Friday, October 30, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
Vows
Here, in the interests of both posterity and sentimentality, are the wedding vows that Sara and I gave to each other on August 8th, 2009. (Both of them are completely sic'd meaning that I didn't edit any mistakes because a mistake on a normal day is just another beautiful thing on your wedding day.)
Sara:
I was never someone who dreamt about what their future spouse would be like, and I certainly was never anyone who dreamt about weddings. And so when I found you that fateful night at that bar in Brooklyn I didn't recognize you as the man I would want to be with forever. But the moment when I did was not long after. Since the beginning of our relationship you have shown me love and committment in a way I didn't even know how to dream about. When trying to think about why I love you and how to articulate it all I can say is that I love you for all the parts of you. I love your patience, your dry humor, your skills in the kitchen, how you take care of things, how you plan everything and how you surprise me every now and then with your spontaneity, your frugality, your intelligence, your interest in numbers and statistics, I love you for all these and all of the other parts of you. It is because of all of these parts of you that I am standing here today.
You are everything to me.
As we move into our next wonderful stage of life together I promise to continue to make you laugh, to try to be patient, to support you and let you support me. I promise to continue to work on our relationship and I promise to wake up every morning grateful that we have made this choice to be committed to each other for the rest of our lives. I promise to love you no matter what challenges the future may hold. I promise to always try and make our life together exciting. You are and always will be my number one.
Josh:
Even though I may now be nervous,
The reason I'm standing here today
Is how peaceful and comfortable
You have always made me feel.
Right from the start
You made my life seem suddenly real.
I love you so much.
Thank you for coming into my life
When I was most ready.
Thank you for opening your life
To me and our future family.
Thank you, Sara, for opening my eyes
To how very easy love can be.
I have always loved you so much.
I love you because you're always happy.
I love you because you're so neat.
I love you because you call me lovey.
I love you because you have pretty feet.
I will always love you
Because you are you
And I am me
And that's all we'll ever need.
I will always love you.
Now, finally:
Thank you so much my baby
For allowing me
To fulfill my destiny
Of becoming myself.
Your husband, with love, forever.
Sara:
I was never someone who dreamt about what their future spouse would be like, and I certainly was never anyone who dreamt about weddings. And so when I found you that fateful night at that bar in Brooklyn I didn't recognize you as the man I would want to be with forever. But the moment when I did was not long after. Since the beginning of our relationship you have shown me love and committment in a way I didn't even know how to dream about. When trying to think about why I love you and how to articulate it all I can say is that I love you for all the parts of you. I love your patience, your dry humor, your skills in the kitchen, how you take care of things, how you plan everything and how you surprise me every now and then with your spontaneity, your frugality, your intelligence, your interest in numbers and statistics, I love you for all these and all of the other parts of you. It is because of all of these parts of you that I am standing here today.
You are everything to me.
As we move into our next wonderful stage of life together I promise to continue to make you laugh, to try to be patient, to support you and let you support me. I promise to continue to work on our relationship and I promise to wake up every morning grateful that we have made this choice to be committed to each other for the rest of our lives. I promise to love you no matter what challenges the future may hold. I promise to always try and make our life together exciting. You are and always will be my number one.
Josh:
Even though I may now be nervous,
The reason I'm standing here today
Is how peaceful and comfortable
You have always made me feel.
Right from the start
You made my life seem suddenly real.
I love you so much.
Thank you for coming into my life
When I was most ready.
Thank you for opening your life
To me and our future family.
Thank you, Sara, for opening my eyes
To how very easy love can be.
I have always loved you so much.
I love you because you're always happy.
I love you because you're so neat.
I love you because you call me lovey.
I love you because you have pretty feet.
I will always love you
Because you are you
And I am me
And that's all we'll ever need.
I will always love you.
Now, finally:
Thank you so much my baby
For allowing me
To fulfill my destiny
Of becoming myself.
Your husband, with love, forever.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
A Lesser, Better Me
But first, a Film Review. It's been over a week now but I saw Synechdoche, New York. This isn't of any consequence, but it actually was the last Netflix I watched before canceling my subscription.
I don't have anything groundbreaking to say about the film, but I was both impressed and disappointed by a few things. First, this being a Charlie Kaufman script, the plot was very complex. The problem with this one is that the oddities and meta-isms didn't really serve to advance the overall story much. The whole didn't equal the sum, that kind of thing. I'm also not really sure how confident I am in this assessment, but I think the almost-beyond-reproach-at-this-point Philip Seymour Hoffman was not very good in this film. He had a tough task in trying to carry this scattered story as a kind of anti-heroic lead, but still he didn't succeed. He's a kind of scumbag, which seems to be more and more revered in artistic pursuits lately, and he never really created much more. I felt sorry for him, but never ultimately cared.
Now, some things that I liked. Since I often watch from the point of view of the writer, Charlie Kaufman's movies are always somewhat personally exciting for me. This one was no different. If not autobiographical it was clearly and fundamentally at least a self-referential story, and the most interesting thing he did was to strip away most of the facade the story, leaving underneath a display of both the simple process of artistic creation and the whims of the author. If 8 1/2 is a masterpiece of directorial metafilm, then this would be it's less focused and, to borrow a usage from the film, less-Karamzov screenwriting counterpart.
Most fascinating is the realization that all the actions around the main character are fantasy, that everyone is acting just as he wants them to. Women plainly ask him if he wants to have sex with them. His side jokes are almost perfectly set up for him by the settings or the other characters. People often tell him exactly what they are thinking, but only in ways that advance our understanding of the main character, not the speaking characters. A character is even created whose sole purpose is to follow him around for 20+ years so he can understand himself better. I'm in real danger of pretension here, but these are all the things you think about when you are living your life if you're also thinking about writing. You see the world as just another character to be crafted and adjusted in the story of your life. You want your attractive young stage talent to be infatuated with you. You want the secretary-type at your office to have seemingly no other interests in the world besides you (she is a mere desired object for you, so why should she have a deeper history?). You want to indulge in your neuroses, be they mortality, sexuality, or whatever. You want to believe that you can encapsulate your whole world in fiction. And all of this is exactly what Kaufman, as a writer, lets himself do in created this film. He took all of this totally went with it. No matter if he fails or creates uncomfortable films, you must always completely respect him when he commits himself to a theme or a concept. He's also starkly in the minority on this, which makes him stand out even more.
Now that I have that out of the way, let me get to the more seriously personal part of this post, an indirect impression I had after watching this film. The main character is, like many characters before him, concerned mightily with death (and of course with it's sister emotions loneliness and longing). In the end he seems to perhaps accept that he does in fact have an interest outside of himself, but that unfortunately for him she has already died. That's classic theatric tragedy.
As I was left with this, my mind, as it will almost always do, turned to thoughts of myself. Through so much of my life, I have had a harsh fundamental pride in being in command of myself, of owning who I am and how I emote. I've never feared events because I have had my shit in order. Why worry about fate if you've taken care of yourself? This is no small thing.
Well I can announce now that things have changed. In the last couple years the solid-fucking-brick walls of me have been slowly and utterly breached. The foundation is still set in granite, but the house is laid open. (Down, metaphor.) I have a wife, and she has made me vulnerable. In almost every possible way, this is a wonderful thing. For one thing, complacency can be dangerous. And in the great flow of humanity, cohabitation and the blending and sharing of two sets of emotions is an exaltant and ultimately necessary advancement.
And yet she will always be my achilles heel. I don't meditate on this with any frequency, but I now fear death. Selfishly, I fear her death. I and we are far too deep into each other. I fear what would become of me without her. It's the only thing in my life that I'm unsure about, that I can't even think to control, that instead owns me.
And still I happily submit. It's more than love. It's biological.
Like I said, this is a new thing for me.
I don't have anything groundbreaking to say about the film, but I was both impressed and disappointed by a few things. First, this being a Charlie Kaufman script, the plot was very complex. The problem with this one is that the oddities and meta-isms didn't really serve to advance the overall story much. The whole didn't equal the sum, that kind of thing. I'm also not really sure how confident I am in this assessment, but I think the almost-beyond-reproach-at-this-point Philip Seymour Hoffman was not very good in this film. He had a tough task in trying to carry this scattered story as a kind of anti-heroic lead, but still he didn't succeed. He's a kind of scumbag, which seems to be more and more revered in artistic pursuits lately, and he never really created much more. I felt sorry for him, but never ultimately cared.
Now, some things that I liked. Since I often watch from the point of view of the writer, Charlie Kaufman's movies are always somewhat personally exciting for me. This one was no different. If not autobiographical it was clearly and fundamentally at least a self-referential story, and the most interesting thing he did was to strip away most of the facade the story, leaving underneath a display of both the simple process of artistic creation and the whims of the author. If 8 1/2 is a masterpiece of directorial metafilm, then this would be it's less focused and, to borrow a usage from the film, less-Karamzov screenwriting counterpart.
Most fascinating is the realization that all the actions around the main character are fantasy, that everyone is acting just as he wants them to. Women plainly ask him if he wants to have sex with them. His side jokes are almost perfectly set up for him by the settings or the other characters. People often tell him exactly what they are thinking, but only in ways that advance our understanding of the main character, not the speaking characters. A character is even created whose sole purpose is to follow him around for 20+ years so he can understand himself better. I'm in real danger of pretension here, but these are all the things you think about when you are living your life if you're also thinking about writing. You see the world as just another character to be crafted and adjusted in the story of your life. You want your attractive young stage talent to be infatuated with you. You want the secretary-type at your office to have seemingly no other interests in the world besides you (she is a mere desired object for you, so why should she have a deeper history?). You want to indulge in your neuroses, be they mortality, sexuality, or whatever. You want to believe that you can encapsulate your whole world in fiction. And all of this is exactly what Kaufman, as a writer, lets himself do in created this film. He took all of this totally went with it. No matter if he fails or creates uncomfortable films, you must always completely respect him when he commits himself to a theme or a concept. He's also starkly in the minority on this, which makes him stand out even more.
Now that I have that out of the way, let me get to the more seriously personal part of this post, an indirect impression I had after watching this film. The main character is, like many characters before him, concerned mightily with death (and of course with it's sister emotions loneliness and longing). In the end he seems to perhaps accept that he does in fact have an interest outside of himself, but that unfortunately for him she has already died. That's classic theatric tragedy.
As I was left with this, my mind, as it will almost always do, turned to thoughts of myself. Through so much of my life, I have had a harsh fundamental pride in being in command of myself, of owning who I am and how I emote. I've never feared events because I have had my shit in order. Why worry about fate if you've taken care of yourself? This is no small thing.
Well I can announce now that things have changed. In the last couple years the solid-fucking-brick walls of me have been slowly and utterly breached. The foundation is still set in granite, but the house is laid open. (Down, metaphor.) I have a wife, and she has made me vulnerable. In almost every possible way, this is a wonderful thing. For one thing, complacency can be dangerous. And in the great flow of humanity, cohabitation and the blending and sharing of two sets of emotions is an exaltant and ultimately necessary advancement.
And yet she will always be my achilles heel. I don't meditate on this with any frequency, but I now fear death. Selfishly, I fear her death. I and we are far too deep into each other. I fear what would become of me without her. It's the only thing in my life that I'm unsure about, that I can't even think to control, that instead owns me.
And still I happily submit. It's more than love. It's biological.
Like I said, this is a new thing for me.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
A Very Short Story
The Flaw
She wasn't sure if she liked him, but still worried about what he thought. She'd learned to be self-conscious about being the kind of person who talks to empty spaces instead of faces.
"I hope he doesn't think I'm not interested," she thought to herself.
He tried to make a real effort to seem a good listener, but still he was distracted.
"I hope I'm not visibly sweating," he thought, "because this pretty girl doesn't seem to want to look at me."
She wasn't sure if she liked him, but still worried about what he thought. She'd learned to be self-conscious about being the kind of person who talks to empty spaces instead of faces.
"I hope he doesn't think I'm not interested," she thought to herself.
He tried to make a real effort to seem a good listener, but still he was distracted.
"I hope I'm not visibly sweating," he thought, "because this pretty girl doesn't seem to want to look at me."
Friday, October 16, 2009
Fuck you, winter. I'm not afraid of you and you can't bully me with this crap. High temps of 40 degrees in mid-October? That's not fair--taunting, 15 yards. I'm taking the kick back past midfield, you son of a bitch.
(ps- nice touch with the barely-above-freezing rain. Some sadists might throw some horrible unseasonable cold at an unsuspecting region, but you finish the job with a nice cold rain.)
You know what else is agitating? I went into the McDonalds near my workplace yesterday for the first time in a long while, and discovered that McChicken sandwiches are now priced at $2.29. $2.29! It's just a skinny piece of breaded chicken between two pieces of white bread. Only two or three years ago at this same location, the McChicken cost $1.00. So apparently McDonalds' Madison Street manager doesn't understand the concept of a recession.
I used to go to this McDonalds regularly when I first moved here and didn't have a lot of money. Back then, it was a legitimate deal. They had a real value menu which I ordered from exclusively: 5 McNuggets, Small Fries, the aforementioned McChicken, and even a double cheeseburger for $1 each. That last one was the real steal. I don't think they were making too much profit selling double cheeses for $1. And so of course I exploited that inefficiency. I was (still am, but less so) a big lunch eater and so a standard order would be one of each of the items I listed, but when I was particularly hungry, I'd go with two or three doubles plus a nuggets and maybe a McChicken. I weaned myself off the fries after a while. The McChicken to me was always the luxury item of the four, the one I'd order with a hint of frivolity, mostly because it was so much less of a deal than the double cheese, or even the five nuggets.
So imagine my surprise yesterday when I instinctively ordered one McChicken and one double cheeseburger (see, more responsible eater now), only to afterward look up at the board and see that the double now costs $1.99 and the McChicken $2.29. There are 360 calories in the McChicken and 440 in the double cheeseburger. Either there has been a global fowl shortage that I don't know about, or El Diario recently ran some articles about hombres finding twenty-dollar bills in their chicken sandwiches at McDs.
Paying more for a McChicken in this case actually offends me. There must be a reason for it, but knowing that only makes it worse. $1.99 is still not a bad price for a double cheeseburger; I will pay that now and still feel ok about it. If I had to put a fair price on the McChicken it would be maybe $1.49. Where does the extra 80 cents come from? This is McDonalds for crying out loud. There is transparency. I can literally see all the ingredients being piled on the sandwich while it's being made.
Anyhow, I shouldn't care so much what the fair price of a McChicken is. I shouldn't be eating them often enough for it to matter. Just this once, in fact. Even when making a late drunk-stop, you'll never see me with a McChicken again.
(ps- nice touch with the barely-above-freezing rain. Some sadists might throw some horrible unseasonable cold at an unsuspecting region, but you finish the job with a nice cold rain.)
You know what else is agitating? I went into the McDonalds near my workplace yesterday for the first time in a long while, and discovered that McChicken sandwiches are now priced at $2.29. $2.29! It's just a skinny piece of breaded chicken between two pieces of white bread. Only two or three years ago at this same location, the McChicken cost $1.00. So apparently McDonalds' Madison Street manager doesn't understand the concept of a recession.
I used to go to this McDonalds regularly when I first moved here and didn't have a lot of money. Back then, it was a legitimate deal. They had a real value menu which I ordered from exclusively: 5 McNuggets, Small Fries, the aforementioned McChicken, and even a double cheeseburger for $1 each. That last one was the real steal. I don't think they were making too much profit selling double cheeses for $1. And so of course I exploited that inefficiency. I was (still am, but less so) a big lunch eater and so a standard order would be one of each of the items I listed, but when I was particularly hungry, I'd go with two or three doubles plus a nuggets and maybe a McChicken. I weaned myself off the fries after a while. The McChicken to me was always the luxury item of the four, the one I'd order with a hint of frivolity, mostly because it was so much less of a deal than the double cheese, or even the five nuggets.
So imagine my surprise yesterday when I instinctively ordered one McChicken and one double cheeseburger (see, more responsible eater now), only to afterward look up at the board and see that the double now costs $1.99 and the McChicken $2.29. There are 360 calories in the McChicken and 440 in the double cheeseburger. Either there has been a global fowl shortage that I don't know about, or El Diario recently ran some articles about hombres finding twenty-dollar bills in their chicken sandwiches at McDs.
Paying more for a McChicken in this case actually offends me. There must be a reason for it, but knowing that only makes it worse. $1.99 is still not a bad price for a double cheeseburger; I will pay that now and still feel ok about it. If I had to put a fair price on the McChicken it would be maybe $1.49. Where does the extra 80 cents come from? This is McDonalds for crying out loud. There is transparency. I can literally see all the ingredients being piled on the sandwich while it's being made.
Anyhow, I shouldn't care so much what the fair price of a McChicken is. I shouldn't be eating them often enough for it to matter. Just this once, in fact. Even when making a late drunk-stop, you'll never see me with a McChicken again.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Cleveland Is the Worst
Totally Pathetic. I mean in the nice way. The dictionary way: evoking strong pity and compassion. Pathos.
I was watching a documentary the other night about the Colts moving away from Baltimore in 1984, and naturally about how tragic that was for Baltimore.(1) It was a good documentary in that I related to the story and it caused me to think. Though the first thing I thought was: this still pales in comparison to when the Browns moved out of Cleveland. So I stewed on that for a second and the next thing I thought was: good lord, Cleveland is by far the saddest sports city there ever was, and people have never come close to appreciating the depth of that fact.
Chronicling the woe and frustration of cities and their sports teams is a favorite pastime of sportswriters. A couple generations of Boston writers made their careers off the "cursed" Red Sox, and with the recent proliferation of endless lists in various journalistic mediums, there have been plenty of efforts to capture the futility and the tragedy of certain cities (ESPN actually had one recently that ranked Cleveland #1). Still, none of these has ever given Cleveland its due, so to speak.
Let's get right to the facts, then. Cleveland has three major pro sports teams. The Browns debuted in 1946 and joined the NFL in 1950, the Cavaliers in 1970-71, and the Indians in 1901 along with the rest of the brand new American League. Through 2008, in 203 seasons,(2) these teams won six championships: the Browns in 1950, 1954, 1955, and 1964, and the Indians in 1920 and 1948. You may notice that the most recent of these occurred 45 years ago. If you (unfairly, but it helps the theme here) throw out the Browns' four titles because they came before the Super Bowl era and therefore before the modern era (really no one ever counts pre-Super Bowl titles when listing football championships), then you are left with the Indians' mere two wins in 187 team seasons. That's epic. 185 times out of 187, Cleveland fans have had their hopes crushed. That has got to wear on you.
But it gets better (worse). Since 1965, Cleveland has won zero titles in 128 seasons. They have played in exactly three championship finals, losing each of course. If you assume that the average league size in those 128 seasons is roughly 25 teams, then simple randomness would dictate five titles won and 11 top-2 finishes. For comparison, let's use Boston, another well-known (formerly) tragic city. Even if you subtract the last ten years of huge success, plus the dynasty 1960s Celtics from the equation, Boston still racked up seven titles and nine runner-ups since 1965. How about another city? Minneapolis: since 1965, two titles and seven runner-ups. Seattle: one title and three runner-ups, but in only 108 team seasons. Finally, Houston has just two titles and three runner-ups in 122 seasons, something that surprised me because you don't hear much moaning about poor Houston team performances. No one else really comes close for both longevity and futility.
So we've established that Cleveland sports teams have the worst record of success in the country, but it's not just failure to win titles that tears at the soul of the Cleveland sports fan. It's the thing which originally spurred this post: relocation.
The way Cleveland connects with its Browns may not be the strongest bond between fans and team across the four major sports, but if not, it's certainly in the discussion.(3) A real description of what I'm talking about might be difficult, but one way to look at it is to consider which teams' potential moves would be most devastating for their fans. Of all of the 15 teams I listed below in #3, as far as I know, none have ever come even remotely close to moving in the last half-century, with one exception. The Browns moved and then didn't exist for three years. After that they were replaced with an expansion team that won just 54 games in its first ten seasons, including a 3-18 record against their main rivals. In just the fifth season after the team moved, it won the Super Bowl for Baltimore. The man who moved the team, Art Modell, has almost been voted into the Hall of Fame on a couple of occasions. Any one of these facts is just impossible. The Browns are the ultimate star-crossed football franchise. And they just up and left the city. Unbelievable. Unconscionable.
And that's just the Browns. For anyone under the age of about 50, the main identifiable thing about the Indians is the movie Major League, which used the omnipresent culture of Indians losing and their general status as a joke as an essential plot detail. No one really complained about this. In fact, of the Indians fans I know, most actually took the fictional Indians' success in that movie as a point of pride. In 1997, the Indians went into the bottom on the ninth inning in Game 7 of the World Series with a lead. They were two outs away from winning it, and ended up losing, to a team in just its fifth year of existence. Only the 1986 Red Sox have ever come closer to winning a World Series and lost.
The Indians have the second-longest current title drought in baseball.
The Browns have the second-longest current title drought in football, and are one of only two teams (Detroit Lions are the other) to have been in existence for every Super Bowl year yet never participate in one.
The Cavaliers have the fourth-longest current title drought in basketball, and trail only the Suns by two years in terms of longevity amongst teams who have never won a title.
This is serious futility, people. I haven't even mentioned Ernest Byner, Jose Mesa, Craig Ehlo, or any of the endless string of terrible Browns first-round draft picks.(5) You add all of this to what is by far the most tragic franchise relocation ever, and no other city should even be in the discussion. Cleveland fans at this point are almost beyond reproach. They've suffered enough, so that it's just not funny anymore.
(Two caveats to this whole thing: 1) Lebron James. If he stays with the Cavs and wins about 5 titles, then that will make up for a lot of things and change the discussion completely. If they lose again this year and he leaves, then you can just chalk up another big notch in Cleveland's sorrow belt. 2) The Ohio State Buckeyes football team. They've won two titles since 1965, have been wildly successful for many years, and are currently sporting a five-game winning streak over their desperate rival. I mention this because most Cleveland fans also root for OSU. Takes a tiny bit of the edge off.)
1. The documentary about how good a business decision it was to move the team because Indianapolis gave the Colts a great stadium deal and the metro area was better positioned to financially support them would never get made, even though it's almost always true.
(Two caveats to this whole thing: 1) Lebron James. If he stays with the Cavs and wins about 5 titles, then that will make up for a lot of things and change the discussion completely. If they lose again this year and he leaves, then you can just chalk up another big notch in Cleveland's sorrow belt. 2) The Ohio State Buckeyes football team. They've won two titles since 1965, have been wildly successful for many years, and are currently sporting a five-game winning streak over their desperate rival. I mention this because most Cleveland fans also root for OSU. Takes a tiny bit of the edge off.)
1. The documentary about how good a business decision it was to move the team because Indianapolis gave the Colts a great stadium deal and the metro area was better positioned to financially support them would never get made, even though it's almost always true.
2. I'm not counting the Browns first four years as members of the All-America Football Conference, because it disbanded after four years and the competition was subpar (though they did win the title all four years, for what it's worth). I also didn't count the 1901, 1902, 1902, and 1994 baseball seasons, because there was no World Series played in those years.
3. Here would be the list of what I think are the top fan-team bonds, in no order: Browns, Steelers, Packers, Red Sox, Yankees, St Louis Cardinals, Canadiens, Maple Leafs, and Celtics, with the Cubs, Bears, Knicks, and maybe the Eagles and Red Wings forming a close second level.
4. I just learned via wikipedia that Dan Rooney was one of only two owners to oppose the Browns' move to Baltimore, and that, during the last Steelers home game of the Browns last original season, Pittsburgh fans wore orange armbands to a game against the Browns as a show of solidarity with their tragic brethren, and finally that during that year, protests were held in Pittsburgh by Pittsburghers against the move of the franchise. That's at least mildly impressive. No matter what kind of horrible things rival fans say to each other, when it comes down to it, they need and respect each other.
5. Let's step away from the theme of sympathy for a sec and have some fun at Cleveland's expense. Here in order are the Browns first round draft picks starting with 1999: Tim Couch, Courtney Brown, Gerard Warren, William Green, Jeff Faine, Kellen Winslow, Braylon Edwards, Kameron Wimbley, Joe Thomas, and Brady Quinn. That's ten players. To date, they've accounted for a total of four Pro Bowls, and played just 39 seasons with Cleveland. Only three are still with the Browns, and three are out of the league entirely. Basically you have one good player (Thomas), 3 or 4 servicable starters (Winslow, Wimbley, Edwards, and Faine) and crap.
Now here are the Steelers first-rounders over the same time span: Troy Edwards, Plaxico Burress, Casey Hampton, Kendall Simmons, Troy Polamalu, Ben Roethlisberger, Heath Miller, Santonio Holmes, Lawrence Timmons, and Rashard Mendenhall. Also ten players. To date, they've accounted for one Super Bowl MVP, 11 Pro Bowls* and played 51 seasons with Pittsburgh. Seven are still with the team, and just one is out of the league.* All but two are currently starters.
*Burress got his Pro Bowl with the Giants, and I'm assuming he'll come back to the NFL, post-jail.
4. I just learned via wikipedia that Dan Rooney was one of only two owners to oppose the Browns' move to Baltimore, and that, during the last Steelers home game of the Browns last original season, Pittsburgh fans wore orange armbands to a game against the Browns as a show of solidarity with their tragic brethren, and finally that during that year, protests were held in Pittsburgh by Pittsburghers against the move of the franchise. That's at least mildly impressive. No matter what kind of horrible things rival fans say to each other, when it comes down to it, they need and respect each other.
5. Let's step away from the theme of sympathy for a sec and have some fun at Cleveland's expense. Here in order are the Browns first round draft picks starting with 1999: Tim Couch, Courtney Brown, Gerard Warren, William Green, Jeff Faine, Kellen Winslow, Braylon Edwards, Kameron Wimbley, Joe Thomas, and Brady Quinn. That's ten players. To date, they've accounted for a total of four Pro Bowls, and played just 39 seasons with Cleveland. Only three are still with the Browns, and three are out of the league entirely. Basically you have one good player (Thomas), 3 or 4 servicable starters (Winslow, Wimbley, Edwards, and Faine) and crap.
Now here are the Steelers first-rounders over the same time span: Troy Edwards, Plaxico Burress, Casey Hampton, Kendall Simmons, Troy Polamalu, Ben Roethlisberger, Heath Miller, Santonio Holmes, Lawrence Timmons, and Rashard Mendenhall. Also ten players. To date, they've accounted for one Super Bowl MVP, 11 Pro Bowls* and played 51 seasons with Pittsburgh. Seven are still with the team, and just one is out of the league.* All but two are currently starters.
*Burress got his Pro Bowl with the Giants, and I'm assuming he'll come back to the NFL, post-jail.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Citizen Hero: Blue Suit Man
I'm heading to work this morning standing waiting to cross Livingston Street. I'm up on the edge of the curb and to my left is a nerdish little man pulling a rolling suitcase and wearing a blue faintly-striped suit. A youngish woman is walking holding hands with her perhaps 4 year old son, and has done a terrible job of judging the light change, so that the green for oncoming traffic hits as she's only barely just crossed the middle double yellow line. First in line on both lanes of held-up traffic are city buses. Blue Suit Man sees the woman (blatant and harmful jaywalker at this point, inconveniencing scores of people, but let's not focus on that cold fact) and child and defiantly reaches forward toward the nearest bus and outstretches his hand, exhorting it to stop ("remain stopped," I should say, since naturally it was motionless to begin with) with unflinching seriousness. He doesn't move his body, however, and so during his moment of chivalry the woman and child are always nearer the danger of the bus than he is. The stopped bus driver never acknowledges Blue Suit Man, probably because he never saw him. Neither does the woman once she makes it onto the sidwalk, as it's likely she didn't either.
I saw you, though, Blue Suit Man. I know what a true gallant you are, you feebly aggrandist dickbag.
I saw you, though, Blue Suit Man. I know what a true gallant you are, you feebly aggrandist dickbag.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
I'm More of an Addict
Yesterday I had an odd run. I didn't feel all that well and the knee that I stupidly smashed up this summer was feeling a little tighter than it has in the last few weeks. I wasn't going more than five miles and I was on one of my stock runs (from work up into Central Park, turning around at the garbage pickup spot along the bridle path). The weather wasn't even very notable: just a nearly setting sun and cool but not cool enough to be invigorating. I consciously started out slower to try to let the knee loosen naturally, I don't very much like to run slow. It was one of those runs that seemed to exist solely to provide me and excuse to write down "4.5" and "C-" on my paper.(1)
But then about a mile into the run something happened. My legs started behaving as though they belonged to someone else. They just loosened up and felt instantly more powerful. I was running high and picking up my feet with no effort. I honestly had to deliberately slow myself down because I didn't trust this sudden feeling of power.
It doesn't happen often but it happens often enough. The sensation of your brain being disconnected from your legs, of your legs taking over and dominating, dragging you along for the ride, is completely sublime. I won't say it's why I run in the first place, but it is definitely one of the reasons I run now as a 28 year old likely past the point of ever seriously racing again. It's maybe the one thing more than any other that addicts me to running.
I saw Chariots of Fire for the first time maybe a little more than a year ago. It was an ok movie but nothing really special and nothing that terribly inspired me to want to run any more than another movie. But it did have the single best explanation of running that I've ever heard. A woman (she's a singer) is talking about how she loves singing, and asks her companion, one of the main protagonists of the film, if he also loves running. He responds: "I'm more of an addict."
This is it. This strikes to the very heart of the relationship a runner has with his avocation.
Sure I like running a lot, but I'm more of an addict. I don't love it. There are those primal physical responses my body gives me that force me back to the sidewalks and the dirt paths, cause me to cross through levels of pain and discomfort in a curious but faithful attempt to reproduce the magic. Not to aggrandize the effect, but it can't be altogether different from a coke-head's mindless pursuit of another snort; no matter how many bad hits he suffers, he keeps clawing back.
I suppose there are some people who love running, that not everyone must be like me. But I have known enough over the years to suspect that in fact the connection many have is less emotional and more psychological and of course physical.
1. Yes, I keep a log. No, it is not much at all like the kind you see a recreational marathoner or a serious collegian keeping. I used Excel to print out three months' worth of calendar per printed page. Each day's box is just big enough to fit in a notation for the run's length, the letter grade I give to it, whether I worked out at all that day, whether I did leg exercises, and whether I did abdominal exercises. The best day possible, would contain these notes started from the top left and going clockwise around the square (assuming a six mile run): 6, A, A, L, W. It's a quick way for me to keep track of my fitness and of course an easy way to stay focused on being fit. I devised this system back at the turn of the year and made up calendar blocks for the whole year, but only followed along for about the first four months, before restarting with it in September.In five-plus months of logging runs, I've never given a run a grade of A. I've only ever given made two or three A minuses. I've also never given any Fs either. Until I get into better shape, the good- or badness of my runs is still rather limited.
But then about a mile into the run something happened. My legs started behaving as though they belonged to someone else. They just loosened up and felt instantly more powerful. I was running high and picking up my feet with no effort. I honestly had to deliberately slow myself down because I didn't trust this sudden feeling of power.
It doesn't happen often but it happens often enough. The sensation of your brain being disconnected from your legs, of your legs taking over and dominating, dragging you along for the ride, is completely sublime. I won't say it's why I run in the first place, but it is definitely one of the reasons I run now as a 28 year old likely past the point of ever seriously racing again. It's maybe the one thing more than any other that addicts me to running.
I saw Chariots of Fire for the first time maybe a little more than a year ago. It was an ok movie but nothing really special and nothing that terribly inspired me to want to run any more than another movie. But it did have the single best explanation of running that I've ever heard. A woman (she's a singer) is talking about how she loves singing, and asks her companion, one of the main protagonists of the film, if he also loves running. He responds: "I'm more of an addict."
This is it. This strikes to the very heart of the relationship a runner has with his avocation.
Sure I like running a lot, but I'm more of an addict. I don't love it. There are those primal physical responses my body gives me that force me back to the sidewalks and the dirt paths, cause me to cross through levels of pain and discomfort in a curious but faithful attempt to reproduce the magic. Not to aggrandize the effect, but it can't be altogether different from a coke-head's mindless pursuit of another snort; no matter how many bad hits he suffers, he keeps clawing back.
I suppose there are some people who love running, that not everyone must be like me. But I have known enough over the years to suspect that in fact the connection many have is less emotional and more psychological and of course physical.
1. Yes, I keep a log. No, it is not much at all like the kind you see a recreational marathoner or a serious collegian keeping. I used Excel to print out three months' worth of calendar per printed page. Each day's box is just big enough to fit in a notation for the run's length, the letter grade I give to it, whether I worked out at all that day, whether I did leg exercises, and whether I did abdominal exercises. The best day possible, would contain these notes started from the top left and going clockwise around the square (assuming a six mile run): 6, A, A, L, W. It's a quick way for me to keep track of my fitness and of course an easy way to stay focused on being fit. I devised this system back at the turn of the year and made up calendar blocks for the whole year, but only followed along for about the first four months, before restarting with it in September.In five-plus months of logging runs, I've never given a run a grade of A. I've only ever given made two or three A minuses. I've also never given any Fs either. Until I get into better shape, the good- or badness of my runs is still rather limited.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
There I Go
I guess this is the first time I've mentioned it. Had my ten-year high school reunion last Saturday and myself and the wife(1) made the trip back to Steubenville for it.
I'm not much for reunions, obviously. I sometimes don't even enjoy spending time with my current friends, let alone my rarely-spoken-to friends of over ten years ago, let further alone my don't-now-care-for-nor-did-I-even-ten-plus-years-ago classmates. Two things caused me to buy the plane tickets, though: Sara was curious, and one particular legit friend from that time requested the presence of a few people cause her parents moved out of the area and doesn't ever see anyone during the inevitable holiday meet-ups. Mostly, I wanted Sara to whet her appetite for all things relating to my stunning history, and especially I thought it would be hilarious for her to see a real live Ohio high school football Friday night.(2)
Once the plans were made I developed my own sense of curiosity and hope. Curious about how this very specific almost-right-of-passage experience would measure up to all the stereotypes, and hope that I'd walk away with a funny story or two.
I ended up rather disappointed, in a sorta comprehensive sense. Sure, I got to spend some time over two nights with the few people I actually enjoy seeing now. And any brief trip to my hometown is nice on its own. But the reunion itself was anticlimactic, subdued, overpriced, and just plain boring. Not boring in that I got bored, because I entertained myself, but boring on its own.
A small part of this might be my fault: I joked with a friend that we'd compete to see who could talk to the smallest amount of people, and to a large extent, upheld this goal. Only a couple times did I make a point of walking up and saying hello to someone, and even in most group settings I didn't bother to engage everyone there. But what was weird to me is that lots of other people there were doing barely more. Most everyone just kinda stayed in their groups. No one got obnoxiously drunk that I could tell. No one made a scene, no one chucked a drink in someone's face, no one let loose with any pent-up angst like the ex-girlfriend of Jerry's in that Seinfeld episode about George's chocolate-stained shirt. No one seemed intent on making up for lost slut time. No one was embarrassingly fat. No one was embarrassingly bald.(3) No one was walking around trying to brag about owning a yacht or inventing the E-ZPass. Everyone just sorta minded their business, like good midwesterners.
The food was bad but that was no surprise. The drinks were only free for the first two, then average-priced. The music was set to play nothing but late-90s hits, which was novel for about four songs but then got real old, especially when I heard the same song twice.(4,5) This cost me and the wife $75. Maybe I've got too much uppity NYC in me now, I don't know.
I did experience a moment of serious fascination after the official reunion ended. Most people decided to follow each other to a nearby bar called the Triple Play Cafe, located in the middle of a strip mall, just a couple doors down from K-Mart. The Triple Play Cafe is everything you might imagine, right down to the Guinness in a plastic cup and amazingly the same DJ working as handled the reunion, saying things like this before songs: "This one goes out to Indian Creek's class of '99." Anyhow, the fascinating aspect was that lots of people showed up at the bar who weren't at the reunion. At first I thought, well that's odd. Then I naively wondered why they come back into town just to go to a bar? Then I realized, shit, some of these people probably were embarrassed about going alone and so didn't, or, worse, simply couldn't afford the $75. Then it occurred to me that most of them were still locals and were just doing what they'd normally do on a Saturday night. A couple may have even turned around on their bar stools and wondered why in hell so many of their damn former classmates were there. Once my thoughts on the subject had come full circle, I came to somewhat envy those people, because here they were enjoying themselves on their own terms in a bar without having to go through the motions of a reunion and it's un-free-ness; but also to pity them because perhaps this amount of old classmates being back in town would represent a high point for them.
I can't decide if that thought is hugely condescending and presumptuous of me. I don't know the facts of their lives now anymore than I did a month or a decade ago. I didn't change much at all as a person from spending 12 years with them as a youth or spending a couple hours with them as an adult. I think that's the main thing I'll take away from the reunion experience.
Also, don't expect to see me at the 20, 30, 40 or 50th ones.
1. This might be the first time I've ever used the phrase "the wife" in print, or whatever this typed medium would be called. I'll let you decide and prepare accordingly, but I'm pretty sure I'm the type of guy to use that phrase a lot.
2. I was told my school would be playing at home last weekend. I was either lied to, or the AD selfishly switched up the schedule and left me with nothing. The only HS football tidbit I got was looking out over the outskirts of Pittsburgh as we descended below the clouds and toward the airport at about 7:00pm, seeing the little oases of lights denoting a football stadium in the throes of local pride. I spotted at least five or six.
3. You know my take on this, that "embarrassingly bald" is an oxymoron. I mean in the eyes of society.
4. Seriously, DJ-dude? The same song twice in a three-hour gig? On a related note, why in the hell do people still pay DJs to work events like this? Pay someone a small fee to rent and set up some speakers/amps and make a simple playlist. It's 2009, why do we need a live body pressing play or flipping records? These guys should go the way of typewriters.
5. I had no idea, but apperently my class song was/is "Turn the Page" by Bob Seger. Yeah. How would you feel if these were the same people that voted you Most Likely to Succeed? It's not even a big-fish-little-pond situation, more like sorta-average-sized-fish-little-pond.
I'm not much for reunions, obviously. I sometimes don't even enjoy spending time with my current friends, let alone my rarely-spoken-to friends of over ten years ago, let further alone my don't-now-care-for-nor-did-I-even-ten-plus-years-ago classmates. Two things caused me to buy the plane tickets, though: Sara was curious, and one particular legit friend from that time requested the presence of a few people cause her parents moved out of the area and doesn't ever see anyone during the inevitable holiday meet-ups. Mostly, I wanted Sara to whet her appetite for all things relating to my stunning history, and especially I thought it would be hilarious for her to see a real live Ohio high school football Friday night.(2)
Once the plans were made I developed my own sense of curiosity and hope. Curious about how this very specific almost-right-of-passage experience would measure up to all the stereotypes, and hope that I'd walk away with a funny story or two.
I ended up rather disappointed, in a sorta comprehensive sense. Sure, I got to spend some time over two nights with the few people I actually enjoy seeing now. And any brief trip to my hometown is nice on its own. But the reunion itself was anticlimactic, subdued, overpriced, and just plain boring. Not boring in that I got bored, because I entertained myself, but boring on its own.
A small part of this might be my fault: I joked with a friend that we'd compete to see who could talk to the smallest amount of people, and to a large extent, upheld this goal. Only a couple times did I make a point of walking up and saying hello to someone, and even in most group settings I didn't bother to engage everyone there. But what was weird to me is that lots of other people there were doing barely more. Most everyone just kinda stayed in their groups. No one got obnoxiously drunk that I could tell. No one made a scene, no one chucked a drink in someone's face, no one let loose with any pent-up angst like the ex-girlfriend of Jerry's in that Seinfeld episode about George's chocolate-stained shirt. No one seemed intent on making up for lost slut time. No one was embarrassingly fat. No one was embarrassingly bald.(3) No one was walking around trying to brag about owning a yacht or inventing the E-ZPass. Everyone just sorta minded their business, like good midwesterners.
The food was bad but that was no surprise. The drinks were only free for the first two, then average-priced. The music was set to play nothing but late-90s hits, which was novel for about four songs but then got real old, especially when I heard the same song twice.(4,5) This cost me and the wife $75. Maybe I've got too much uppity NYC in me now, I don't know.
I did experience a moment of serious fascination after the official reunion ended. Most people decided to follow each other to a nearby bar called the Triple Play Cafe, located in the middle of a strip mall, just a couple doors down from K-Mart. The Triple Play Cafe is everything you might imagine, right down to the Guinness in a plastic cup and amazingly the same DJ working as handled the reunion, saying things like this before songs: "This one goes out to Indian Creek's class of '99." Anyhow, the fascinating aspect was that lots of people showed up at the bar who weren't at the reunion. At first I thought, well that's odd. Then I naively wondered why they come back into town just to go to a bar? Then I realized, shit, some of these people probably were embarrassed about going alone and so didn't, or, worse, simply couldn't afford the $75. Then it occurred to me that most of them were still locals and were just doing what they'd normally do on a Saturday night. A couple may have even turned around on their bar stools and wondered why in hell so many of their damn former classmates were there. Once my thoughts on the subject had come full circle, I came to somewhat envy those people, because here they were enjoying themselves on their own terms in a bar without having to go through the motions of a reunion and it's un-free-ness; but also to pity them because perhaps this amount of old classmates being back in town would represent a high point for them.
I can't decide if that thought is hugely condescending and presumptuous of me. I don't know the facts of their lives now anymore than I did a month or a decade ago. I didn't change much at all as a person from spending 12 years with them as a youth or spending a couple hours with them as an adult. I think that's the main thing I'll take away from the reunion experience.
Also, don't expect to see me at the 20, 30, 40 or 50th ones.
1. This might be the first time I've ever used the phrase "the wife" in print, or whatever this typed medium would be called. I'll let you decide and prepare accordingly, but I'm pretty sure I'm the type of guy to use that phrase a lot.
2. I was told my school would be playing at home last weekend. I was either lied to, or the AD selfishly switched up the schedule and left me with nothing. The only HS football tidbit I got was looking out over the outskirts of Pittsburgh as we descended below the clouds and toward the airport at about 7:00pm, seeing the little oases of lights denoting a football stadium in the throes of local pride. I spotted at least five or six.
3. You know my take on this, that "embarrassingly bald" is an oxymoron. I mean in the eyes of society.
4. Seriously, DJ-dude? The same song twice in a three-hour gig? On a related note, why in the hell do people still pay DJs to work events like this? Pay someone a small fee to rent and set up some speakers/amps and make a simple playlist. It's 2009, why do we need a live body pressing play or flipping records? These guys should go the way of typewriters.
5. I had no idea, but apperently my class song was/is "Turn the Page" by Bob Seger. Yeah. How would you feel if these were the same people that voted you Most Likely to Succeed? It's not even a big-fish-little-pond situation, more like sorta-average-sized-fish-little-pond.
Friday, October 2, 2009
No Dress Codes Allowed
I'm probably treading into unwelcome waters now but fuck it. I'll keep it confidentially vague. I have access to Outlook calendars for several of the higher-level guys at my office (it helps me to know when they are around the office and therefore what needs they will have that I should look out for, not just for the voyeur/hackeryness of it). On the calender for a guy tonight is a personal dinner appointment where his secretary has written in "business casual attire." This notation about proper/expected clothing appears in most of his dinner engagements, and please remember that these are personal dinners, not business or client related.
What I'd like to say relating to this bit of knowledge is: I sincerely hope that at no point in my life--no matter how flukishly wealthy or important I may ever become--will I ever require someone to consistently inform me what the proper attire is for my personal dinner appointments. First, I hope never to have another person subjected to scheduling my dinner-dates with my wife. Second, I hope never to frequent establishments often enough that expect me to be specificly nicely dressed. And finally, I hope that, even if I find myself regularly in nicer places, I will not ever be worried about how my dress will compare to those around me.
What I'd like to say relating to this bit of knowledge is: I sincerely hope that at no point in my life--no matter how flukishly wealthy or important I may ever become--will I ever require someone to consistently inform me what the proper attire is for my personal dinner appointments. First, I hope never to have another person subjected to scheduling my dinner-dates with my wife. Second, I hope never to frequent establishments often enough that expect me to be specificly nicely dressed. And finally, I hope that, even if I find myself regularly in nicer places, I will not ever be worried about how my dress will compare to those around me.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
One More
I heard something on the radio this morning that's inspired me to make a notable addition to the list from yesterday. Notable enough that it gets its own post, and not just an editing addition to yesterday.
Captain Sully.
The radio blurb this morning was about how today will be his first flight (piloting, lord knows he traveled via plane since the incident for media engagements and what not) since the famous landing on the Hudson River in January.(1) Of course they carried on the tradition of liberally using the word "hero" in describing the man.
Now let's get this straight. What he did was impressive and admirable but not heroic. He was just doing his job, for chrissakes. I checked his bio and he joined the Air Force in 1969, so he's been piloting planes for at least 40 years. I'm pretty confident that any person licensed to fly commercial airplanes has the expertise to successfully land a plane on a smooth body of water, let alone one with 40 years of experience.
The act of flying is inherently dangerous.(2) People have constantly claimed that he saved the lives of the 155 people on board in January. If you accept that as truth you must also accept that every single pilot who ever captains a plane and lands it successfully then saves the lives of all passengers. This is not heroic, this is what these people do for a living. They take off, they usually kick it into autopilot for several hundred miles, then they land. Over and over. Oh, sometimes there is turbulence and they have to take it off autopilot.
Let me step back and say that clearly it's tougher to land a plane on water with no wheels than on land with wheels, but again, I'm sure all pilots are put through in-case-of-emergency training so that they know how to land on water and on non-runway land. I'm also not going out on a limb by saying that landing a plane with no engine power must be tougher than with, but then of course I'm sure they are all trained at that too.
And now a sidebar complaint about "heroes." A man doing his job is not by itself heroic, no matter what that job is. If heroism enters the equation (debatable but acceptable), then it exists only when the man decides to embark upon a career such as aviation, or firefighting, another profession that is constantly called heroic. It's a noble pursuit. It is admirable. It is not heroic.
Maybe my definition is just a bit stricter than others.
1. The radio blurb finished up mentioning that if anyone wanted to take his first flight back, you are out of luck because the flight is sold out. If there was any earnestness in that statement, then I really don't know what to think of our human society. To think someone would take a flight from NYC to Charlotte purely because it's the first one for the pilot after an eight-and-a-half-month layoff is beyond ridiculous.
2. Dangerous, meaning there is always a chance of death, not dangerous because death is likely. Sorta like walking on the yellow part of the subway platform while a train is coming into the station. But not dangerous like walking through a minefield.
Captain Sully.
The radio blurb this morning was about how today will be his first flight (piloting, lord knows he traveled via plane since the incident for media engagements and what not) since the famous landing on the Hudson River in January.(1) Of course they carried on the tradition of liberally using the word "hero" in describing the man.
Now let's get this straight. What he did was impressive and admirable but not heroic. He was just doing his job, for chrissakes. I checked his bio and he joined the Air Force in 1969, so he's been piloting planes for at least 40 years. I'm pretty confident that any person licensed to fly commercial airplanes has the expertise to successfully land a plane on a smooth body of water, let alone one with 40 years of experience.
The act of flying is inherently dangerous.(2) People have constantly claimed that he saved the lives of the 155 people on board in January. If you accept that as truth you must also accept that every single pilot who ever captains a plane and lands it successfully then saves the lives of all passengers. This is not heroic, this is what these people do for a living. They take off, they usually kick it into autopilot for several hundred miles, then they land. Over and over. Oh, sometimes there is turbulence and they have to take it off autopilot.
Let me step back and say that clearly it's tougher to land a plane on water with no wheels than on land with wheels, but again, I'm sure all pilots are put through in-case-of-emergency training so that they know how to land on water and on non-runway land. I'm also not going out on a limb by saying that landing a plane with no engine power must be tougher than with, but then of course I'm sure they are all trained at that too.
And now a sidebar complaint about "heroes." A man doing his job is not by itself heroic, no matter what that job is. If heroism enters the equation (debatable but acceptable), then it exists only when the man decides to embark upon a career such as aviation, or firefighting, another profession that is constantly called heroic. It's a noble pursuit. It is admirable. It is not heroic.
Maybe my definition is just a bit stricter than others.
1. The radio blurb finished up mentioning that if anyone wanted to take his first flight back, you are out of luck because the flight is sold out. If there was any earnestness in that statement, then I really don't know what to think of our human society. To think someone would take a flight from NYC to Charlotte purely because it's the first one for the pilot after an eight-and-a-half-month layoff is beyond ridiculous.
2. Dangerous, meaning there is always a chance of death, not dangerous because death is likely. Sorta like walking on the yellow part of the subway platform while a train is coming into the station. But not dangerous like walking through a minefield.
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