets off of furniture and counter tops. Talk about mixed messages.
There are $600 watches in the catalog, perfect for people wondering when the damn beverage cart is going to come by. There are video goggles you can plug into your iPod. There's a $300 heart monitor but, so far as I can tell, no defibrillator.
There's even an $800 crystal chandelier. Let me tell you, nothing says "high society" like buying showy light fixtures with some guy's seatback wedged against your knees and a baby crying in your ear.
There's luggage, which makes a certain amount of sense. And there is a carpet steamer, which really doesn't. A travel outlet adapter, which does. And a $200 chrome tool set. If you buy it on a plane, shouldn't you be able to carry it on? You think you can get a hammer and a hacksaw through security? We couldn't even make it to the plane with a tub of sea salt and brown sugar body scrub. Apparently airborne exfoliation is an issue.
There is a wine cooler and a hot dog cooker. There's a fish finder and a bird feeder. There are drink dispensers shaped like fire hydrants and orange traffic cones that read "Caution, party zone: Beware of falling guests." I assume these are for people who like to throw parties but don't have any friends.
The catalog has all manner of overpriced toys. A radio controlled hovercraft and a remote control "reconnaissance plane," complete with removable spy camera. Use the plane's 1,000 foot range to snap top secret, really grainy photos of, um, the neighbor's patio. Although the neighbors might get suspicious when the big silver plane keeps flying by 50 feet over their heads. So, maybe secret is an overstatement.
My favorite, though, is the $100 radio-controlled shark, with a battery that, according to the description, runs for 15 minutes on a one-hour charge. Not since the invention of Sudoku has the effort-to-payoff balance been so lopsided.
Basically, SkyMall is all of the useless junk you find in the Sharper Image and Hammacher Schlemmer collected in one, high-altitude place. With patio furniture. And plasma TVs.
Oh, and really trashy dresses.
So, you know, it's not all bad.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Peter Pan really shreds in a halfpipe
There are certain things no right-thinking person can do if he truly hopes to be considered adult by the population at large. He can't wear flip-flops as everyday footwear, for example. He can't use Internet chatroom-spawned lingo — Cya L8r, for example — in regular communication. And he can't ride a skateboard.
There are other things, obviously (no cartoon characters on bedsheets OR underpants; no backwards baseball cap) but these are some of the basics. Unfortunately, it appears even at the most basic level things are going downhill.
Consider flip-flops. Minnesota winters ensure they're out of the question for at least half of the year, but during the warmer months a style of footwear commonly referred to as shower shoes is becoming increasingly popular among a group of people apparently in too big a hurry to tie a pair of shoes. Last year, a member of the national champion Northwestern University women's lacrosse team caused a stir when she wore her flip-flops to the White House to meet President Bush. The act was annoying both from a fashion standpoint and because of the number of horrible "flip-flop flap" headlines it spawned.
And chat room lingo? It's everywhere and as instant messaging becomes more popular it's only going to spread. Florida Rep. Mark Foley has been in the news lately for the sexually explicit instant messages he exchanged with underage former pages. Yes, it's unconscionable that a grown man would solicit sex from a 15-year-old boy. But isn't it also terrible to realize that this same man also on multiple occasions typed "lol" instead of "laugh out loud" and on at least once typed "me 2," apparently too busy to bother with the additional keystrokes necessary to spell out "too"?
OK, maybe that's not the best comparison, but still, do we really want our country to be run by people who might respond to a particularly good e-mail forward from the Prime Minister of Canada with "ROTFL!"?
As bad as those other things are, though, it's the skateboarding that's been most on my mind most lately. Until last weekend, I didn't even realize it was an issue. When I come across skateboarders around the Twin Cities they appear to be almost exclusively 15-year-old boys with no apparent fear of catastrophic injury. Apparently, the skateboard culture is a whole lot different in other parts of the country.
Last weekend I was in Santa Barbara, Calif., to attend my cousin's wedding. With some time to kill Saturday, I wandered along the beach and happened upon a skateboard competition, a fact that should have let me know right away things were a little bit different. In 31-plus years living in Minnesota I have happened upon bicycle circuses and Lutefisk suppers but never once an organized skateboard competition.
The really amazing part, though, was who was competing. I caught only two age divisions: the 30- to 39-year-olds and the 40- to 49-year-olds. And there were a lot of them. The oldest competitor there was 61. SIXTY ONE! Next thing you know my parents are going to take up big wave surfing.
It appeared to be a pretty diverse group. Some of the guys could have been doctors or lawyers. One claimed to be a distant relative of existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. The guy who did the announcing had long, blond semi-dreadlocks and spent the entire time shirtless. Actually, he looks exactly like the guy you pictured a minute ago when I told you I saw a 40-something California skateboarder.
They are guys who, if they came of age somewhere other than California, would probably spend their Saturdays golfing or jogging or, in some cases, panhandling.
I guess it's just a different culture. I actually heard one skater refer to another as "bra," a greeting (I assume it's short for "brother") that I didn't think existed outside of the Partick Swayze/Keanu Reeves surfing/bank robbing classic "Point Break."
Still, while I'm willing to make an exception for those X-Games skaters who make their living on a skateboard, I have to draw the line somewhere. At a certain point it's just time to put the flip flops and the skateboards and the Super Man Underoos away say Cya to childhood for good.
There are other things, obviously (no cartoon characters on bedsheets OR underpants; no backwards baseball cap) but these are some of the basics. Unfortunately, it appears even at the most basic level things are going downhill.
Consider flip-flops. Minnesota winters ensure they're out of the question for at least half of the year, but during the warmer months a style of footwear commonly referred to as shower shoes is becoming increasingly popular among a group of people apparently in too big a hurry to tie a pair of shoes. Last year, a member of the national champion Northwestern University women's lacrosse team caused a stir when she wore her flip-flops to the White House to meet President Bush. The act was annoying both from a fashion standpoint and because of the number of horrible "flip-flop flap" headlines it spawned.
And chat room lingo? It's everywhere and as instant messaging becomes more popular it's only going to spread. Florida Rep. Mark Foley has been in the news lately for the sexually explicit instant messages he exchanged with underage former pages. Yes, it's unconscionable that a grown man would solicit sex from a 15-year-old boy. But isn't it also terrible to realize that this same man also on multiple occasions typed "lol" instead of "laugh out loud" and on at least once typed "me 2," apparently too busy to bother with the additional keystrokes necessary to spell out "too"?
OK, maybe that's not the best comparison, but still, do we really want our country to be run by people who might respond to a particularly good e-mail forward from the Prime Minister of Canada with "ROTFL!"?
As bad as those other things are, though, it's the skateboarding that's been most on my mind most lately. Until last weekend, I didn't even realize it was an issue. When I come across skateboarders around the Twin Cities they appear to be almost exclusively 15-year-old boys with no apparent fear of catastrophic injury. Apparently, the skateboard culture is a whole lot different in other parts of the country.
Last weekend I was in Santa Barbara, Calif., to attend my cousin's wedding. With some time to kill Saturday, I wandered along the beach and happened upon a skateboard competition, a fact that should have let me know right away things were a little bit different. In 31-plus years living in Minnesota I have happened upon bicycle circuses and Lutefisk suppers but never once an organized skateboard competition.
The really amazing part, though, was who was competing. I caught only two age divisions: the 30- to 39-year-olds and the 40- to 49-year-olds. And there were a lot of them. The oldest competitor there was 61. SIXTY ONE! Next thing you know my parents are going to take up big wave surfing.
It appeared to be a pretty diverse group. Some of the guys could have been doctors or lawyers. One claimed to be a distant relative of existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. The guy who did the announcing had long, blond semi-dreadlocks and spent the entire time shirtless. Actually, he looks exactly like the guy you pictured a minute ago when I told you I saw a 40-something California skateboarder.
They are guys who, if they came of age somewhere other than California, would probably spend their Saturdays golfing or jogging or, in some cases, panhandling.
I guess it's just a different culture. I actually heard one skater refer to another as "bra," a greeting (I assume it's short for "brother") that I didn't think existed outside of the Partick Swayze/Keanu Reeves surfing/bank robbing classic "Point Break."
Still, while I'm willing to make an exception for those X-Games skaters who make their living on a skateboard, I have to draw the line somewhere. At a certain point it's just time to put the flip flops and the skateboards and the Super Man Underoos away say Cya to childhood for good.
Go directly to jail
I suppose it's a little foolish to get worked up about consumerism in a game called Monopoly. The entire object of the game, after all, is to beat your opponents into bankruptcy by overcharging them for shoddy properties in questionable neighborhoods (Now that I think about it, a lot of my former landlords were probably pretty good Monopoly players.) so throwing a few corporate logos around the board shouldn't be that big a deal, should it?
Still, I'm troubled. Hasbro is in the process of releasing something called the Here and Now version of the world's best-selling board game. This particular version of the game has been thoroughly modernized. Money comes in larger denominations (players now get a cool $2 million for passing Go) and properties have changed from their familiar, Atlantic City-based names to locations chosen by votes conducted across the country.
Some of the new properties are familiar landmarks. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is on there, as is the Golden Gate Bridge. Those make sense. They are iconic images of America. Others, though, are less encouraging. In an entirely predictable move that still managed to sadden me, Minnesotans chose to be represented by the Mall of America.
Also on the board: Disney World; Cleveland's Jacobs Field, home of the Major League Baseball team with the mascot most likely to offend Native Americans; the Liberty Bell; and the White House.
That's right, you can buy the White House. Apparently Jack Abramoff served as a consultant for this version. Even more unsettling: at $3.2 million, it's not even the most expensive property on the board. Boston's Fenway Park ($3.5 million) and New York's Time's Square ($4 million) both cost more than the home of the most powerful man in the world who's not Bill Gates. And the properties you need to create a monopoly with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Wrigley Field and Las Vegas Boulevard. So, it's all perfectly logical.
There are other changes to the game, too. Cell phone and Internet service has replaced electric and water utilities. Airports have replaced railroads. Instead of penalizing players with "income taxes," the game has spaces that require $750,000 payments for "interest on credit card debt." I actually think that number is about right for a lot of Americans. Chance and Community Chest cards have been updated, too. Instead of winning $10 for finishing second in a beauty contest, players can pick up $100,000 for competing on a reality show. Presumably one that involves eating pig intestines, not one that involves dating washed up rappers.
I think it's the new playing pieces that bother me the most, though. Familiar tokens like the iron, the thimble and the dude on the rearing horse have been replaced by McDonald's french fries, a Motorola cell phone and a laptop computer.
The race car? Now it's a Toyota Prius. A Prius! You can't make vrooming sounds going around the board with a hybrid! And there's nothing exciting about making the quiet humming sound of an electric motor.
The Scotty dog? Now it's something called a labradoodle, a Labrador-poodle mix that's reportedly very popular these days. I don't care how popular it is, labradoodle is a ridiculous name. And if you're looking for a dog with a ludicrous name, why not go all out? Why not go with an affenpoo (part affenpinscher, part poodle) or a whoodle (part soft coated wheaton terrier, part poodle). I'm just saying, there are options. And whoodle is a lot of fun to say.
Finally, the ever-popular ankle boot has been replaced by a New Balance sneaker. This actually makes perfect sense, because you know how the kids today like their New Balance.
Admittedly, this isn't the first time brand names and Monopoly have mixed. The Hasbro web site lists versions of the game featuring Sponge Bob Squarepants, Disney and Star Wars, and there are many others out there. And reportedly none of the companies featured on the game tokens paid for the right. New Balance, it seems, was chosen because it is the only athletic shoe brand manufactured in the United States, which I suppose is admirable. Still, there's something that doesn't feel quite right about putting hotels on the Golden Gate bridge or charging rent for staying at the White House, at least since Clinton left office.
And I still think labradoodle is a stupid name.
Still, I'm troubled. Hasbro is in the process of releasing something called the Here and Now version of the world's best-selling board game. This particular version of the game has been thoroughly modernized. Money comes in larger denominations (players now get a cool $2 million for passing Go) and properties have changed from their familiar, Atlantic City-based names to locations chosen by votes conducted across the country.
Some of the new properties are familiar landmarks. The Gateway Arch in St. Louis is on there, as is the Golden Gate Bridge. Those make sense. They are iconic images of America. Others, though, are less encouraging. In an entirely predictable move that still managed to sadden me, Minnesotans chose to be represented by the Mall of America.
Also on the board: Disney World; Cleveland's Jacobs Field, home of the Major League Baseball team with the mascot most likely to offend Native Americans; the Liberty Bell; and the White House.
That's right, you can buy the White House. Apparently Jack Abramoff served as a consultant for this version. Even more unsettling: at $3.2 million, it's not even the most expensive property on the board. Boston's Fenway Park ($3.5 million) and New York's Time's Square ($4 million) both cost more than the home of the most powerful man in the world who's not Bill Gates. And the properties you need to create a monopoly with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Wrigley Field and Las Vegas Boulevard. So, it's all perfectly logical.
There are other changes to the game, too. Cell phone and Internet service has replaced electric and water utilities. Airports have replaced railroads. Instead of penalizing players with "income taxes," the game has spaces that require $750,000 payments for "interest on credit card debt." I actually think that number is about right for a lot of Americans. Chance and Community Chest cards have been updated, too. Instead of winning $10 for finishing second in a beauty contest, players can pick up $100,000 for competing on a reality show. Presumably one that involves eating pig intestines, not one that involves dating washed up rappers.
I think it's the new playing pieces that bother me the most, though. Familiar tokens like the iron, the thimble and the dude on the rearing horse have been replaced by McDonald's french fries, a Motorola cell phone and a laptop computer.
The race car? Now it's a Toyota Prius. A Prius! You can't make vrooming sounds going around the board with a hybrid! And there's nothing exciting about making the quiet humming sound of an electric motor.
The Scotty dog? Now it's something called a labradoodle, a Labrador-poodle mix that's reportedly very popular these days. I don't care how popular it is, labradoodle is a ridiculous name. And if you're looking for a dog with a ludicrous name, why not go all out? Why not go with an affenpoo (part affenpinscher, part poodle) or a whoodle (part soft coated wheaton terrier, part poodle). I'm just saying, there are options. And whoodle is a lot of fun to say.
Finally, the ever-popular ankle boot has been replaced by a New Balance sneaker. This actually makes perfect sense, because you know how the kids today like their New Balance.
Admittedly, this isn't the first time brand names and Monopoly have mixed. The Hasbro web site lists versions of the game featuring Sponge Bob Squarepants, Disney and Star Wars, and there are many others out there. And reportedly none of the companies featured on the game tokens paid for the right. New Balance, it seems, was chosen because it is the only athletic shoe brand manufactured in the United States, which I suppose is admirable. Still, there's something that doesn't feel quite right about putting hotels on the Golden Gate bridge or charging rent for staying at the White House, at least since Clinton left office.
And I still think labradoodle is a stupid name.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Take me out to the (foot)ball game
I graduated from Stillwater High School in 1993. Leaving out my junior year, which I spent in Sweden, I was a Pony for two years and an Oak Land Junior High Raider for three years before that. I played sports -- well, JV soccer and JV cross country skiing -- and I took part in activities. And yet I realize now I have spent more time at Irish Stadium watching the RHS football team than I ever spent watching football teams that had a fair degree of success.
I guess I wasn't what you'd call filled with school spirit. But if the Irish games I have attended in recent years are any indication I might have missed out. I skipped games when I was a student because I had no particular interest in high school football.
The thing I’m realizing, though, is that an interest in football is not even remotely necessary for the students who attend high school football games. Last Friday I attended Rosemount’s game against top-rated Eden Prairie. It was a big game. And I'm convinced there were students there who did not know at any point what the score actually was.
It was last week's game that really drove this message home. Going to a high school football game isn't about football. It's about getting together with friends. It's an excuse to sit outside on a nice fall night or to stand by the fence and talk about nothing at all and especially not what's happening on the field. The younger the student, the truer that seemed to be.
At Irish Stadium there seemed to be at least four groups of fans, at least among the students.
At the top were the Superfans. They're the ones who paint their bodies funny colors and wear goofy outfits and jump and scream and cheer all game long. They're the ones who actually care about what's happening on the field. Or, they had enough school spirit to pretend they did. Or, I suppose, they just liked to yell.
I wouldn’t have been a Superfan in high school. I probably would have been the one making fun of the Superfans with my friends.
After the Superfans were the regular fans. They're the ones who showed up early enough to get a seat in the bleachers and probably spent most of their time paying attention to the game. If you had asked them at halftime they probably could have told you the schedule. Or at least known where the scoreboard was. Or what sport they were watching.
Next were the casual fans. They typically stood by the fence and spent most of their time talking to each other but turned their head toward the field every once in a while. It’s not clear they were actually watching the game, but they at least could have made that argument.
Finally, there were the nonfans. They could have been at the mall or in someone's basement or on Ellis Island for all the attention they paid to the game. They were at the stadium primarily because it was Friday night and that was where students were supposed to be.
For the most part, interest in the game tended to exist in inverse proportion to the student's age. For whatever reason, high school seniors appeared to care a lot more about how their team was doing than their freshman counterparts and freshmen, even the ones standing by the fence, were showing infinitely more interest than the middle- and grade-schoolers who couldn't even be bothered to stay in the stadium during the game. At any given time there appeared to be four or five pick-up football games taking place on the fields outside the stadium. It's not clear whether this group -- and there were hundreds of them -- even bought tickets to the game. The games could have been played just about anywhere. Aside from the occasional cheer and the noise from the PA system they might not have known there was an actual sanctioned game going on.
Not that there's anything wrong with any of this. More than just about any other activity, high school football games are about building community. There's something great about seeing those football games going on. Presumably, at least some of the kids playing did not know each other when they started playing. And given the things everyone keeps saying about Americans all being fat and lazy, playing a little touch football seems like a better way to spend a Friday night than sitting around and watching America's Funniest Videos.
I’m starting to think I missed out 13 years ago.
I guess I wasn't what you'd call filled with school spirit. But if the Irish games I have attended in recent years are any indication I might have missed out. I skipped games when I was a student because I had no particular interest in high school football.
The thing I’m realizing, though, is that an interest in football is not even remotely necessary for the students who attend high school football games. Last Friday I attended Rosemount’s game against top-rated Eden Prairie. It was a big game. And I'm convinced there were students there who did not know at any point what the score actually was.
It was last week's game that really drove this message home. Going to a high school football game isn't about football. It's about getting together with friends. It's an excuse to sit outside on a nice fall night or to stand by the fence and talk about nothing at all and especially not what's happening on the field. The younger the student, the truer that seemed to be.
At Irish Stadium there seemed to be at least four groups of fans, at least among the students.
At the top were the Superfans. They're the ones who paint their bodies funny colors and wear goofy outfits and jump and scream and cheer all game long. They're the ones who actually care about what's happening on the field. Or, they had enough school spirit to pretend they did. Or, I suppose, they just liked to yell.
I wouldn’t have been a Superfan in high school. I probably would have been the one making fun of the Superfans with my friends.
After the Superfans were the regular fans. They're the ones who showed up early enough to get a seat in the bleachers and probably spent most of their time paying attention to the game. If you had asked them at halftime they probably could have told you the schedule. Or at least known where the scoreboard was. Or what sport they were watching.
Next were the casual fans. They typically stood by the fence and spent most of their time talking to each other but turned their head toward the field every once in a while. It’s not clear they were actually watching the game, but they at least could have made that argument.
Finally, there were the nonfans. They could have been at the mall or in someone's basement or on Ellis Island for all the attention they paid to the game. They were at the stadium primarily because it was Friday night and that was where students were supposed to be.
For the most part, interest in the game tended to exist in inverse proportion to the student's age. For whatever reason, high school seniors appeared to care a lot more about how their team was doing than their freshman counterparts and freshmen, even the ones standing by the fence, were showing infinitely more interest than the middle- and grade-schoolers who couldn't even be bothered to stay in the stadium during the game. At any given time there appeared to be four or five pick-up football games taking place on the fields outside the stadium. It's not clear whether this group -- and there were hundreds of them -- even bought tickets to the game. The games could have been played just about anywhere. Aside from the occasional cheer and the noise from the PA system they might not have known there was an actual sanctioned game going on.
Not that there's anything wrong with any of this. More than just about any other activity, high school football games are about building community. There's something great about seeing those football games going on. Presumably, at least some of the kids playing did not know each other when they started playing. And given the things everyone keeps saying about Americans all being fat and lazy, playing a little touch football seems like a better way to spend a Friday night than sitting around and watching America's Funniest Videos.
I’m starting to think I missed out 13 years ago.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Bad boys, whatcha gonna do?
I rode in the 100-mile Defeat of Jesse James Days Bike Tour last Saturday, just one day after I realized how much I have in common with the famous outlaw. For months, it seems, I have been living the life of a criminal.
OK, so my crime isn't anything as glamorous as robbing banks in the Old West. Or insider trading. Or even serial jaywalking. Nobody sent a posse after me and I didn't even get thrown in the hoosegow when I got caught.
Although the State Trooper who pulled me over did give me a ticket and refuse to let me drive my car.
Here's the thing. Apparently I was wearing my glasses the last time I got my driver's license renewed. As a result, I had a restriction on the license that required me to wear corrective lenses whenever I was driving. Only, nobody ever told me that, and I never bothered to read the back of my license, where the restriction was printed. My particular prescription has always been pretty weak, so when I lost my glasses a few months ago, I didn't bother to do anything about it.
That’s right. I was living outside the law. Sticking it to The Man. Next thing you knew I’d be cutting off mattress tags.
For a while, nobody even noticed. I lived my lawless existence and reveled in the danger of it all. I didn't hit any old ladies in crosswalks or drive through any shopping malls. None of which swayed the trooper when he pulled me over last Friday south of St. Peter.
"You have a restriction on your driver's license," he told me, the sunlight glinting cruelly off of his own pair of lenses. He knew he was bringing down a hardened criminal. "That's a problem. I can't let you drive."
"I have a what?" I said, hoping to throw him off with the fallback of most hardened criminals: genuine ignorance. "Nobody ever told me that."
"It says it right here on the back of your license. Can you see that."
I could see it, a fact I thought should have strengthened my case. But apparently being able to read the fine print on the back of a driver's license was not adequate proof of my ability to drive safely.
I considered claiming I was wearing contacts (What’s a little lie to police to serial lawbreaker?) but it occurred to me if I was going to start lying to police officers I should not do it with a claim that could be so easily disproved.
The trooper asked if there was anyone I could call to bring me glasses or to drive my car. I pointed out, as politely as possible, that I live in St. Paul and was currently sitting somewhere just north of Mankato. I know very few people who like me enough to drive that far and the few I do were all at work, it being 9:30 on a Friday morning.
I neglected to mention that I no longer actually own a pair of corrective lenses. We outlaws don't like to give cops any information we don't have to.
The trooper eventually left me by the side of the road but not before warning me that if he caught me driving he'd tow my car and throw me in jail.
In the end, I called one of my co-wokers, Michelle Leonard, and made her leave the same training session I was late for when I got pulled over. She brought me to the training, then chauffeured me to a license center, where I took the eye exam -- without my glasses this time -- and got the restriction removed.
I felt a little bad about caving in so quickly. Who is The Man to tell me what I have to have on my face when I drive? Why shouldn’t I continue the Bad Boy life I had unwittingly been living for most of a year?
In the end, though, I pushed myself away from the Dark Side’s temptations. I figure it’s the wiser course of action. It’s not in my nature to scoff so openly at the laws of society. It’s just not who I am.
Besides, being an outlaw is hard.
OK, so my crime isn't anything as glamorous as robbing banks in the Old West. Or insider trading. Or even serial jaywalking. Nobody sent a posse after me and I didn't even get thrown in the hoosegow when I got caught.
Although the State Trooper who pulled me over did give me a ticket and refuse to let me drive my car.
Here's the thing. Apparently I was wearing my glasses the last time I got my driver's license renewed. As a result, I had a restriction on the license that required me to wear corrective lenses whenever I was driving. Only, nobody ever told me that, and I never bothered to read the back of my license, where the restriction was printed. My particular prescription has always been pretty weak, so when I lost my glasses a few months ago, I didn't bother to do anything about it.
That’s right. I was living outside the law. Sticking it to The Man. Next thing you knew I’d be cutting off mattress tags.
For a while, nobody even noticed. I lived my lawless existence and reveled in the danger of it all. I didn't hit any old ladies in crosswalks or drive through any shopping malls. None of which swayed the trooper when he pulled me over last Friday south of St. Peter.
"You have a restriction on your driver's license," he told me, the sunlight glinting cruelly off of his own pair of lenses. He knew he was bringing down a hardened criminal. "That's a problem. I can't let you drive."
"I have a what?" I said, hoping to throw him off with the fallback of most hardened criminals: genuine ignorance. "Nobody ever told me that."
"It says it right here on the back of your license. Can you see that."
I could see it, a fact I thought should have strengthened my case. But apparently being able to read the fine print on the back of a driver's license was not adequate proof of my ability to drive safely.
I considered claiming I was wearing contacts (What’s a little lie to police to serial lawbreaker?) but it occurred to me if I was going to start lying to police officers I should not do it with a claim that could be so easily disproved.
The trooper asked if there was anyone I could call to bring me glasses or to drive my car. I pointed out, as politely as possible, that I live in St. Paul and was currently sitting somewhere just north of Mankato. I know very few people who like me enough to drive that far and the few I do were all at work, it being 9:30 on a Friday morning.
I neglected to mention that I no longer actually own a pair of corrective lenses. We outlaws don't like to give cops any information we don't have to.
The trooper eventually left me by the side of the road but not before warning me that if he caught me driving he'd tow my car and throw me in jail.
In the end, I called one of my co-wokers, Michelle Leonard, and made her leave the same training session I was late for when I got pulled over. She brought me to the training, then chauffeured me to a license center, where I took the eye exam -- without my glasses this time -- and got the restriction removed.
I felt a little bad about caving in so quickly. Who is The Man to tell me what I have to have on my face when I drive? Why shouldn’t I continue the Bad Boy life I had unwittingly been living for most of a year?
In the end, though, I pushed myself away from the Dark Side’s temptations. I figure it’s the wiser course of action. It’s not in my nature to scoff so openly at the laws of society. It’s just not who I am.
Besides, being an outlaw is hard.
What a chore
Every once in a while, mostly when I am not overly bothered by little things like financial realities, I think about buying a house. When I do, I often think about chores -- about mowing lawns and painting fences and fixing leaks and shoveling walks. The fact I find myself looking forward to these things is something I can only attribute to some form of early-onset dementia or the warning sign of diminishing mental capacity.
Clearly I have forgotten those years earlier in my life when I was pressed against my will into doing this kind of work. I mowed so many lawns growing up that they mostly blur into one long session either walking behind or sitting upon a mower. Sometimes I got paid. Sometimes I didn't. But did I ever actually enjoy it? No more than I enjoyed going to the dentist or smashing my head repeatedly into a concrete wall. And I've never enjoyed that much.
My only distinct lawn mowing-related memory involves snagging a lever on a riding mower in a volleyball net I had presumably left up in the interest of saving time. It is a story I remember mostly because it has been told frequently in the decade-plus since it happened, but the incident has been so warped by constant retelling that most people don't know the truth of it. If you believe my father, he came home from work to find the mower still running and me cowering -- apparently fearful of some violent retribution -- in a tree house.
The story is usually good for a few laughs, but makes some big assumptions. One, it assumes I was either so ignorant or so flustered by becoming ensnared I did not have my wits about me enough to turn the mower's key.
Second, it assumes the younger me believed my father placed such importance on the integrity of his volleyball net he was likely to punish me severely for foolishly befouling it with a riding lawn mower.
It's possible my father believes he was a more imposing figure than he actually was.
For the record, the lawn mower was turned off and I was inside when my father got home, most likely watching TV.
In any case, I'm not sure where these fond feelings about household chores originates, but the more I think about it rationally the more foolish it seems.
In recent week's I've had the chance to put these feelings to the test. Housesitting for a co-worker last month I was asked to water plants and mow the lawn. The lawn was not large and there was neither a volleyball net nor any other lawn-related games to impede my way. I won't claim it was difficult, but after walking behind that self-propelled mower for half an hour I found myself thinking less about the satisfaction of a job well done than about the wisdom of planting large wildflower gardens.
More recently, I offered to help as a sister, in an effort to keep water from seeping into her basement and collecting in a low spot that happened to be more or less under my desk chair, regraded an area along one side of her house. On Saturday and again on Monday we shoveled rocks, hauled dirt and put down plastic. My nephew helped from time to time. He picked up rocks for a while until a bug scared him away. Then he mostly climbed on the rock piles we had created and tried to rub his dirty hands in my hair.
It was hardly backbreaking labor, but it was hot. Especially on Saturday, when my efforts came after a 48-mile bike ride. The finished product seems to be making a difference, but I take no particular satisfaction in that. Mostly it makes me angry at a wall that couldn't even be bothered to keep out a little moisture. And there's nothing worse than getting mad at masonry.
I like to think things will be different if I'm ever doing this kind of work on a house I own. I like to think I'll take a kind of pride of ownership that will make me enjoy the neat-looking lawn or the leak-free basement I helped to create. More and more, though, I imagine myself doing these chores while thinking of all of the other fun things I could be doing. All of the books I could be reading. All of the bikes I could be riding. All of the reality television I could be watching.
Townhomes are pretty popular these days, aren't they?
Clearly I have forgotten those years earlier in my life when I was pressed against my will into doing this kind of work. I mowed so many lawns growing up that they mostly blur into one long session either walking behind or sitting upon a mower. Sometimes I got paid. Sometimes I didn't. But did I ever actually enjoy it? No more than I enjoyed going to the dentist or smashing my head repeatedly into a concrete wall. And I've never enjoyed that much.
My only distinct lawn mowing-related memory involves snagging a lever on a riding mower in a volleyball net I had presumably left up in the interest of saving time. It is a story I remember mostly because it has been told frequently in the decade-plus since it happened, but the incident has been so warped by constant retelling that most people don't know the truth of it. If you believe my father, he came home from work to find the mower still running and me cowering -- apparently fearful of some violent retribution -- in a tree house.
The story is usually good for a few laughs, but makes some big assumptions. One, it assumes I was either so ignorant or so flustered by becoming ensnared I did not have my wits about me enough to turn the mower's key.
Second, it assumes the younger me believed my father placed such importance on the integrity of his volleyball net he was likely to punish me severely for foolishly befouling it with a riding lawn mower.
It's possible my father believes he was a more imposing figure than he actually was.
For the record, the lawn mower was turned off and I was inside when my father got home, most likely watching TV.
In any case, I'm not sure where these fond feelings about household chores originates, but the more I think about it rationally the more foolish it seems.
In recent week's I've had the chance to put these feelings to the test. Housesitting for a co-worker last month I was asked to water plants and mow the lawn. The lawn was not large and there was neither a volleyball net nor any other lawn-related games to impede my way. I won't claim it was difficult, but after walking behind that self-propelled mower for half an hour I found myself thinking less about the satisfaction of a job well done than about the wisdom of planting large wildflower gardens.
More recently, I offered to help as a sister, in an effort to keep water from seeping into her basement and collecting in a low spot that happened to be more or less under my desk chair, regraded an area along one side of her house. On Saturday and again on Monday we shoveled rocks, hauled dirt and put down plastic. My nephew helped from time to time. He picked up rocks for a while until a bug scared him away. Then he mostly climbed on the rock piles we had created and tried to rub his dirty hands in my hair.
It was hardly backbreaking labor, but it was hot. Especially on Saturday, when my efforts came after a 48-mile bike ride. The finished product seems to be making a difference, but I take no particular satisfaction in that. Mostly it makes me angry at a wall that couldn't even be bothered to keep out a little moisture. And there's nothing worse than getting mad at masonry.
I like to think things will be different if I'm ever doing this kind of work on a house I own. I like to think I'll take a kind of pride of ownership that will make me enjoy the neat-looking lawn or the leak-free basement I helped to create. More and more, though, I imagine myself doing these chores while thinking of all of the other fun things I could be doing. All of the books I could be reading. All of the bikes I could be riding. All of the reality television I could be watching.
Townhomes are pretty popular these days, aren't they?
We’ll always have Paris
When celebrity bubblehead Paris Hilton recently declared herself a generation’s iconic blond — comparing herself to figures such as Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana — it was enough to spur at least one Time magazine reader to action. That reader wrote a letter declaring, in short, that Paris is not fit to carry those women’s night-vision handicams.
Now, a person could argue the merits of debating anything Paris Hilton says. Spending any amount of time considering anything that comes out of the “Simple Life” star’s mouth seems like it would be as stimulating as holding a three-day conference to discuss the merits of Coke versus Pepsi. Either way, you’re going to feel empty and a little bit gassy.
In this case, though, it’s especially foolish. Because in this case Paris might actually be right.
Trust me, it hurt to type that just now. Aside from her notable contribution to the “‘Stolen’ sex tape as publicity device,” boom of recent years, a notable accomplishment in its own right, I can’t see any value Paris Hilton has brought to this world. I’m vaguely surprised she was able to use the word “iconic” in the proper context.
But the letter-writer’s claim that Paris did not belong in the same category as Monroe or Princess Di because she lacks the “inner beauty” those women had overlooks one important factor: Paris Hilton’s generation is not about inner beauty. It’s about skin deep. It’s about judging books by their covers. It’s about Dancing with the Stars and Us magazine’s Style Watch.
Consider this: We live in a world where Paris Hilton, who in some bizarre circular fashion appears to be famous solely because she is famous, and who does not appear to have any discernible talent, has published a book. Even worse, we live in a world in which Paris Hilton has published multiple books and continues to appear in a regular television show. Worse still, it’s a world in which even Paris’ obnoxiously tiny dog has published a book. And people apparently are buying them. I’ll admit I haven’t read any of these books (I assume this puts me on an even playing field with Paris), but I can’t imagine people are buying them for their deep philosophical insight. Kant she ain’t.
America, it appears, is fascinated by Paris Hilton. I know this because I see her vacant, vaguely plasticine face everywhere I look. For crying out loud, I can’t even flip through Time without seeing her name.
Who better than Paris Hilton, then, to serve as the iconic blond of a generation of Real World-watching, American Idol-voting, Paris Hilton-listening (Oh, yeah, she’s got a CD out now, too. It’s as terrible as you might imagine and it’s got a cover of Rod Stewart’s Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.) Americans.
I find it somehow ironic that the letter in question appeared in an issue about high-achieving high school students choosing the right college for them.
Besides, are these other so-called blond icons the writer jumps to defend really so great? Sure, Princess Di did a lot of good. She appeared on more People Magazine covers than anyone in history, and there’s the whole landmine thing. But what else was she going to do? It’s not like she had to worry about the rigors of shooting a reality TV show and launching a perfume or going to, like, lots and lots of parties. Text messaging wasn’t even invented in those days.
And Princess Di had palaces full of servants to help her every day. Poor Paris only has mansions full.
I’m pretty sure Princess Di wasn’t even American, although she gets credit for inspiring Elton John enough that when she died he changed like, two words in his song about Marilyn Monroe to create a tribute to her.
I can’t claim any firsthand experience with Marilyn Monroe. I would have liked to have known her, but I wasn’t even a kid.
Based on what little I know, though, I see more parallels than differences between Marilyn and Paris. Paris has her sex tape. Marilyn had her appearance in Playboy, the celebrity sex tape of its time.
Paris Hilton has appeared in terrible movies. Marilyn Monroe appeared in several classic films, although it could be argued her acting played a relatively minor role. Be honest: is The Seven Year Itch a classic because Marilyn Monroe so thoroughly inhabited the role of “The Girl,” as imdb.com credits her, or because she was willing to let Billy Wilder blow hot air up her skirt?
In her defense, Paris Hilton has not died of a drug overdose. Yet.
And if she really wants to be the icon of this generation she won’t. She’ll die of a heart attack brought on by eating every meal at McDonalds and never exercising. And it’ll happen while she’s watching “The Biggest Loser.”
Now, a person could argue the merits of debating anything Paris Hilton says. Spending any amount of time considering anything that comes out of the “Simple Life” star’s mouth seems like it would be as stimulating as holding a three-day conference to discuss the merits of Coke versus Pepsi. Either way, you’re going to feel empty and a little bit gassy.
In this case, though, it’s especially foolish. Because in this case Paris might actually be right.
Trust me, it hurt to type that just now. Aside from her notable contribution to the “‘Stolen’ sex tape as publicity device,” boom of recent years, a notable accomplishment in its own right, I can’t see any value Paris Hilton has brought to this world. I’m vaguely surprised she was able to use the word “iconic” in the proper context.
But the letter-writer’s claim that Paris did not belong in the same category as Monroe or Princess Di because she lacks the “inner beauty” those women had overlooks one important factor: Paris Hilton’s generation is not about inner beauty. It’s about skin deep. It’s about judging books by their covers. It’s about Dancing with the Stars and Us magazine’s Style Watch.
Consider this: We live in a world where Paris Hilton, who in some bizarre circular fashion appears to be famous solely because she is famous, and who does not appear to have any discernible talent, has published a book. Even worse, we live in a world in which Paris Hilton has published multiple books and continues to appear in a regular television show. Worse still, it’s a world in which even Paris’ obnoxiously tiny dog has published a book. And people apparently are buying them. I’ll admit I haven’t read any of these books (I assume this puts me on an even playing field with Paris), but I can’t imagine people are buying them for their deep philosophical insight. Kant she ain’t.
America, it appears, is fascinated by Paris Hilton. I know this because I see her vacant, vaguely plasticine face everywhere I look. For crying out loud, I can’t even flip through Time without seeing her name.
Who better than Paris Hilton, then, to serve as the iconic blond of a generation of Real World-watching, American Idol-voting, Paris Hilton-listening (Oh, yeah, she’s got a CD out now, too. It’s as terrible as you might imagine and it’s got a cover of Rod Stewart’s Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.) Americans.
I find it somehow ironic that the letter in question appeared in an issue about high-achieving high school students choosing the right college for them.
Besides, are these other so-called blond icons the writer jumps to defend really so great? Sure, Princess Di did a lot of good. She appeared on more People Magazine covers than anyone in history, and there’s the whole landmine thing. But what else was she going to do? It’s not like she had to worry about the rigors of shooting a reality TV show and launching a perfume or going to, like, lots and lots of parties. Text messaging wasn’t even invented in those days.
And Princess Di had palaces full of servants to help her every day. Poor Paris only has mansions full.
I’m pretty sure Princess Di wasn’t even American, although she gets credit for inspiring Elton John enough that when she died he changed like, two words in his song about Marilyn Monroe to create a tribute to her.
I can’t claim any firsthand experience with Marilyn Monroe. I would have liked to have known her, but I wasn’t even a kid.
Based on what little I know, though, I see more parallels than differences between Marilyn and Paris. Paris has her sex tape. Marilyn had her appearance in Playboy, the celebrity sex tape of its time.
Paris Hilton has appeared in terrible movies. Marilyn Monroe appeared in several classic films, although it could be argued her acting played a relatively minor role. Be honest: is The Seven Year Itch a classic because Marilyn Monroe so thoroughly inhabited the role of “The Girl,” as imdb.com credits her, or because she was willing to let Billy Wilder blow hot air up her skirt?
In her defense, Paris Hilton has not died of a drug overdose. Yet.
And if she really wants to be the icon of this generation she won’t. She’ll die of a heart attack brought on by eating every meal at McDonalds and never exercising. And it’ll happen while she’s watching “The Biggest Loser.”
Friday, August 25, 2006
Raise your glasses
Beer is back.
At least, that’s what I’m led to believe by a story on the front page of last Saturday’s St. Paul Pioneer Press business section. American brewers, it seems, have found ways, through marketing and the introduction of new products, to lure back the fickle drinkers who — perhaps enticed by a desire to feel more sophisticated, perhaps drawn by an unhealthy attraction to corks — had forsaken beer for wine.
Frankly, I have a problem with this premise. Not with the idea beer is back, but with the suggestion it ever went anywhere. Temporary sales fluctuations aside, beer has always had an important place in American culture. Nobody goes to tailgate parties with a bottle of Chardonnay, at least not without risking serious injury or at the very least a sound mocking.
For the vast majority of Americans beer has never really gone away. And if LL Cool J has taught us nothing else, it’s that you cannot call it a comeback when someone or something has been here for years.
So, that’s my problem with the article. But brewers do not get off the hook entirely. Though none of them are related to sales figures or market share, I have had growing concerns with the beer industry. My problem is with the same new products this article claims have drawn beer drinkers back into the fold, and the advertisements with which they seem to be selling increasing numbers of them.
According to the article, American brewers have started to pitch their products as cooler, classier and, I swear, healthier. Because nothing makes a person feel more vital (or more high-society) than waking up the morning (or early afternoon) after enjoying a few too many Buds.
Brewers, it seems, would like us to believe beer has all of the same health benefits attributed to red wine. Although presumably without the smugness associated with buying an expensive port. Unless you’re drinking Guinness.
Take Michelob Ultra, a lite beer introduced a few years ago when Atkins-obsessed Americans were caught up in a frenzy of counting carbs. Though the anti-carb movement has died down some since people discovered Dr. Atkins was horribly bloated when he died, Michelob Ultra then and now has been marketed as a beer for active people. “Are you a runner?” the ads seem to ask. “A swimmer?” Then this is the beer for you. Apparently the beer’s reduced calorie and carbohydrate counts make it the next best thing to Gatorade. Never mind the reason many people run or swim or bike is so they can spare the calories involved in drinking beer that’s darker than the water in your average aquarium.
More recently, Budweiser has introduced something called B-to-the-E, a beer-based drink that features, according to the article, “sweet flavors, caffeine, ginseng and guarana, a Brazilian stimulant.”
In other words, Budweiser has come up with an answer to energy drinks such as Red Bull despite the fact nobody ever even considered asking them the question.
I saw a can of B-to-the-E a while back (the logo is a Budweiser “B” with a lowercase e hovering over it as though it’s some kind of alcohol-based mat notation) but couldn’t work up the nerve to try it. Beer was never intended to give people energy. It was created by the mythical beer fairies to reduce people’s energy level to the point baseball seems exciting. What’s next? Amphetamine-based sleep aids?
The beer world used to be so much simpler. The major American brewers made regular beer and they made lite beer. Most Americans drank one or the other and those who wanted something with actual flavor could choose a beer from a smaller brewery or find something imported.
Advertising, too, was simpler. Find an attractive woman or a washed-up sports figure or a cute dog — or better yet, all three — and put her or him or it or them into a commercial. Make it funny and show lots of cleavage (the woman’s not the former defensive lineman’s).
Let’s see the wine industry top that.
At least, that’s what I’m led to believe by a story on the front page of last Saturday’s St. Paul Pioneer Press business section. American brewers, it seems, have found ways, through marketing and the introduction of new products, to lure back the fickle drinkers who — perhaps enticed by a desire to feel more sophisticated, perhaps drawn by an unhealthy attraction to corks — had forsaken beer for wine.
Frankly, I have a problem with this premise. Not with the idea beer is back, but with the suggestion it ever went anywhere. Temporary sales fluctuations aside, beer has always had an important place in American culture. Nobody goes to tailgate parties with a bottle of Chardonnay, at least not without risking serious injury or at the very least a sound mocking.
For the vast majority of Americans beer has never really gone away. And if LL Cool J has taught us nothing else, it’s that you cannot call it a comeback when someone or something has been here for years.
So, that’s my problem with the article. But brewers do not get off the hook entirely. Though none of them are related to sales figures or market share, I have had growing concerns with the beer industry. My problem is with the same new products this article claims have drawn beer drinkers back into the fold, and the advertisements with which they seem to be selling increasing numbers of them.
According to the article, American brewers have started to pitch their products as cooler, classier and, I swear, healthier. Because nothing makes a person feel more vital (or more high-society) than waking up the morning (or early afternoon) after enjoying a few too many Buds.
Brewers, it seems, would like us to believe beer has all of the same health benefits attributed to red wine. Although presumably without the smugness associated with buying an expensive port. Unless you’re drinking Guinness.
Take Michelob Ultra, a lite beer introduced a few years ago when Atkins-obsessed Americans were caught up in a frenzy of counting carbs. Though the anti-carb movement has died down some since people discovered Dr. Atkins was horribly bloated when he died, Michelob Ultra then and now has been marketed as a beer for active people. “Are you a runner?” the ads seem to ask. “A swimmer?” Then this is the beer for you. Apparently the beer’s reduced calorie and carbohydrate counts make it the next best thing to Gatorade. Never mind the reason many people run or swim or bike is so they can spare the calories involved in drinking beer that’s darker than the water in your average aquarium.
More recently, Budweiser has introduced something called B-to-the-E, a beer-based drink that features, according to the article, “sweet flavors, caffeine, ginseng and guarana, a Brazilian stimulant.”
In other words, Budweiser has come up with an answer to energy drinks such as Red Bull despite the fact nobody ever even considered asking them the question.
I saw a can of B-to-the-E a while back (the logo is a Budweiser “B” with a lowercase e hovering over it as though it’s some kind of alcohol-based mat notation) but couldn’t work up the nerve to try it. Beer was never intended to give people energy. It was created by the mythical beer fairies to reduce people’s energy level to the point baseball seems exciting. What’s next? Amphetamine-based sleep aids?
The beer world used to be so much simpler. The major American brewers made regular beer and they made lite beer. Most Americans drank one or the other and those who wanted something with actual flavor could choose a beer from a smaller brewery or find something imported.
Advertising, too, was simpler. Find an attractive woman or a washed-up sports figure or a cute dog — or better yet, all three — and put her or him or it or them into a commercial. Make it funny and show lots of cleavage (the woman’s not the former defensive lineman’s).
Let’s see the wine industry top that.
Let freedom fry
I can’t decide if this is good news or just plain ridiculous.
According to An Aug. 2 story in the Washington Times, the last two cafeterias on Capitol Hill to serve Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast have given the food items their French names back. In other words, the most childish incident of foreign relations-related defiance since our Founding Fathers voted to collectively stick their tongues out and go, “Thpppbbbbt!” at Parliament has finally ended a mere three years and four months after it began.
I’ll admit, the Freedom Fry issue fell of my personal radar a long time ago. If I’d bothered to think about it in the last three-plus years I probably would have imagined Congress, which presumably has more important things on its schedule, sheepishly put the French Fry signs back up around the time our President admitted there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Or perhaps when our Fearless Leader proclaimed from the deck of an aircraft carrier that our mission had been accomplished.
At the very least I would hope most legislators did their best to ignore the change over the past few years, asking cafeteria workers for plain “fries.” Or maybe just ordering potato chips — or even better, a nice fresh fruit plate.
In any case, I would never have imagined our nation’s leaders holding on to their hold-my-breath-till-I-turn-blue-style protest against French non-violence would stretch nearly the full length of a Presidential term. I don’t think even the raincoat-wearing serial killer in the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” movies held a grudge that long. And there have been at least three of those awful things.
None of the United States Representatives involved was interested in talking to the Times. A spokesman for Ohio Rep. Bob Ney, one of two Republican Representatives who called for the Franco-fryo-phobic change three years ago refused comment.
At the time he asked for the change Rep. Ney called it “a small but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France.”
French President Jacques Chirac reportedly responded at the time by vowing to personally head butt any American he encountered in France.
A spokesman for Michigan Rep. Vernon Ehlers, who chairs the committee that apparently has the power to change the names of the junk food our nation’s leaders snack on, told the times, “I really don’t see how this is a story.”
It is a story, though. Maybe this change is not as significant as some governmental decisions — naming blueberry Minnesota’s state muffin, for example — but it is a sign of significant changes in our country’s attitude toward the French. According to a Pew Global Attitudes survey conducted in June and cited by the Times 52 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of France. Last year that number was 46 percent and in May of 2003 only 29 percent of Americans thought the French were good for anything but making wine and surrendering to anyone who looked at them funny.
It is not clear why 48 percent of Americans still dislike the French but it is suspected that number is split nearly equally between people upset about France’s opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and people who “just don’t get that whole Jerry Lewis thing.”
First, the United States and France work together to broker a cease-fire in the Middle East. Now we are once again willing to put their name on our fatty fried potatoes and egg-soaked breakfast breads.
That’s what I call progress.
According to An Aug. 2 story in the Washington Times, the last two cafeterias on Capitol Hill to serve Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast have given the food items their French names back. In other words, the most childish incident of foreign relations-related defiance since our Founding Fathers voted to collectively stick their tongues out and go, “Thpppbbbbt!” at Parliament has finally ended a mere three years and four months after it began.
I’ll admit, the Freedom Fry issue fell of my personal radar a long time ago. If I’d bothered to think about it in the last three-plus years I probably would have imagined Congress, which presumably has more important things on its schedule, sheepishly put the French Fry signs back up around the time our President admitted there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Or perhaps when our Fearless Leader proclaimed from the deck of an aircraft carrier that our mission had been accomplished.
At the very least I would hope most legislators did their best to ignore the change over the past few years, asking cafeteria workers for plain “fries.” Or maybe just ordering potato chips — or even better, a nice fresh fruit plate.
In any case, I would never have imagined our nation’s leaders holding on to their hold-my-breath-till-I-turn-blue-style protest against French non-violence would stretch nearly the full length of a Presidential term. I don’t think even the raincoat-wearing serial killer in the “I Know What You Did Last Summer” movies held a grudge that long. And there have been at least three of those awful things.
None of the United States Representatives involved was interested in talking to the Times. A spokesman for Ohio Rep. Bob Ney, one of two Republican Representatives who called for the Franco-fryo-phobic change three years ago refused comment.
At the time he asked for the change Rep. Ney called it “a small but symbolic effort to show the strong displeasure of many on Capitol Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France.”
French President Jacques Chirac reportedly responded at the time by vowing to personally head butt any American he encountered in France.
A spokesman for Michigan Rep. Vernon Ehlers, who chairs the committee that apparently has the power to change the names of the junk food our nation’s leaders snack on, told the times, “I really don’t see how this is a story.”
It is a story, though. Maybe this change is not as significant as some governmental decisions — naming blueberry Minnesota’s state muffin, for example — but it is a sign of significant changes in our country’s attitude toward the French. According to a Pew Global Attitudes survey conducted in June and cited by the Times 52 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of France. Last year that number was 46 percent and in May of 2003 only 29 percent of Americans thought the French were good for anything but making wine and surrendering to anyone who looked at them funny.
It is not clear why 48 percent of Americans still dislike the French but it is suspected that number is split nearly equally between people upset about France’s opposition to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and people who “just don’t get that whole Jerry Lewis thing.”
First, the United States and France work together to broker a cease-fire in the Middle East. Now we are once again willing to put their name on our fatty fried potatoes and egg-soaked breakfast breads.
That’s what I call progress.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
The straight dope
Imagine if you will a press conference. Television cameras line the room, and photographers with still cameras are dotted here and there, all jockeying for the best position. Reporters, notebooks and tape recorders held at the ready the way an Old West gunfighter might clutch a Colt .45, sit in orderly rows, waiting for the action to begin.
A prominent athlete, his identity not important at this moment, approaches the podium. He speaks:
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. I will make my comments brief.
There has been a lot of talk lately about drug use among professional athletes. Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, who clawed his way back into the tour and won the hearts of Americans desperate to hold onto the tour title in the post-Lance Armstrong era with an epic solo ride through the mountains was later found to have hormones more out of whack than an entire Spring Break’s worth of liquored-up frat boys.
Justin Gatlin, the Olympic champion and world record co-holder who can run 100 meters in faster than most Americans can get up from the couch has also been found to have unusual levels of testosterone in his system.
And for whatever reason a nation clamoring for answers continues to insist baseball star Barry Bonds’ gigantic party-balloon head is the result of something more sinister than a grossly overinflated ego.
Given these cases I want to take this opportunity to insist once again I have never taken banned substances to improve my athletic performance.
I see some of you have questions. I expected that. Please, though, let me finish and hopefully I will address most of what you want to ask.
First, there is the issue of my sudden weight gain. Yes, I am more muscular than I once was. I suppose three months is a quick span in which to add 115 pounds of muscle. But I promise you this weight gain is natural. I hit the gym three times a day to build this body. I am proud of the work I have done and to have you sitting out there at your press tables lined with donuts and hot dogs questioning my dedication to the sport I love offends me.
Also, while it is true doctors were recently unable to puncture my skin with a needle to draw blood I maintain this is due solely to a naturally callousey skin, not to the effects of any illicit substance.
Second, I’m sure many of you are curious about rumors I produced a blue sample during a recent surprise urine test. This is true, though I believe claims the vial could have lit Yankee Stadium are exaggerated. At most the glow from the sample was powerful enough to serve as a nightlight. Possibly a desk lamp.
Let me assure you, there is nothing unnatural about this sample. My nutritionist has simply had me on a food-coloring-heavy diet. Also, I really like blue raspberry freezie pops. That coloring simply worked its way into my system. It is all entirely natural.
There have also been some concerns about my recent behavior. I admit some of it has been unorthodox and there are incidents I am not proud of.
Yes, after a recent win I ripped the head off of the opponent’s mascot and screamed obscenities at the 16-year-old girl inside. I am embarrassed by my actions in that situation. It is 45 minutes of my life I wish I could have back. But I was excited. It was a big game and I lost control. I apologize, but I promise you I am in full control of my emotions.
Yes, I occasionally run, naked and screaming at the top of my lungs, through the streets of our fair city. Is there something unreasonable about this? Can a man not express himself in the way he sees fit? Shame on you for trying to cage my joy.
Finally, yes, I have recently grown this second head. Trust me, this is not as unusual as it seems. Second heads are currently all the rage in Europe. Soon people everywhere will be growing second and even third crania. Just you wait.
I hope I have answered these concerns to your satisfaction. I promise I will continue to defend myself against these unjust charges for as long as they are leveled against me. I only hope this media speculation does not do further harm to the sport I love so much, curling.
A prominent athlete, his identity not important at this moment, approaches the podium. He speaks:
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. I will make my comments brief.
There has been a lot of talk lately about drug use among professional athletes. Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, who clawed his way back into the tour and won the hearts of Americans desperate to hold onto the tour title in the post-Lance Armstrong era with an epic solo ride through the mountains was later found to have hormones more out of whack than an entire Spring Break’s worth of liquored-up frat boys.
Justin Gatlin, the Olympic champion and world record co-holder who can run 100 meters in faster than most Americans can get up from the couch has also been found to have unusual levels of testosterone in his system.
And for whatever reason a nation clamoring for answers continues to insist baseball star Barry Bonds’ gigantic party-balloon head is the result of something more sinister than a grossly overinflated ego.
Given these cases I want to take this opportunity to insist once again I have never taken banned substances to improve my athletic performance.
I see some of you have questions. I expected that. Please, though, let me finish and hopefully I will address most of what you want to ask.
First, there is the issue of my sudden weight gain. Yes, I am more muscular than I once was. I suppose three months is a quick span in which to add 115 pounds of muscle. But I promise you this weight gain is natural. I hit the gym three times a day to build this body. I am proud of the work I have done and to have you sitting out there at your press tables lined with donuts and hot dogs questioning my dedication to the sport I love offends me.
Also, while it is true doctors were recently unable to puncture my skin with a needle to draw blood I maintain this is due solely to a naturally callousey skin, not to the effects of any illicit substance.
Second, I’m sure many of you are curious about rumors I produced a blue sample during a recent surprise urine test. This is true, though I believe claims the vial could have lit Yankee Stadium are exaggerated. At most the glow from the sample was powerful enough to serve as a nightlight. Possibly a desk lamp.
Let me assure you, there is nothing unnatural about this sample. My nutritionist has simply had me on a food-coloring-heavy diet. Also, I really like blue raspberry freezie pops. That coloring simply worked its way into my system. It is all entirely natural.
There have also been some concerns about my recent behavior. I admit some of it has been unorthodox and there are incidents I am not proud of.
Yes, after a recent win I ripped the head off of the opponent’s mascot and screamed obscenities at the 16-year-old girl inside. I am embarrassed by my actions in that situation. It is 45 minutes of my life I wish I could have back. But I was excited. It was a big game and I lost control. I apologize, but I promise you I am in full control of my emotions.
Yes, I occasionally run, naked and screaming at the top of my lungs, through the streets of our fair city. Is there something unreasonable about this? Can a man not express himself in the way he sees fit? Shame on you for trying to cage my joy.
Finally, yes, I have recently grown this second head. Trust me, this is not as unusual as it seems. Second heads are currently all the rage in Europe. Soon people everywhere will be growing second and even third crania. Just you wait.
I hope I have answered these concerns to your satisfaction. I promise I will continue to defend myself against these unjust charges for as long as they are leveled against me. I only hope this media speculation does not do further harm to the sport I love so much, curling.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Vote now! Win fabulous prizes!
I’m hardly in a position to criticize other people’s voting habits. Before the 2004 Presidential election I had never cast a ballot in an election more significant than college class president. I might have voted once on the color of a new M&M, but I can’t be sure. In any case, I have yet to see any polka dot M&Ms.
I can’t defend my voting record. It’s not that I felt my vote wouldn’t matter. It’s more that I could never quite motivate myself to really get to know something about the candidates and thus didn’t qualified to involve myself in the process. At least that’s what I told myself when it was time to get off the couch on Election Day.
I’m not sure what could have convinced me to get more involved in the process, but a measure currently being promoted in Arizona might have made a difference. According to the New York Times, an Arizona man named Mark Osterloh, whom the Times describes as “a political gadfly,” and a “semiretired opthamologist,” would like to include a measure on the November ballot that would, if approved, establish a kind of voter lottery that would award $1 million to a randomly selected voter following every general election.
Osterloh’s slogan for the proposed measure is, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Vote!” But awful slogans aside, Osterloh makes some fair points. Voter turnout in recent years has been as low in Arizona as it has been, well, everywhere else in the United States. Anything that can increase that number, Osterloh reasons, is a good thing.
The money from the prize would come from unclaimed state lottery money. Which, of course, raises another interesting question: If people in Arizona are too lazy to claim a collective $1 million worth of lottery winnings, can we really expect them to take the time to vote? In their defense, though, it’s pretty hot in Arizona.
According to the Times, 2 million people voted in Arizona’s 2004 general election. If Osterloh’s measure had been in place then each voter would have had a 1 in 2 million chance of winning. That is significantly better than the roughly 1 in 146 million chance people currently have of winning the Powerball but, as the Times helpfully points out, not nearly as good as the 1 in 55,928 chance they have of dying from a lightning strike at some point during their life.
For further comparison, according to the national safety council, a person’s lifetime odds of being accidentally poisoned or exposed to “noxious substances” are 1 in 212 and the odds of dying in a streetcar accident are 1 in 931,246. According to my father, the odds of finding a typo in this column are roughly even.
Osterloh’s plan is not perfect, of course. Some critics have complained that turning the electoral process into one massive $1 scratcher somehow cheapens the idea of democracy. People, they say, should vote because they feel a sense of civic responsibility, not because there is a small chance they will hit the jackpot and finally be able to get those gold teeth they’ve been thinking about.
Also, it’s probably illegal.
According to the Times, one federal statute calls for a one-year prison term for anyone who “makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote.”
Osterloh, though, is undeterred. The lawyer who helped him draft the proposal told the times he didn’t think “federal law would cover this kind of situation,” though he declined to say why, exactly.
I’m torn on this issue. I don’t think people should be bribed to vote, and I don’t think it would lead to people getting more informed before they went to the polls.
I am, however, in favor of winning $1 million.
I can’t defend my voting record. It’s not that I felt my vote wouldn’t matter. It’s more that I could never quite motivate myself to really get to know something about the candidates and thus didn’t qualified to involve myself in the process. At least that’s what I told myself when it was time to get off the couch on Election Day.
I’m not sure what could have convinced me to get more involved in the process, but a measure currently being promoted in Arizona might have made a difference. According to the New York Times, an Arizona man named Mark Osterloh, whom the Times describes as “a political gadfly,” and a “semiretired opthamologist,” would like to include a measure on the November ballot that would, if approved, establish a kind of voter lottery that would award $1 million to a randomly selected voter following every general election.
Osterloh’s slogan for the proposed measure is, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Vote!” But awful slogans aside, Osterloh makes some fair points. Voter turnout in recent years has been as low in Arizona as it has been, well, everywhere else in the United States. Anything that can increase that number, Osterloh reasons, is a good thing.
The money from the prize would come from unclaimed state lottery money. Which, of course, raises another interesting question: If people in Arizona are too lazy to claim a collective $1 million worth of lottery winnings, can we really expect them to take the time to vote? In their defense, though, it’s pretty hot in Arizona.
According to the Times, 2 million people voted in Arizona’s 2004 general election. If Osterloh’s measure had been in place then each voter would have had a 1 in 2 million chance of winning. That is significantly better than the roughly 1 in 146 million chance people currently have of winning the Powerball but, as the Times helpfully points out, not nearly as good as the 1 in 55,928 chance they have of dying from a lightning strike at some point during their life.
For further comparison, according to the national safety council, a person’s lifetime odds of being accidentally poisoned or exposed to “noxious substances” are 1 in 212 and the odds of dying in a streetcar accident are 1 in 931,246. According to my father, the odds of finding a typo in this column are roughly even.
Osterloh’s plan is not perfect, of course. Some critics have complained that turning the electoral process into one massive $1 scratcher somehow cheapens the idea of democracy. People, they say, should vote because they feel a sense of civic responsibility, not because there is a small chance they will hit the jackpot and finally be able to get those gold teeth they’ve been thinking about.
Also, it’s probably illegal.
According to the Times, one federal statute calls for a one-year prison term for anyone who “makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote.”
Osterloh, though, is undeterred. The lawyer who helped him draft the proposal told the times he didn’t think “federal law would cover this kind of situation,” though he declined to say why, exactly.
I’m torn on this issue. I don’t think people should be bribed to vote, and I don’t think it would lead to people getting more informed before they went to the polls.
I am, however, in favor of winning $1 million.
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Superstalker?
Dear Superman,
Can I be honest for a second? You can take it, right? You’re the Man of Steel after all.
It’s just, well, I’ve never really liked you. I guess that sounds a little strange, you standing for Truth, Justice and the American Way, and all. It’s just never really worked for me.
I’m not sure what it is, exactly. It’s just, you’re too … perfect isn’t the word. Nobody with that fashion sense can really be described as perfect. I’ll never be a Vogue model, but even I know the underwear goes on the inside. And knee-high leather boots? What kind of kinky things do you get up to in that Fortress of Solitude? America’s ultimate Boy Scout? I don’t think so.
I guess you’re just a little too much to take. Spider-Man has to live with the belief he’s responsible for his uncle’s death. The X-Men are persecuted by an entire society. And you? As far as I can tell your biggest problem is making sure nobody figures out that when Clark Kent takes off his glasses he looks a whole lot like you. You don’t have any weaknesses. Nobody can even hurt you unless they happen to find some rocks from your home planet that happened to cross the Universe and end up on Earth. I mean, how many of those can there really be lying around.
You’ve even got that cool forehead-curl thing in your hair. Do you know how much I’d give to be able to make my hair curl like that? Actually, not all that much. But it’s still pretty cool.
Anyway, now you’ve got this new movie. And it’s pretty decent. We get to see you flying around and catching a falling airplane and it’s pretty great to see how people react when they realize you’ve come back to them after five years away. Even though nobody seems to put together the fact that you and Clark disappeared and reappeared at the same time. First the glasses thing and now this? There was a survey recently that showed Minneapolis residents were among the most educated in the country. I’m not sure anybody in Metropolis even finished high school.
But, like I said, the movie’s pretty good. Lex Luthor’s one of the best villains around even if it’s never entirely clear how he’s going to stop people from just taking the land on this new continent he’s creating. Or why they’d even want to live someplace that looks like the surface of the moon would look if it were slightly less hospitable. The movie was worth the price of admission, is what I’m saying.
But it raised certain uncomfortable questions. What, I have to ask, is the deal with all the stalking?
I realize you missed Lois Lane. Love of your life and all. And it probably got pretty lonely in those five years you were flying around looking for the remains of your homeworld. But hiding in the trees outside Lois’ house and using your x-ray vision to check out what’s going on inside? That’s just creepy. The movie never shows you looking in on anything inappropriate, but come on — what’s the point of having x-ray vision if you’re not going to put it to good use. Am I right?
Seriously, get over it. There must be tons of Super-groupies out there.
And sneaking into the kid’s room at the end? I know Lois seemed OK with it, but come on. That’s a Michael Jackson move. You’re better than that.
While we’re on the subject, I have some other issues related to your relationship with this kid. But some people probably haven’t seen the movie yet and I don’t want to give anything away. I just hope saving the world pays well because I think you’re going to have some checks to write.
So, where does this leave us, Superman? I know it probably hurt to hear some of these things. I know we’ll probably never be friends. But I hope you understand where I’m coming from. I hope you lay off the stalking thing. And maybe ditch the cape, too. I mean, what does that thing even do?
Regards,
Nathan Hansen
Can I be honest for a second? You can take it, right? You’re the Man of Steel after all.
It’s just, well, I’ve never really liked you. I guess that sounds a little strange, you standing for Truth, Justice and the American Way, and all. It’s just never really worked for me.
I’m not sure what it is, exactly. It’s just, you’re too … perfect isn’t the word. Nobody with that fashion sense can really be described as perfect. I’ll never be a Vogue model, but even I know the underwear goes on the inside. And knee-high leather boots? What kind of kinky things do you get up to in that Fortress of Solitude? America’s ultimate Boy Scout? I don’t think so.
I guess you’re just a little too much to take. Spider-Man has to live with the belief he’s responsible for his uncle’s death. The X-Men are persecuted by an entire society. And you? As far as I can tell your biggest problem is making sure nobody figures out that when Clark Kent takes off his glasses he looks a whole lot like you. You don’t have any weaknesses. Nobody can even hurt you unless they happen to find some rocks from your home planet that happened to cross the Universe and end up on Earth. I mean, how many of those can there really be lying around.
You’ve even got that cool forehead-curl thing in your hair. Do you know how much I’d give to be able to make my hair curl like that? Actually, not all that much. But it’s still pretty cool.
Anyway, now you’ve got this new movie. And it’s pretty decent. We get to see you flying around and catching a falling airplane and it’s pretty great to see how people react when they realize you’ve come back to them after five years away. Even though nobody seems to put together the fact that you and Clark disappeared and reappeared at the same time. First the glasses thing and now this? There was a survey recently that showed Minneapolis residents were among the most educated in the country. I’m not sure anybody in Metropolis even finished high school.
But, like I said, the movie’s pretty good. Lex Luthor’s one of the best villains around even if it’s never entirely clear how he’s going to stop people from just taking the land on this new continent he’s creating. Or why they’d even want to live someplace that looks like the surface of the moon would look if it were slightly less hospitable. The movie was worth the price of admission, is what I’m saying.
But it raised certain uncomfortable questions. What, I have to ask, is the deal with all the stalking?
I realize you missed Lois Lane. Love of your life and all. And it probably got pretty lonely in those five years you were flying around looking for the remains of your homeworld. But hiding in the trees outside Lois’ house and using your x-ray vision to check out what’s going on inside? That’s just creepy. The movie never shows you looking in on anything inappropriate, but come on — what’s the point of having x-ray vision if you’re not going to put it to good use. Am I right?
Seriously, get over it. There must be tons of Super-groupies out there.
And sneaking into the kid’s room at the end? I know Lois seemed OK with it, but come on. That’s a Michael Jackson move. You’re better than that.
While we’re on the subject, I have some other issues related to your relationship with this kid. But some people probably haven’t seen the movie yet and I don’t want to give anything away. I just hope saving the world pays well because I think you’re going to have some checks to write.
So, where does this leave us, Superman? I know it probably hurt to hear some of these things. I know we’ll probably never be friends. But I hope you understand where I’m coming from. I hope you lay off the stalking thing. And maybe ditch the cape, too. I mean, what does that thing even do?
Regards,
Nathan Hansen
Monday, July 03, 2006
Tall tales
I am six feet, six inches tall.
This is significantly taller than average.
I understand this.
There are certain advantages to being tall. I can usually reach things on the high shelves, for example. And I hardly ever have to worry about someone sitting in front of me in a movie theater.
There are also certain disadvantages. Like having to search the Twin Cities to find pants that fit. Or having to find a car with enough headroom. Or always having people ask me to get things off of high shelves for them.
Many tall people get asked by complete strangers if they play basketball. I used to get annoyed when this happened to me, but it seems to happen less often these days. Maybe it’s because I’m starting to look old enough that even if I had once played basketball bringing up the subject no would at best cause me to tell long-winded stories about the time I made the winning shot at the section tournament. Or maybe people have finally realized that typical basketball player has a physique that’s a little more Charles Atlas and a little less Charles Darwin. (I write this, obviously, assuming the man who popularized the theory of evolution is not particularly buff and that he couldn’t even dunk on a nine-foot rim. Although I hear he had a quick first step and a great crossover.)
Whatever reason, the basketball questions have for the most part gone by the wayside. In their place, however, is a conversational tactic that I find perhaps even more confounding. More and more, people I have just met feel the need to make conversation by explaining that they have a friend (or a relative or a dentist) who is also very tall.
I’m honestly not sure how I’m supposed to react. Should I feel better about myself if they know someone who is very tall but not quite as tall as me? Should I feel threatened if they know someone who is, say, six-eight? Should I simply feel better knowing I am not the only unusually tall person in the world? And if that’s the case are those comments really necessary considering the existence of the National Basketball Association?
Do people do this in other conversations? When they meet someone who is especially short, do they say, “Oh, I know a guy who’s a jockey”? When they meet someone who is heavyset do they say, “I know a guy who’s on a diet”? When they meet someone unattractive do they say, “I know former Minnesota Timberwolf Sam Cassell”?
Do people who tell me about their uncle with a glandular problem expect me to say, “Oh, sure. Chuck. I saw him the other day at the tall guy’s club.”?
I don’t have any answers to these questions. I never know where a conversation should go after a comment like this. But I will tell you this much: I really like the idea of a tall person’s club. We will have high doorways and extra long couches for when we want to take naps. We will give each other extra-high fives and laugh dismissively at guys who are shorter than five-eight.
And maybe, with enough thought, we’ll figure out what to say the next time someone tells us their podiatrist is six-nine.
This is significantly taller than average.
I understand this.
There are certain advantages to being tall. I can usually reach things on the high shelves, for example. And I hardly ever have to worry about someone sitting in front of me in a movie theater.
There are also certain disadvantages. Like having to search the Twin Cities to find pants that fit. Or having to find a car with enough headroom. Or always having people ask me to get things off of high shelves for them.
Many tall people get asked by complete strangers if they play basketball. I used to get annoyed when this happened to me, but it seems to happen less often these days. Maybe it’s because I’m starting to look old enough that even if I had once played basketball bringing up the subject no would at best cause me to tell long-winded stories about the time I made the winning shot at the section tournament. Or maybe people have finally realized that typical basketball player has a physique that’s a little more Charles Atlas and a little less Charles Darwin. (I write this, obviously, assuming the man who popularized the theory of evolution is not particularly buff and that he couldn’t even dunk on a nine-foot rim. Although I hear he had a quick first step and a great crossover.)
Whatever reason, the basketball questions have for the most part gone by the wayside. In their place, however, is a conversational tactic that I find perhaps even more confounding. More and more, people I have just met feel the need to make conversation by explaining that they have a friend (or a relative or a dentist) who is also very tall.
I’m honestly not sure how I’m supposed to react. Should I feel better about myself if they know someone who is very tall but not quite as tall as me? Should I feel threatened if they know someone who is, say, six-eight? Should I simply feel better knowing I am not the only unusually tall person in the world? And if that’s the case are those comments really necessary considering the existence of the National Basketball Association?
Do people do this in other conversations? When they meet someone who is especially short, do they say, “Oh, I know a guy who’s a jockey”? When they meet someone who is heavyset do they say, “I know a guy who’s on a diet”? When they meet someone unattractive do they say, “I know former Minnesota Timberwolf Sam Cassell”?
Do people who tell me about their uncle with a glandular problem expect me to say, “Oh, sure. Chuck. I saw him the other day at the tall guy’s club.”?
I don’t have any answers to these questions. I never know where a conversation should go after a comment like this. But I will tell you this much: I really like the idea of a tall person’s club. We will have high doorways and extra long couches for when we want to take naps. We will give each other extra-high fives and laugh dismissively at guys who are shorter than five-eight.
And maybe, with enough thought, we’ll figure out what to say the next time someone tells us their podiatrist is six-nine.
The sharp, glassy edges of reality
A few weeks ago I used this space to assert my theoretical superiority to every other bicyclist on the road. As long as I am safe in my car, I argued, I believe I am faster than anyone I see riding.
In the absence of objective proof, why should I give some other sucker the benefit of the doubt? Sometimes, though, reality rears back and smacks you down like broken glass puncturing a tire.
For me, one of those broken glass moments came last weekend.
On Sunday afternoon I drove out to Stillwater to watch the final stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix, a five-day bike race that also had stages in St. Paul, Cannon Falls, Minneapolis and Mankato. The final stage was roughly 25 miles and the leading riders finished it in about an hour. So, you have a pretty good idea what kind of speed they were going.
The race course one short, very steep hill. According to the race’s web site the hill is a 24 percent grade. By way of comparison, the site explains, federal law does not allow highways to have a grade steeper than 6 percent. In other words, this particular hill is at least four times as steep as any highway you’ve ever driven on. At just a couple of blocks long it’s the next best thing to a wall.
The course also has a long downhill, this one several blocks in length, that runs from down the bluff into downtown Stillwater. It’s not as steep, but racers approach 50 miles per hour on the way down, then immediately whip into a 90 degree corner, never appearing to slow down or even consider that they are one slick spot from ending up stuck to the side of a building.
These racers are not the best of the best. They’re professionals, but they’re like minor league baseball players or golfers on the Hooters tour. They travel around the country, put in hours of practice and make very little money but they’re doing something they love to do. They are trying to earn their way to bigger things and some of them make it, but most have reached their highest level of competition. They can dream all they want about becoming the next Lance Armstrong, but they’re more likely to be the cycling equivalent of a star player for the St. Paul Saints.
They don’t even get to compete in events with cool names like “The Hooters Tour.”
Every one of them could kick my butt.
It’s not easy for me to say that, but while I haven’t actually raced the course these guys competed on, I can’t argue against what I saw. Mostly, that was a blur of brightly-colored jerseys whipping past me on both sides.
I’m not the greatest hill climber in the world. At six feet, six inches tall I carry too much weight to make riding up mountains a sensible thing to do. I’m pretty sure, though, that the racers who competed Sunday would gain more time on me on the downhill part of the Stillwater hill than they would on the up. To put bike handling ability in automotive terms, they are exotic, highly-tuned Italian sports cars while I am more like a school bus.
Fully loaded.
Pulling a semi.
With flat tires.
In other words, while they were zipping around the corner and heading back toward the uphill, I would be somewhere in the middle of the downhill, squeezing my brakes in a death grip and rethinking my decision to save a few bucks on discount tires. I don’t want to sound like I don’t trust my bike to hold up, but I weigh somewhere around 210 pounds and my bike weighs between 15 and 20. I’m just saying it seems like a lot to ask. It’s not a bet I’m willing to make with the good health of my skeletal structure.
So, yes. I’ll give these guys the benefit of the doubt. I will admit the professional bike racers who dedicate hours to their sport are faster than me. It hurts, but it’s the truth.
I’m still pretty sure I’m faster than everyone else, though.
In the absence of objective proof, why should I give some other sucker the benefit of the doubt? Sometimes, though, reality rears back and smacks you down like broken glass puncturing a tire.
For me, one of those broken glass moments came last weekend.
On Sunday afternoon I drove out to Stillwater to watch the final stage of the Nature Valley Grand Prix, a five-day bike race that also had stages in St. Paul, Cannon Falls, Minneapolis and Mankato. The final stage was roughly 25 miles and the leading riders finished it in about an hour. So, you have a pretty good idea what kind of speed they were going.
The race course one short, very steep hill. According to the race’s web site the hill is a 24 percent grade. By way of comparison, the site explains, federal law does not allow highways to have a grade steeper than 6 percent. In other words, this particular hill is at least four times as steep as any highway you’ve ever driven on. At just a couple of blocks long it’s the next best thing to a wall.
The course also has a long downhill, this one several blocks in length, that runs from down the bluff into downtown Stillwater. It’s not as steep, but racers approach 50 miles per hour on the way down, then immediately whip into a 90 degree corner, never appearing to slow down or even consider that they are one slick spot from ending up stuck to the side of a building.
These racers are not the best of the best. They’re professionals, but they’re like minor league baseball players or golfers on the Hooters tour. They travel around the country, put in hours of practice and make very little money but they’re doing something they love to do. They are trying to earn their way to bigger things and some of them make it, but most have reached their highest level of competition. They can dream all they want about becoming the next Lance Armstrong, but they’re more likely to be the cycling equivalent of a star player for the St. Paul Saints.
They don’t even get to compete in events with cool names like “The Hooters Tour.”
Every one of them could kick my butt.
It’s not easy for me to say that, but while I haven’t actually raced the course these guys competed on, I can’t argue against what I saw. Mostly, that was a blur of brightly-colored jerseys whipping past me on both sides.
I’m not the greatest hill climber in the world. At six feet, six inches tall I carry too much weight to make riding up mountains a sensible thing to do. I’m pretty sure, though, that the racers who competed Sunday would gain more time on me on the downhill part of the Stillwater hill than they would on the up. To put bike handling ability in automotive terms, they are exotic, highly-tuned Italian sports cars while I am more like a school bus.
Fully loaded.
Pulling a semi.
With flat tires.
In other words, while they were zipping around the corner and heading back toward the uphill, I would be somewhere in the middle of the downhill, squeezing my brakes in a death grip and rethinking my decision to save a few bucks on discount tires. I don’t want to sound like I don’t trust my bike to hold up, but I weigh somewhere around 210 pounds and my bike weighs between 15 and 20. I’m just saying it seems like a lot to ask. It’s not a bet I’m willing to make with the good health of my skeletal structure.
So, yes. I’ll give these guys the benefit of the doubt. I will admit the professional bike racers who dedicate hours to their sport are faster than me. It hurts, but it’s the truth.
I’m still pretty sure I’m faster than everyone else, though.
Improving the world's game
The World Cup started last week. Around the world, soccer fans are on edge as they follow their team’s fortunes. Countries are declaring national holidays so their citizens can stay home and watch their team’s games.
Meanwhile, in the United States, people are wondering why it’s taking so long this month to the golf highlights on SportsCenter.
It’s no secret soccer’s in the United States has a popularity that ranks it somewhere in the vicinity of lawn bowling and dwarf tossing. Every time the subject comes up — essentially every four years during the World Cup — Twin Cities newspaper columnists renew an argument against the game that has been going on at least since I played soccer in high school. This time around, one actually suggested liking soccer was just a few steps removed from burning the flag. “We’re Americans,” the message seemed to be. “We know better than to like that silly no-hands game.”
Ask them and Americans will give several reason for their dislike of soccer. A nation raised on the thrill-a-minute pacing of baseball does not believe the game is exciting enough. A country where fans frequently celebrate sports championships by turning over cars and starting fires tut-tut over the soccer hooligans who celebrate their team by fighting with the hooligan fans of rival teams.
Admittedly, there have been reports of Polish fans trying to schedule fights against rival fans. I don’t condone the violence, but it’s nice to know it’s so well scheduled. Although presumably the Poles would be wary of an planned brawl German fans, though.
Granted, soccer is not the easiest game to watch on TV. It’s hard to appreciate the individual work players do without seeing them up close, but it’s hard to appreciate the tactical aspect of the game — the reasons a team would pass the ball all the way back to its own goalkeeper when the goal is to get the ball in the net at the other end of the field — without a wide view.
Our sports do not lend themselves to moving backward, and it’s not a notion we accept readily. A runner would never voluntarily move back a base in baseball and a football team would never give up a sack just because it gave them more plays to choose from. About the closest we come in this country is a center in basketball passing the ball out for a three-pointer. But in Minnesota, home of the Timberwolves, even that must seem like a foreign concept.
I could argue the merits of soccer as a game, but that has been done before. Americans have their arguments and there isn’t much soccer fans will ever be able to do to convince them the game the rest of the world adores might be at least as entertaining as a rerun of According to Jim. Maybe what we need to do is find ways to make the world’s most popular game more appealing to the American public. With that in mind, I propose the following:
• At halftime, the team that is behind has to eat a tub of cow intestines.
• Two words: alligator pits.
• Every 15 minutes, someone gets voted off the team.
• Replace referees with women in striped bikinis.
• Speaking of scantily-clad women: where are the cheerleaders? How are we supposed to take a sport seriously when there are no dance squads? Come on, Sweden. Bring out the bikini team!
• Miss a shot, do a shot.
• Come on, you can use your hands just a little bit, can’t you?
• Is it too much to ask to have an occasional fight? And how about some kind of car crash?
• Two more words: exploding ball.
• No more letting goals decide the results of games. From now on, America votes. Think South Korea played the better game? Text your vote to 3845. Think Togo deserves the win? Text 3846.
I’m not sure any of this would actually be enough to make soccer appealing to the average American fan, but I’m pretty sure it’s a step in the right direction. If you disagree and would like to fight about it, please call to schedule a time.
Meanwhile, in the United States, people are wondering why it’s taking so long this month to the golf highlights on SportsCenter.
It’s no secret soccer’s in the United States has a popularity that ranks it somewhere in the vicinity of lawn bowling and dwarf tossing. Every time the subject comes up — essentially every four years during the World Cup — Twin Cities newspaper columnists renew an argument against the game that has been going on at least since I played soccer in high school. This time around, one actually suggested liking soccer was just a few steps removed from burning the flag. “We’re Americans,” the message seemed to be. “We know better than to like that silly no-hands game.”
Ask them and Americans will give several reason for their dislike of soccer. A nation raised on the thrill-a-minute pacing of baseball does not believe the game is exciting enough. A country where fans frequently celebrate sports championships by turning over cars and starting fires tut-tut over the soccer hooligans who celebrate their team by fighting with the hooligan fans of rival teams.
Admittedly, there have been reports of Polish fans trying to schedule fights against rival fans. I don’t condone the violence, but it’s nice to know it’s so well scheduled. Although presumably the Poles would be wary of an planned brawl German fans, though.
Granted, soccer is not the easiest game to watch on TV. It’s hard to appreciate the individual work players do without seeing them up close, but it’s hard to appreciate the tactical aspect of the game — the reasons a team would pass the ball all the way back to its own goalkeeper when the goal is to get the ball in the net at the other end of the field — without a wide view.
Our sports do not lend themselves to moving backward, and it’s not a notion we accept readily. A runner would never voluntarily move back a base in baseball and a football team would never give up a sack just because it gave them more plays to choose from. About the closest we come in this country is a center in basketball passing the ball out for a three-pointer. But in Minnesota, home of the Timberwolves, even that must seem like a foreign concept.
I could argue the merits of soccer as a game, but that has been done before. Americans have their arguments and there isn’t much soccer fans will ever be able to do to convince them the game the rest of the world adores might be at least as entertaining as a rerun of According to Jim. Maybe what we need to do is find ways to make the world’s most popular game more appealing to the American public. With that in mind, I propose the following:
• At halftime, the team that is behind has to eat a tub of cow intestines.
• Two words: alligator pits.
• Every 15 minutes, someone gets voted off the team.
• Replace referees with women in striped bikinis.
• Speaking of scantily-clad women: where are the cheerleaders? How are we supposed to take a sport seriously when there are no dance squads? Come on, Sweden. Bring out the bikini team!
• Miss a shot, do a shot.
• Come on, you can use your hands just a little bit, can’t you?
• Is it too much to ask to have an occasional fight? And how about some kind of car crash?
• Two more words: exploding ball.
• No more letting goals decide the results of games. From now on, America votes. Think South Korea played the better game? Text your vote to 3845. Think Togo deserves the win? Text 3846.
I’m not sure any of this would actually be enough to make soccer appealing to the average American fan, but I’m pretty sure it’s a step in the right direction. If you disagree and would like to fight about it, please call to schedule a time.
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