Styx vs. Monkees: A never ending conflict

Ok, I did watch the fan produced ending for How I Met Your Mother today and if you had shown that to me yesterday and told me that it was the real ending I would have thought, “Aw, what a sweet ending.” It would have been a happy ending for everyone, or at least Ted. You still have to figure out Barney and Robin and Marshall and Lilly but you could make them all happy in the end. In a sense I like the fact that they did not make it nice and neat because life is certainly not and neither has been Ted’s life. But that said, the more I watch the original ending the more it seems totally off. That is what happens when you are writing to scenes filmed by child actors seven years ago. At some point you can accept that you should change plans.

Anyway, I wanted to tell the story tonight of how I am a hypocrite in general and especially when it comes to music. If I am nice this is just an example of how I can be a bit of an arrogant snob but at worse it shows some of the lesser side of my personality. Either way it is a pretty fun story.

So a few weeks ago someone asked me if I wanted to go see Styx in concert and my response was a) laughter and b) “why would you want to see a band without their lead singer and where half of the band is dead.” Now let me start by saying that I really like Styx. I actually owned Kilroy was Here on cassette. They are a Chicago band and two of the band members lived in the suburbs in the same neighborhood as kids from my high school. Hell, when my sister was in high school the school won a radio concert which gave the students free tickets to see Styx. I can’t say that they are my favorite band of all time but I did grow up on their music.

But with all that I have no desire to see them in their present form. Dennis DeYoung is no longer the lead singer because the rest of the band hates him and it is hard to think of Styx without him. Tommy Shaw is still a good guitarist and probably worth seeing but it isn’t Styx. It’s Tommy Shaw, one or two of the other original members, and a bunch of other guys filling in roles. I didn’t want to spend money to see the show. I didn’t care that it would be silly fun. I pretty much shot it down as the dumbest idea I had ever heard and that was before I found out it was a double bill with Foreigner.

Fast forward a few days and I check my email to see that Ticketmaster has let me know about the latest shows scheduled for Kansas City (most likely on the hope that I would start buying tickets again as I believe that my moving resulted in a significant hit to their profit margin). In the email I found out that the Monkees are playing at the Uptown Theater. Not only was I getting ready to buy concert tickets I was ready to buy plane tickets, get a hotel room, and then camp outside the front door of the Uptown for a week ahead of the show so I could be in front of the stage. Oh, and while I was camped out there I would be getting signatures for my petition for the Monkees to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Of course this makes absolutely no sense. Davy Jones died a few years back so it is clearly not the Monkees of old. Even with Mike Nesmith there we are missing the heart of the band and everyone is older and let’s face it, they never played their own instruments to begin with so it is not like they have gotten any better. But it’s the Monkees! I grew up on their music. It would be a lot of silly fun.

So I’m a hypocrite. One band from the seventies reunites and I consider it a personal affront that it would even be suggested that I see them in concert. Another band from the sixties, one that was created solely for a television show, reunites and I am willing to travel across the country to see them play at a venue that is conveniently located across the street from a place where you can sell your blood plasma. If I was internally consistent I would probably be a lot easier to live with.

Wednesday Night Music Club: Nothing makes life better than a new Drive By Truckers album.

Best Celebrity Sighting Ever!

So as I mentioned last night Kim and I spent the weekend in our adopted home of New Orleans. If my math is correct (and let’s be honest, it always is) I’ve been traveling to New Orleans myself for eighteen years and have spent the last five years with Kim by my side for events that have included our first date and our wedding (though not on the same trip). I’ve come to the conclusion that I have spent more time in New Orleans than any other city where I did not have a mailing address and I believe I have spent more time in NOLA than I did in Overland Park, Kansas which is by all accounts a good thing.

Anyway, as is our tradition no trip to New Orleans for us complete without at least one random and totally insane moment. We’ve found ourselves VIP members of a Mardi Gras Krewe, being introduced to Paul Prudhomme and caught up in the celebration of the Saints Super Bowl victory. We’ve also apparently caused one store in the Quarter to change its policy after we entered the store without recalling that a) we had been in the store the previous day, b) we had spent a good hour looking at everything there and c) had apparently purchased a four foot long alligator. That store is now one of our favorites, mainly because they sold us a four foot long alligator.

This trip was no different and may have set the bar for complete randomness. Over the years Kim and I have become defacto members of the Krewe of Barkus, which is the Mardi Gras parade dedicated to the dogs of the city. Meaning that everyone dresses up their dogs in costumes and marches them through the French Quarter and in the process help to raise money for Animal Rescue New Orleans and encouraging the adopting of rescue dogs. It is a total blast and a cause that we both support (particularly Kim who has been doing this for years and has her two adopted dogs that I have been absolutely blessed to know.) As a result of this and the friends that we have made over the years we are lucky enough to have VIP access to the viewing stand; which really means that we have access to the balcony of a bar to watch the parade.

So we are up there, joking around with some people we had just met and others who remembered us from years past. At one point we look down to the street below and Kim turns to me and goes “Isn’t that Jesse from Opposite Worlds?”

Now I wrote a week or two ago about Opposite Worlds, a Sy Fy channel reality show that is a weird mix of Big Brother, Survivor, Captain Caveman and Twitter advertising dollars. Kim and I might be the only people who have actually watched the show and were certainly the only people who, in a Mardi Gras crowd, could pick out one of the villains of a third tier reality. Kim, in all her persuasive glory, got one of the guys next to us to yell out “Jesse!” to which he turned to us, smirked and waved. Kim and I immediately yelled out “We voted for you! We wanted you to win!” to which he replied “So did I!” At which point Kim and I just burst out laughing.

I’m sorry but that was so random that it made our trip. That was the last celebrity that I expected to see and it was just a brilliant random encounter that only meant something to the two of us. That is why I love going to NOLA, you just never know what is going to happen. As always, I have to thank all of our great friends who live there and show us unbelievable hospitality every time we make our way there. It is incredibly appreciated.

Wednesday Night Music Club: This is a Lydia Loveless song from her Indestructible Machine album and was the first time in ages I’ve heard something that just made me stop and swear at how good it is. This is from when she was 21 years old and there is no way that a 21 year old should either be able to write or sing like that. People are comparing her to Neko Case, which might not be a fair comparison but I remember seeing Neko in concert in 1999 and my reaction was the same and I don’t know if I can name anyone else who just made my jaw drop with just her voice like these two did.

A remembrance for a poet

So I was watching the finals of the Nordic Combined today and….ok, I really had no reason to actually watch the finals of the Nordic Combined. This is what happens when you work from home part of the time and it is after market close. You end up watching whatever Olympic coverage happens to be on at the moment. Anyway, while watching the thrilling cross country portion of the Nordic Combined I got to see the brilliance of deciding to place the games in Sochi in action. Now I can’t consider myself a cross country aficionado but I don’t believe that courses should consist of about a twenty foot wide path of snow that is surrounded by pure dirt. Seriously, the only part of the cross country course that had snow on it was the course itself. I’ve never seen anything as bizarre in my life and I was watching a sport that believes that ski jumping and cross country skiing are related skills.

In sad news that will get lost amidst the other headlines Maggie Estep died today at only fifty years old. Most people will have never heard of Maggie Estep. To be honest hers is a name I haven’t thought of for well over a decade. But, she was part of the spoken word poetry scene back in that brief moment of time when spoken word was a thing. They even had a special spoken word poetry addition of MTV Unplugged which is completely insane in that a) MTV once dedicated an hour of prime time to a poetry recital and b) somehow a poetry recital could be considered unplugged.

Maggie was a part of that broadcast and I just want to point out how cool that moment in time was. I can’t sit here and talk about how influential her poetry was because outside of a few other brief performances this was what I knew of her. But the fact that she could make it on to MTV (along with the guy from King Missle of all things) to just recite poetry and even appear on Beavis and Butthead was a sign to me that there is more than one way to express yourself. I’ve always been one to write and typically write for myself. I couldn’t get on stage and sing or play guitar but I have some small skill in sitting down and writing but that is a very solitary task. It is tough to connect with people and even tougher to get feedback. I mainly write for myself but occasionally it is nice to have an audience.

The spoken word scene also proved to me that you don’t have to write in the traditional way. I know it is almost inconceivable now but when I was a teenager my dreams of seeing my words in print or available anywhere would involve either getting a book deal or a magazine assignment or if I was going to be incredibly daring, just publishing my own zine. I knew people who made their own zines. I had no idea how they did it. Incredibly though a decade ago I just set up a blog and started writing and ended up with readers all over the world. I’m bummed that the blog took a multi-year sabbatical and lost its steady readership but it will come back. I’m just happy to have an outlet.

So tonight in between Olympic coverage and rightful eulogies to Sid Caesar remember Maggie and her brief moment in the pop culture spotlight. She was able to stand on a stage and read her poems to a national audience. How amazing is that.

Wednesday Night Music Club: Still continuing with albums that were released in the last year or so. Here is one from Josh Ritter’s release from last year. For an album that came out of the aftermath of his divorce this is a rather upbeat song. Plus, it is Josh and his songs are the closest thing to poetry that you can find out there.

Dauber: Bigger than Lennon, Elvis and Justin Timberlake Put Together

Here is your latest sign that the music industry is screwed up beyond all belief. On VH1 Classic right now they are broadcasting three straight hours of old episodes of Coach. A channel that by definition has fifty years of history to draw from, Beatles on Ed Sullivan to Rolling Stones at Altamont to Live Aid to really crappy boy bands to even crappier boy bands to my God, what the hell is a Bieber and why do I care, has decided that its best broadcasting choice is to go completely off brand and just show old episodes of Coach.

Now I do not want to use this space to disparage the classic television sitcom of Coach. Far be it from me to question the enviable talents of Craig T. Nelson or the comedy stylings of the next to funniest member of the Van Dyke family. Clearly the story and history of the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles is more interesting than my own Fighting Illini and I’m pretty sure that we lost to Minnesota State the past five years straight. And anyone who says that Dauber isn’t one of the greatest television characters and assistant coaches of all time is a fool. So no, I am not going to spend my time questioning the merits of Coach or the forgettable years spent coaching the Orlando Breakers (a dark time in our nation’s history to be sure.)

No, what bothers me is that this is on VH-1 Classic when the show has absolutely nothing to do with music altogether. If you are going to just give up and show old television shows why not pick up Happy Days or The Wonder Years, where the music in the background plays a significant role in the series. Hell, why not show WKRP in Cincinnati, which fits the channel perfectly and fills a niche because those shows can’t be released on DVD due to all of the music rights. I’ll take a Haden Fox for Johnny Fever trade straight up and once we bring Bailey into the equation it is a no brainer. I can think of a dozen sitcoms more fitting to the channel than Coach.

Obviously the easy solution to this problem would be to simply play something associated with music. Even if you say that the video is passé you still have untold hours of documentaries and concerts and specials and, because this is VH-1, “I Love the Insert Vague Pop Culture Reference Here” marathons. Hell, I’ll even accept reruns of old VH-1 reality shows. I’ll watch reruns of Flavor of Love or Celebrity Rehab or The Pick Up Artist (which totally deserved a third season by the way). It just seems like this is the laziest programming decision ever.

I know that we are at the end of the lifespan of such concepts as television channels. Soon we will all get whatever content we want online and we will mix and match to create our own channels. Right now I could build my own music video playlist and spend the next few hours in relative bliss. But the wonder of television is that it can surprise you by showing you something that you didn’t know about in a way that recommendation boxes can’t. You can always ignore a recommendation and to be honest, we are so inundated with information that it is just easier to put on blinders. But it is those random moments when you are changing channels or walking the aisle of a bookstore or flipping through CD racks that you stumble on something that changes your life. It kills me that we are losing that part of our culture.

Wednesday Night Music Club: If there was an album from last year that surprised me it was the latest from Richard Buckner. I’ve followed him for more than fifteen years and while I’ve always been a fan and I will be the first to say that his live performances have left me slackjawed in wonder I haven’t been as taken with his recent work. But Surrounded is just an amazing collection of songs. This video of him singing in an art gallery just shows why I’ve spent nearly two decades collecting his music. Just stunning.

For reasons never fully explained, every song is about how awesome the sun is...

Ok, I am going to be pretty quick tonight as a bit of a work / life driven time crunch has limited my blogging time. However, for those wondering where my priorities lay blogging comes in behind forty minutes of yoga but ahead of finishing the dishes. So I have found inner tranquility that will last until someone notices that I haven’t finished the dishes and that is the one housekeeping job that I am trusted with because I am utterly useless at everything else to the point that even I now wonder how I survived on my own all those years. But I am halfway through week four of the Advanced class of DDP Yoga so I’m not going to complain just yet.

Wednesday Night Music Club: I’m going to keep with my plan of using the Wednesday Night Music Club to continue to talk about music that has been released in the last six months or so. But given that I have really fallen out of the music scene compared to where I was before I am open to any and all suggestions of what I should be listening to at the moment. Once you hit forty you fall out of the target demographic (and the Wal-Mart demographic for that matter) at popular music just goes whizzing by you as you wonder “So is Haim a Corey Haim tribute band?”

Anyway, one of my favorite bands released a new album last fall. The Polyphonic Spree is less a band and more of a cult or at a minimum, three separate bands that were apparently booked to play at the same time and decided to take the stage together. It is the only band that I have seen that has had people playing harp and theremin simultaneously with a nine person choir hanging out in the background. Everyone wears matching robes and Tim Delaughter (formerly of Tripping Daisy for those of you who are also fugitives from Alternative Nation) leads the festivities. For as much of a cynic as I am seeing this band in concert was some of the most fun that I have ever had at a show. It is impossible to leave without feeling happy. I have no idea how these guys even make enough money to tour but if you ever get a chance to see them you really should take it.

Just show up...

Wednesday Night Music Club: I am going to be a little shorter than normal tonight as I just got off a plane and have an early morning meeting. Plus, I wanted to mention I am going to have a new rule for the Wednesday Night Music Club in that it will focus on music that has come out over the last year. I think the remainder of the video schedule will be…

Sunday: Best of 120 Minutes (Really good videos from the 80s and 90s alternative scene)

Monday: Remembering the 80s (Really bad videos from the 80s)

Occasional: Songs from the Alt Country Gutter (Whatever catches my interest from my Americana collection)

Anyway, here is a song from Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis album from last year. As has been documented many times on this blog that when I first saw Kelly Willis perform (which was back in 1998 and wow does that make me feel old) I decided that I didn’t just want to buy her records but that I wanted to marry her. Before the encore if at all possible. Well, she married Bruce instead and the two of them became some of my favorite musicians of all time. I’ve seen them many times over the years, talked with them after shows on several occasions and just found them to be incredibly nice and super talented people.

The reason I mention this is that I have been thinking recently about the old Woody Allen line about how 90% of life is just showing up. A lot of people take that to be that almost all of life is just pure luck. I think what it really points out how few people even bother to show up in life. I am a shy, socially awkward type of guy who would go to concerts by himself. But, and this is the big thing, I would just hang out, see really interesting bands that caught my attention and occasionally buy them a beer after shows. Some of them went on to be famous, some were never heard of again but I’ve ended up with all of these stories that would never have happened if I stayed at home living a literally virtual life. I’ve ended up with a pretty amazing life without really having a plan for it and mainly by just being willing to accept whatever happened. I’ve gotten better at showing up (fear still gets to me more than I would like) but I certainly appreciate it more.

Anyway, Bruce and Kelly are awesome and any reason to play one of their songs is a good one. 

New Year's Resolutions: 2014 Edition

As someone who believes in public accountability here are my resolutions for the year for the world (or at least the twenty people and / or robots who seem to read my blog posts) to see.

1)      The Sincerity Project: I’ve already discussed this as it is one of the main reasons for restarting the blog. In essence, my goal is to change from being a cynical bastard to someone who is an actual caring human being. To be honest this has been absolutely brutal to put into practice. I don’t know if it is humanly possible to watch Brent Mussberger announce the BCS title game and not be sarcastic but I am certainly trying. You’ll occasionally catch me stopping myself from saying something and saying “sincerity check” instead. Hopefully I’ll end up a better person for this at the end of the year.

2)      Complete the 13 week advanced level of DDP Yoga: I’ve mentioned it before but I am a huge fan of DDP Yoga. I firmly believe that the best fitness programs are developed by former professional wrestlers as they are clearly medical experts. I’m serious here, I’ve been doing DDP Yoga on and off for the past nine months and the degree that my flexibility and fitness have improved is amazing. I’m in the best shape I have ever been in and my weight is now under 180 pounds, which is thirty pounds less than it was five years ago. I really want to make it through the advanced level and see what the results are.

3)      Keep the blog going all year: Huge challenge but I feel so much better when I write that this is something I need to do. You may see more posts like last night though where I hit a few points and then just end it. I can’t spend an hour staring at a screen trying to figure out what to write any more. Trust me, I really wish I had that much free time again.

4)      Read forty books: I’ve come close the past few years but I typically end up falling short. This year I want to actually break the forty book barrier. As always, my yearly goals of 1) read one classic novel, 2) read something by a female author and 3) read a Shakespeare play still hold and I can say that over the past decade the second point is no longer a challenge. I had too many years where if it wasn’t for Harry Potter I would never have achieved that goal.

5)      Travel someplace new this year: This is a nice way to say that Kim and I need a vacation that is different than ones that we have taken before. We are in a bit of a rut in terms of trips and just need to escape to someplace fresh. Obviously we will still make our trip to New Orleans for the Krewe of Barkus and all of the fun associated with our second home but I particularly need to find myself in a new place.

6)      Reader’s Choice: I’ve done this before and it is always interesting. Place your suggestion in the comments for what my resolution should be and I promise to do it (legality permitting of course). This is how I ended up doing yoga in the first place.

7)      Run a 5K: An easy fitness goal but one I would like to do. After so many years of being scared of doing anything physical due to fear of causing myself harm I want to go back to trying something athletic. Plus, I will now be in the 40+ category so I might actually have a decent chance at placing somewhere in the top 90%.

8)      Take at least five minutes each day to just be: I don’t think that I will ever believe just how lucky I am in life. I’ve achieved so many of my dreams that I feel guilty about it. However, I’ve learned that the man who gets everything that he has ever wanted finds himself pulled in a thousand directions without time to appreciate or be grateful for any of it. If there has been anything that I have lost over these past few years it is that sense of appreciation of just what this world is. I’m hoping that by just making myself to take five minutes in which I turn off everything, avoid the digital noise that surrounds me and just let myself be and think I will be able to improve myself in countless ways. That is the idea behind the Sincerity Project. Modern life forces you to be tired, over-stimulated and cynical. I want to be open, honest and thankful instead.

Wednesday Night Music Club: The best album of 2013 was easily Jason Isbell’s “Southeastern.” It is a haunting and piercing collection of songs that stay with you for days at a time. He is an amazing songwriter and while this album can’t be considered uplifting (it deals with addiction and its aftermath) you will not forget some of what he sings. This song, which closes the album, ends with what might be one of my new mantras in life. “Here with you there is always something to look forward to. My lonely heart beats relatively easy.”

Starting the Year with a Bang

Sincerity Failure #1 (of many, many more…)

TV Announcer: “Honda will donate to the city of the winning team a fully customized Honda Accord Minivan for use by the Ronald McDonald House to transport children and their families to and from the hospital.”

Me: “Sick children in the losing city will have to walk…crap, I mean isn’t it nice that Honda is donating an extremely beneficial gift to a worthwhile charity.”

Kim: “Wow, couldn’t even last a day with your resolution.”

I have to admit that ridding me of the habit of making snide remarks to the television is going to be brutal. Especially given the fact that Kim and I relax by watching Investigation Discovery and its unending series of shows like “Deadly Women”, “Wives with Knives” and “Dates from Hell.” I don’t know if it is possible to watch those shows with any sense of sincerity. Though my personal favorite will always be “Lt. Joe Kenda: Homicide Hunter”, where former homicide detective Joe Kenda reviews some of his most memorable cases. The cases themselves are rather forgettable, the fact that it honestly looks like Joe Kenda was dragged out of a bar to the television studio, has the grizzled look of someone who has had to investigate over four hundred murders and who, in every recreation scene, is always shown smoking a cigarette makes the entire enterprise unforgettable.

One or two thoughts on New Year’s Day this time around. First, it is kind of funny that I fell asleep before midnight though I woke up in time to watch the clock flip over. I have to admit that I was never a big one for going out on New Year’s Eve. It is amateur night at the bars and I always considered myself to be a seasoned veteran. Plus that moment at midnight when everyone grabs their date and makes out is really, really depressing when you are alone. In KC I usually made my way to whatever bar Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys were playing at that year and celebrated the end of the year by drinking cheap beer with my alt country brethren. Now I actually have someone to kiss at midnight and we are too tired to go out. Just one of those strange ways that life changes.

The bigger problem I have to deal with is the shooting off of fireworks at midnight. I’ve never understood the appeal of fireworks. I think in my entire life I may have held a sparkler once but that is all the experience that I have. Now it appears that in addition to the Fourth of July it is now tradition to spend a good hour after midnight shooting off everything you have and annoying the entire neighborhood. This is made worse by the fact that I live in Florida and the idea of something being illegal down here might exist in theory but definitely not in practice. Thus I had to spend the New Year trying to calm two dogs who wanted to know where the explosions were coming from when all I wanted to do was sleep. Not the best way to start off the year.

Wednesday Night Music Club: For some reason this song bounced into my head a few weeks ago and I must have watched the video a dozen times since then. Thought I would share the early 90’s punk rock joy.

I swear I really did have a Canadian girlfriend

Well I don’t have to look too far for a topic tonight. Here are my thoughts on the Manti Te’o story and what I can make out of it.


The first big question is what Te’o the victim of a hoax or was he behind it? Obviously the first thought that many people would have is that this was a big plan that he developed in order to gain more press. Invent imaginary girlfriend, have imaginary girlfriend die early in the season, gain great press from playing in her memory and use that to improve your draft position. To me that doesn’t make any sense at all. Obviously people could check up on the story and there was no guarantee that Notre Dame was going to have this amazing season and turn Manti into a Heisman candidate. Plus, why include a fake death when his grandmother, who he was incredibly close to, died on the same day? Yes it adds to the story but it wasn’t really necessary. He was already the top prospect and a prospective first rounder on a team that is on television every week.

If Manti was involved in the creation of the imaginary girlfriend and he did it for publicity he would have to be a stone cold person. From every interview and comment that I have seen about him for four years I’ve seen no indication that there would be anything like this in his personality. I’ve never heard anyone say a negative thing about the kid. If he was involved in the setup of the hoax I would be stunned and disappointed beyond belief.

So if he was a victim of the hoax what the hell happened? After thinking about it for a few hours this is my best guess.

Manti gets a message from someone on Twitter and starts a conversation. They tweet and text regularly over time. Maybe they even talk on the phone a few times. Her backstory becomes more convoluted (car accident, cancer, bone marrow transplant) until, on the same day that the news breaks that his grandmother died the person behind the hoax also tells him that the girl has died. In talking to the team and press about it Manti describes her as “his girlfriend”, which leads to the story getting confused in the press.

See, the term girlfriend is what has always bugged me about this from the start. You notice that they never showed pictures of her with him throughout the season, or mentioned him by her bedside, or any other behaviors you would expect out of someone whose girlfriend (in the standard definition of the term) is dying. But I can easily see a guy, even a top football player, refer to someone he only talks to online as his girlfriend because, hell, I’ve been guilty of that one.

Obviously my geekiness and dating challenges are well documented on this blog, which makes the fact that Kim and I are married still the best proof that I have that miracles are still possible. But in college I referred to a girl I met every week for coffee as my girlfriend. We never dated, never even really came close to in fact, but we regularly spent time together and there is no good word for a relationship like that especially when trying to explain that to your buddies who don’t know her. She can’t be your friend because then they would know her so it is just easier to describe her as a girlfriend. I’ve written about relationships where I went on a few dates or one date or never technically been on a date but more like we happened to repeatedly find ourselves in the same bar and described them all in this blog as relationships or girlfriends. It’s a huge lie and I think everyone realizes it but it makes you feel better because as a guy you never want to admit that you can’t get a girlfriend. There is just a part of the evolutionary, lizard like portion of your brain that constantly goes “I would make an especially good mate. My sperm are healthy and plentiful” and you will invent Canadian girlfriends galore to keep that image up.

So Manti talks to a girl online and describes her to a bunch of buddies as a girlfriend. He is duped into thinking she was real and when told that she has died he calls her a girlfriend. When the press calls him out on it he doesn’t want to admit that they had never actually met and they weren’t really dating so he makes up a story about how they met and how they hung out together a few times. The story takes on its own life and once someone looks into it and finds out that she isn’t real the entire thing explodes. That version makes sense to me.

I do also want to add this, though. I want to give huge kudos to my friends at Deadspin for breaking this story and doing the leg work behind it. For those who don’t know, Deadspin was founded by Will Leitch who was a few years behind me at Illinois and if I remember correctly was on the team of Daily Illini writers who beat me in the intramural sports trivia competition my senior year (yes, sports trivia was a legitimate intramural sport at Illinois.) The fact that no one else: ESPN, Sports Illustrated, CNN, every news outlet that you can think of, did the research into this story to find out the truth just shows how great of a job Deadspin does on covering sports and just how bad the mainstream media is. I mean, how can ESPN not send someone to find the girl’s parents to talk about the relationship? How could no one else do the work to find this out? That might be as big of a story as anything else here. The story should be less on the hoax itself but how in the world could the main story of the football season, involving the Heisman runner up, be false and no one notice?

Wednesday Night Music Club: Actually these are really the New Pornographers, right? I mean, I’ve met the band…

Virtual Homeroom

Given that I have been on Facebook for probably five years now it is pretty amazing to see how it has impacted my life. To be honest I am not a very active user. Sure when I started I took full advantage of Facebook chat and games of Scrabulous (which was Words with Friends for people who lacked words or, uh, friends) and would regularly update my status. Now, other than the occasional status containing a really bad pun I now am more of a Facebook lurker than anything else. Kim still feels I waste too much time on it but there is an aspect to it that I find fascinating. Facebook has resulted in everyone having a Virtual Homeroom.


Look at your Facebook friends and see how many of them are from grade school or high school. Given that I switched grade schools when I was ten I literally have Facebook friends who I have not seen or spoken to in thirty years yet I get regular updates on their life. Every morning I check the news feed and I listen to the background chatter of people who I knew but don’t really know. To be honest this is exactly what high school was like for me. I knew everyone in the room but I’m not sure if I really had a clue what any of them were about.

Yet homeroom in high school plays a huge role in your life and I swear to this day that I have dreams relating to high school and homeroom. It was where you heard the daily gossip and complaints and news of the day. Nothing really happened but you saw the cliques form and alliances dissolve and friendships and relationships morph daily. It was a place where a group of people gathered for fifteen minutes a day for no reason other than circumstance brought them together.

When I first started thinking about this I started to wonder if it would be good if you had homeroom throughout your entire life. Imagine every workday you met in a room with people, some of whom you would never see again that day, and hear the daily announcements and get the updates on the day. I guess we would now host it in a Starbucks as I couldn’t see surviving that atmosphere without coffee but I started to envision what it would be like to just have that daily gathering. Over time as people moved about they would switch homerooms and others would join in just like when you had the new kid in school. The daily drama of homeroom would play out throughout adulthood. I still don’t know if that would be a good thing or not.

But the more I thought about it the more I realized that is entirely what Facebook is. There is no substance there. You can state your political opinions or your theoretically funny shared greeting cards or spam game requests but for the most part none of it actually matters. It is just a spattering of gossip and clans and complaints about life. It really is the same as homeroom and it is now permanent. You can’t escape the people you happened to meet when you were nine years old. They now follow you for the rest of your life. It scares me as to how this will affect kids today. I know I spent a good portion of high school wanting to just get beyond this incredibly awkward point of my life. Now you never get to leave.

Wednesday Night Music Club: I am not sure which of the old blog standards are going to survive into this new format but this one probably will. Besides, I would have to share this performance by Beth Orton with everyone anyway. This is her song Magpie off of her latest album (CD? iTunes release? What the hell do we call new music now?) When I first saw this I was just floored. Something about repeating the line “What a lie looks like” with that slightly flawed voice of hers just stopped me in my tracks.

Let's go for a well documented walk

I have to say that I am extremely happy to see people commenting on the blog again. Thanks for reading and trust me, I appreciate everything that people say. This is still a bit of a work in progress as I try to get back into the groove of writing so things may not be at their best at all times but I will keep on working at it. Also, as you can tell from this week my current schedule just does not work very well with my old Sunday through Thursday posting routine so while I am still going to aim to post five nights a week I can’t guarantee just which nights those will be. Basically I write whenever I can sneak in the 20 or 30 minutes of time that this requires and until I either get a longer day or, preferably, a helper monkey things will have to be on an as it happens basis.


Speaking of trying to find time I decided to look at one aspect of my personal fitness that I had been ignoring. After reading A. J. Jacobs’ “Drop Dead Healthy”, in which he examines in detail a ton of fitness trends, I decided to look into this idea that you should walk 10,000 steps a day. After the debacle of buying three separate sound machines at least this time I found a free iPhone app before buying a pedometer at Target. After tracking my steps for a few days I’ve found out a few interesting facts.

On a daily basis I walk a little over 3,000 steps. Most of those are to and from my car in the parking lot and the only reason that I walk that many is that I tend to come to work later than most people so I end up with a parking space farther away from the door. Other than that my walking at work is confined to getting printouts and coffee (and I am requesting a helper monkey to take care of the latter.) One day at lunch I just decided to walk around for 20 minutes in which I walked a mile and took around 2,000 steps. All of this means is that there is no way in hell I could walk 10,000 steps in a day.

Think about it. That is a recommendation to walk five miles a day. Outside of specifically scheduling time on the treadmill there really is no practical way for me to achieve that amount of walking. It is not a question of ability. I’ve done four to five miles on a treadmill on a number of occasions. It is just that my current daily habits do not allow for anywhere near that much activity. I’m not sure I know of anyone, particularly anyone who works in an office job outside of a major city, that would naturally walk that much.

When I worked in downtown Chicago and took the train to work I wouldn’t be surprised if I walked that much. Certainly when I was in college and had to go back and forth to a number of buildings throughout the day that was the case. But now I find myself in a career path where getting up out of my chair is almost a rare occurrence. It really does say something about our current society where getting up and moving is considered rare. I’ve thought about walking to Subway or Starbucks when I work from home and I wonder what people would think about a guy walking a mile instead of driving.

Anyone have any advice on how to be more active in this regard? Outside of spending my lunch hour walking around the parking lot I’m not sure what to do. I mean, I did an hour workout in the morning so how much more activity should I do?

Wednesday Night Music Club: Not sure why but I’m kind of in the mood for Old Crow Medicine Show tonight. One of those bands that if you told me twenty years ago that this would be my favorite type of music I would have thought that you were insane. That said, twenty years ago I thought Sting was cool so what the hell do I know.

Can't tell where you are without a scorecard

I know that I have mentioned it before but the degree to which my life has changed over the past few years is really amazing. When I started this blog my daily routine was wake up, realize that I am living in Kansas City, shake fist at sky, go to work, and either a) go home and surf the net, b) play trivia in a bar or c) watch an unheralded alternative country band with the same fifty people who saw a different unheralded alternative country act the week before. On weekends you could add sit on the corner barstool at Harry’s and drink Boulevard Wheat beer while simultaneously wondering why I was gaining weight. Compare this to my schedule the past few days.


Tuesday: Wake up, take the dogs out, spend some time with the wife and then drive from Fort Myers to Orlando. Attend a conference in which I spend four hours in a windowless conference room discussing minute details of economic modeling software and find it to be a great use of my time and never once think about how Universal Studios is just down the street. Afterwards feel slightly guilty about that fact. Then dinner, call home, write a blog post and fall asleep.

Wednesday: Wake up at four in the morning. Drive to the Orlando airport to catch a 6 AM flight to Chicago. Work on the plane. Head downtown and give a presentation. After lunch try to sort through my emails before heading back to the airport only to discover that my flight has been delayed by an hour and a half. Curse the fact that my resolution to use Weight Watchers and eat better means that I can’t get an Italian Beef sandwich for dinner. Fly back to Orlando, write a blog post on the plane, do some reading and try to relax. Then back to the hotel where people were blowing those vevuzulas from the last World Cup outside my window until midnight. Wearily shake fist at sky as a result.

Thursday: Wake up. Wobble over to the shower and get ready for attending a conference. Grab coffee and remember fondly the days that all I would drink is decaf while accepting the fact that to make it through the day I will essentially be shaking in my chair for most of the morning and then fight off a headache in the afternoon. Spend eight hours discussing minute details of economic modeling and still find that I would rather do that than head over and say hello to Mickey. Drive back home to Fort Myers to Kim and the dogs and not be able to think of a place in the world I would rather be.

I can’t say that it is always like this and the travel schedule can sometimes be a killer but I am in such a better place now it is amazing. I can’t explain how I got from here to there but it has been one hell of a trip.

Wednesday Night Music Club: Here is how tired I was yesterday. I forgot to post a music video. I am going with Kathleen Edwards tonight as she is one of those alternative country acts that I knew before she was referred to as Bon Iver’s girlfriend. Sunday night I will talk about Bon Iver and being an indie rock hipster.

Back to the old Alma Mater

Nothing makes you feel older than returning to your old college campus. I found this out a few weeks ago when I returned to the University of Illinois for the first time in well over a decade. Well, that is not entirely true. I was there for a few hours a year and a half ago with Kim but it was during finals week in December. No one should ever have to experience Champaign in December as everything is simply a different tinge of gray with students walking around stressed and wishing they were anywhere else. Ok, so that is a general description of Champaign at any time of the year but it is even worse in December.


But this time, through a bunch of circumstances that I might get into at some point, I had a few hours by myself on campus on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in April. Which let me do everything that I wanted to do on campus including realize why I should not be on a campus any more.

Kim usually doesn’t believe my college stories. Mainly because when I returned to campus and had a choice to visit anywhere I wanted my first choice, without any hesitation, was Everitt Lab: the home of Electrical Engineering. Most people would choose the bookstore or their dorm or a bar but no, I literally ran to room 245 where I spent some of the most challenging years of my life. I was thrilled to see that they still had actual blackboards and desks without computer hookups just like I did back in the day when it was just you, a calculator, a notebook, half a dozen pencils and a hope that maybe today would be the day a meteor would slam into the building. I went and checked out which of my professors were still teaching, stopped by the old office that I weaseled my way into my senior year and even stopped by my old lab.

Now I have to start by explaining what my old lab consisted of. The Power Lab is located in the basement of Everitt Lab and consists of motors, engines, a lot of complicated monitors and big red buttons labeled “Emergency”, which if you press turns off the electricity to the entire room. We were next to the fabrication lab, where students would be bathed in yellow light while wearing clean suits and building integrated circuits. We looked at them like they were aliens and they wondered why occasionally they would hear explosions from our lab. For the record, only once did part of a circuit I constructed end up embedded in the ceiling tiles.

Obviously labs should be locked on a Saturday but I walked down anyway and was stunned to find the door open. I walked in and saw probably a dozen students working away at the lab stations. It was possibly the geekiest thing I had ever seen. It was a beautiful day out, a Saturday in April of Mom’s Day weekend and here were these students laboring over their projects. My reaction was not to tell them, “Go outside! There is more to life than circuit designs.” No, I was holding myself back from offering to help. That was me twenty years ago. No question about it.

I could accept that I was older than the students in the lab. They were kids, of course, but at least they were still working in the same lab and probably doing the same projects that I worked on. And it was still the same building with the same professors. It was when I walked the campus that it really hit me. Not only were there new buildings but things like a Chick-Fil-A in the student union, the disappearance of nearly all the bars that I used to go to and the loss of all of the record stores that existed in Campustown. I spent hours every week in those stores and they were all gone. That hurt.

But here was when it really hit me. I went back to my old dorm. I walked in behind a student and her parents, looking like I was maybe some uncle who had latched on at the last second. I wasn’t going in to see a dorm room or anything. I needed to find a trophy in the student lounge. A very particular trophy that twenty years ago was my plan for immortality on campus. A trophy whose story will have to wait for tomorrow.

Wednesday Night Music Club: Thought that I would feature one of the Champaign bands from that same time as they look now. Yeah, Poster Children has aged roughly as well as I have. Still, they were a band that deserved much more airplay than they received.

2011 Reading List: Fiction for all

Since it is a start of a new year (and an effective restart of the blog) I thought that I would go with an easy topic for the next couple of days: an examination of the books that I read over the course of 2011. I finished 38 books last year, which is about average for me. Yes, I’ve kept track of every book that I have read since 1998. In many instances I can tell you how many days it took me to read the book. Don’t ask me why this is the case. Kim asks me all the time and I have yet to come up with a good answer.

Anyway, I will start with the fiction and do the non-fiction and odds and ends tomorrow.

“The Power and the Glory” by Graham Greene: This was my challenge reading for the year, which just shows that I have really lapsed in terms of what constitutes a challenge for me anymore. Not like the good old days where in January I would decide to read Faust in its entirety despite the fact that once you read the definition of the term “Faustian Bargain” you can pretty much ignore the entire book. Anyway, I have always meant to read more of Graham Greene’s work and this is just an amazing story about Central America and the struggle of a failed priest trying to do one last good act. Really, really fascinating read about a time that we are not too far removed from.

“An Object of Beauty” by Steve Martin: I’ll state up front that I am a huge fan of Steve Martin’s writings and one of the first books that I ever gave Kim was his novel “The Pleasure of my Company.” But while I enjoyed this book you can tell that this was more of a novel written by someone who is really intrigued with a certain subject, in this case the New York art world, than by someone with a story to tell. You will learn more about auction houses and galleries and the denizens of the world than you could ever wish to know. A nice book but not a required read.

“Perforated Heart” by Eric Bogosian: Eric Bogosian falls into the category of one of those writers that I have always admired but had never actually read. Mainly because I tend to see movies of his work (Talk Radio being the biggest example) and just always hear praise about him. So I gave this novel a try because it focused on the 70’s punk rock scene in New York, which I have a passing interest in for some reason. Mainly because everyone considers it to be incredibly important artistically and musically but it all happened before I was aware of art and music outside of Sesame Street so I don’t know of CBGB’s outside of the t-shirts that you can buy at Urban Outfitters. Not sure if this book helped me to get a sense of the time, either. 70’s punk remains to me the story of a really good party attended by someone else a few years ago. Maybe you just had to be there.

“The Well of Lost Plots” by Jasper Fforde: Some books are written for certain audiences. Jasper Fforde writes for literature geeks. I have seen no author who is so inventive and dedicated to making as many literary references as possible via his Thursday Next series, which involves a world where characters in books are surprisingly real. If you can find references to Austen and the Charge of the Light Brigade entertaining than pick up his books. It is like someone decided to specifically invent crack for English majors.

“Midnight Mile” by Dennis Lehane: As you can probably already tell my taste in fiction runs to the more obscure but here is a book that everyone would enjoy. Lehane is an outstanding writer of tense thrillers and this book is in the realm as his earlier work with “Mystic River” and “Shutter Island” (along with his belief that book titles should only contain two words.) His books are page turners that do not fall into the Dan Brown trap of seeming to be formed out of a rejected Scooby Doo script. Definite one to check out.

“The Wee Free Men” and “Snuff” by Terry Pratchett: If I would hazard a guess I would estimate that I own / have read almost thirty books by Terry Pratchett over the past fifteen years. He is my fantasy writer of choice as his Discworld novels are brilliant satires of society and the nature of fantasy itself. What saddens me though is that he is reaching the end of his career as he has early onset Alzheimer’s and is now forced to dictate his books. You have to admire someone who sees the end of the road ahead of him and still plows on as he knows that he still has stories to tell the world.

“A Game of Thrones” by George R. R. Martin: I must admit I had not been very aware of this series until the HBO series and as a book it would typically scare me off for the same reason that I avoid most fantasy novels. At a certain age you decide that you can’t read a thousand pages about dragons and ancient rivalries without going completely numb. But my god is this a good book. He keeps you reading and the use of numerous viewpoint characters keeps you constantly engaged in all of the different threads that run through the book. I am going to continue to make my way through the series though I certainly will take pauses between the books. With something so dense you need to take breaks.

“A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan: I am not sure if I can call this the best book that I read all year (though it would certainly be in the top three) but it without a doubt has the best chapter that I have read in a very long time. It is a single chapter written as PowerPoint slides. It is a chapter about autism and the idea of pauses within music and what that implies and the different ways in which information is communicated and it is just fascinating to read. At first you think that it is just a gimmick but after reading it I could think of no other way to present such a story in so compelling of a manner. I’d read this book for that chapter alone.

“How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe” by Charles Yu: I read a lot of books because I hear good things about them online. Kim challenges me on why I use this method to choose books as I typically end up reading books that I am supposed to read rather than what I would actually like to read at any point in time. Sometimes my method works and I find a great book. Other times like this one I just don’t get it. It is the story of a time machine repairman with a cute dog who ends up somehow killing his future self and forming an infinite loop. Outside of the bits with the dog I still don’t know what it was about.

“Hunger Games”, “Catching Fire” and “Mockingjay” by Suzanne Collins: Now these are books that I can understand! 24 teenagers put into an arena to battle to the death for the entertainment of the super wealthy. I have to say of all of the young adult novels that have gained mainstream attention in the post Harry Potter world these are easily the best. I highly recommend reading Hunger Games before the movie comes out because it really is a book that you will not be able to put down. You will find yourself rooting for Katniss and Peeta and wondering just how would you do in such a situation. The other two books aren’t quite as good though that is due mainly to the nature of the story. There would have to be a bit of a letdown after the first one. Huge recommendation on this one to be on board before the movie comes out and possibly ruins it for everyone.

“The Visible Man” by Chuck Klosterman: There is an old question that I have heard that you can use whenever you are at a lull in a conversation. You can have one superpower: flight or invisibility, which do you choose and you must answer immediately. It is a test of extroversion versus introversion and I have to admit that my first choice is invisibility and I then regret it. This is a novel about what it would be like to truly be invisible and then be able to watch peole as they truly are. It asks the question of who are we really: the person that we show the world or the person that we are when we are home alone. What is your true self? As with most of Chuck’s writing it is more of an examination of an idea than a good novel (you tend to find yourself searching for a plot at times) but man is it a good idea. The story will stick with you for a while.

“The Post-Mortal” by Drew Magary: For those who are unaware, Drew is one of the writers on Deadspin, a blog that I have been reading forever that was founded by a fellow Illini so I am a little biased on this one. The novel is built around a brilliant premise: What would happen if someone created a cure for aging. You take an injection and then you never age. Now you can still die by being shot or by smoking until you get lung cancer but you would never die of old age. You would just stay the same age as you were when you took the injection. Would you take it? What if everyone else did and you ended up being the only old person on the planet? What would the world be like if everyone was a twentysomething with no maturity in sight? Have to admit this book was a lot better than I initially expected.

“The Sense of an Ending” by Julian Barnes: I wrote about this book a few weeks ago so I’ll be brief. Plus it won the Booker Prize so it really doesn’t need my endorsement. It is about memory and how we view things as we age and that amazing way you think when you are in your late teens and find yourself fascinated with intellectual pursuits. Ok, maybe not everyone gets that but there is part of me that wonders how I would have done if I had been in a school like one of the Ivies or Oxford or Cambridge and got to live one of those experiences that I have only read about. I probably would be an even bigger arrogant prick than I already am. Guess I should be happy that I went to a school that features a cornfield as one of its campus landmarks.

“Plan B” by Johnathan Tropper: I was surprised that I hadn’t read this book already. Tropper is pretty much an American version of Nick Hornby with a focus on stories revolving around New York. This was his first novel and it shows flashes of brilliance. A story of turning thirty and what that entails. Ah, the good old days…

Wednesday Night Music Club: Some days I would love to be able to stand on a stage with just a guitar, move away from the microphone and sing to an entirely silent crowd. Pretty amazing to see Josh Ritter pull it off with one of my favorite songs ever. “My wings are made of hay and cornhusks”

Forgotten MTV Personalities: Volume One

Inspired by the book “I Want my MTV” I am starting a new recurring feature in which we examine some of the legendary characters of the Golden Era of MTV…

VJ’s always came in different shapes and styles. There were always the cute girl next door types or the comedian or the guy who is best known for his hair (few people know that widescreen TVs were invented solely to fully capture the glory of Adam Curry’s mane.) But only one WV existed solely to be the grunge DJ and that is our old friend, Steve Isaacs.

Featuring a look that screamed either “Seattle” or “That guy who sits in the fourth row of your English 103 class” Steve Isaacs ushered MTV into an era of Pearl Jam and Nirvana and left once we reached the era of Bush and Silverchair and completely disavowed all knowledge of the network by the time of Limp Bizkit. He was an example of 120 Minutes becoming mainstream as we no longer require a British accent to denote what was cool or not. Even if that was by having a kind of goofy, skinny guy with long hair act as the representative for an entire generation.

I have to be completely honest here, before reading I Want My MTV I could not for the life of me remember this guy and certainly not his name. But I guarantee that once people my age look at his picture we all immediately remember him. That was one of the wonders of MTV where even the minor celebrities became an integral part of our lives because they were always there. But more accurately, Steve Isaacs was probably the first VJ that I can remember who I legitimately thought that I could know in real life.

Because that really was the way a group of us were in the early 90’s. Ok, maybe I did not have the long hair and I wore less flannel but the idea of being young and really into this new type of music and having an almost childlike enthusiasm about it. We hung out at record stores at 11:55 on Monday nights just so we could get the new releases at midnight because we just had to have that new Breeders CD immediately. We made mixtapes and spent our free time rummaging through used CD racks trying to find some hidden gem. We thought we were unique but really we were just enjoying the thrill of youth and experiencing life on our own terms.

So cheers to you, Steve Isaacs. Once Pearl Jam no longer required MTV neither did you or any other member of Generation X. And who could sit through a Bush video anyway.

Wednesday Night Music Club: I’ve been listening to a lot of Jason Isbell recently. He is a former member of the Drive-By Truckers and might be one of the best songwriters around today. Give him a listen.

Why do I have a feeling that tomorrow will be exactly like today?

Lots of random thoughts tonight…

1) The groundhog either a) did not see his shadow today so spring will be arriving early or b) the groundhog was buried under an avalanche of snow and will not be able to see this spring whether it arrives early or not. According to the Pitch, option B may have actually occurred in KC where they attempted to install a groundhog at the Liberty Memorial without taking into account the fact that a blizzard was on its way. Poor little guy.

2) I have to admit that I am kind of bummed that I have missed out on the storm of the century. Everyone I know in Chicago is sending out pictures of four foot snow drifts and all I had out in Delaware was some freezing rain overnight. No snow days for us. Now it is true that I am glad that I do not have to dig out from the storm but I bet that it must have been amazing to watch. You just don’t get a good blizzard every year. Except if you go to Dairy Queen.

3) I was all behind the overthrow of the Egyptian government until I found out that the pro-Mubarek protesters beat up Andersen Cooper, which makes me think that maybe Mubarek isn’t that bad of a guy after all. Next time maybe Andersen will wear a collared shirt before he reports from some troubled region.

4) Oh, and I saw someone else post this comment today and I just have to steal it. Why doesn’t Egypt build pyramids anymore? It is all that they are known for yet they haven’t built one for what, 4,000 years now? The least they could do is provide us with another pyramid every 500 years or so don’t you think?

5) For the record My Beloved Lindsay did not steal that necklace. I gave it to her as a gift and I will testify to that in a court of law, presuming of course that the judge has little understanding of perjury laws. So basically I would testify in California to that.

6) Best headline on television today “Men on camels beating protestors with bats.” You don’t see that one every day.

Wednesday Night Music Club: Not sure if I ever posted this before. Probably my favorite Josh Ritter song.

2010 Booklist

As some people know I have kept track of every book that I have read since 1998. Pretty much everything you need to know about me can be explained via that one sentence. The only thing that would surprise people is that it is in a Word document and not a spreadsheet (though I do note how long it took me to read each book.) I finished 42 books in 2010 and thought that I would give some highlights of what was on my reading list last year.

“The World Without Us” by Alan Weisman: Ever wonder if the planet would be a better place if we all simply left and handed things back over to the plants and animals? Well here is your chance to find out. This is the book that led to the several Life After People television specials that featured wonderful computer generated images of just how everything that we have built will simply crumble to the ground in fifty years and in a few thousand years there will be no evidence that we were even here, except for some patches of contaminated soil. An interesting read though not what one might call uplifting.

“Ring of Hell” by Matthew Randazzo: As I’ve said in the past I allow myself to read one pro wrestling book each year. Otherwise my reading list could become overwhelmed with things like autobiographies by “The Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiasie. This book looked at the life and death of Chris Benoit, someone who was one of my absolute favorite wrestlers of all time which makes the fact that he murdered his wife and son and then committed suicide all the more troubling. There are some issues with the book but it gives a view into the really dark side of pro wrestling as the wear and tear and constant concussions drive a seemingly normal person to commit the most heinous act one could ever imagine.

“In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote: This probably counts as my piece of classic literature this year. Though it starts slow this is such an amazing book as it marks a change in both the nature of non-fiction and essentially introduces the true crime genre of literature. Capote does an amazing job capturing what it is like in west Kansas and just how random the events that took place were.

“The Unnamed” by Joshua Ferris: My favorite novel of the year. The story of a man who cannot control the fact that at random points in his life he must stand up and start walking. He doesn’t know where he will walk or why or for how long. He just starts walking and cannot control it. I know the premise seems to be a bit out there but how the author ties this into how he relates with his family and relationships results in one of the most striking books that I have read in ages. I strongly encourage people to give this book a try.

“The Pluto Files” by Neil DeGrasse Tyson: Neil likes to state that it isn’t really his fault that Pluto is no longer a planet but you know what? It’s his damn fault. He’s the one who removed it from the list at the New York Planetarium so he innately approved of its removal from planethood. Well I like Pluto and feel that having nine planets in our solar system is only natural so screw you Prof. Tyson.

“American on Purpose” by Craig Ferguson: I wish I was younger and / or less employed so that I could stay up later and watch Craig Ferguson. I’ve only caught small bits of his late night show and I’ve greatly enjoyed them and his autobiography fits right in. Just an amazing story about his life as a comic and his battle with alcoholism. The guy is truly one of a kind and while I’m not one to typically recommend television personality autobiographies this is a good one to read.

“Are We Winning” by Will Leitch: I should note that Will is a fellow Illini and was a year behind me at school and was quite possibly on the team that beat me in the finals of the Intramural Sports Trivia competition. This book is about baseball and how we use baseball to bond with our fathers. It also focuses on the Cubs – Cardinals rivalry and if you are a fan of either team or have an undying hatred for either team that adds to the insight. Another good book by the founder of Deadspin and the guy whose career I wish I had.

“The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake” by Aimee Bender: The story of a girl who when she eats food she experiences the emotions of the person who made it or even of the factory where the food came from. Also a story of what it means to be considered a genius at a young age only to grow up and find out you really aren’t that special after all. I’m still not quite sure I understood everything that went on in this book but I was glad that I read it.

“No Country for Old Men” by Cormac McCarthy: I’ll just quote something I read this week: “Everything in life is debatable except for Cormac McCarthy.”

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larson: Yes, I did read this book. Look, I spend half my life in airports so I feel as though I was required to read it. It is certainly a fun murder mystery that keeps you guessing throughout while teaching you more about Swedish journalism and the intricacies of Nordic legal systems than you would ever really care to know about. Even though the book has a great plot and unique characters I’m more than a bit surprised that it has become such a huge hit. On the surface it just doesn’t seem like a book that would connect with the mainstream American audience.

“Super Sad True Love Story” by Gary Shytengart: A novel that takes place in the near future where everyone is a blogger and the most important thing in your life is your credit score. I guess that means that this novel takes place next Tuesday. This is one of those books with two narrators so you spend it going back and forth and while that is an interesting literary device I have yet to find a book where that doesn’t result in you wishing this chapter would be over so you could get back to the narrator you like. Also this is quite possibly the only book that puts a precise dollar value on immortality.

“Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” and “Naked” by David Sedaris: I should note that I also read “Stuff White People Like” this year and David Sedaris was listed as, well, something white people like. What I found interesting about him is that while I love him as a humorist I don’t find myself laughing when I read his work. It is funny but not in a punch line sort of way. I think this hits me because that is more along the lines of when I am best as a writer. I like to consider myself a writer of humorous essays but I do not have that natural punch line timing of a comic. Typically when I try to write that way it falls incredibly flat. I’m more suited to writing in a subdued style where the humor is there but it isn’t hitting you over the head.

“Antony and Cleopatra” by William Shakespeare: I end every year by reading a new Shakespeare play and this year it was time to go to ancient Rome where life is basically one big episode of the Real Housewives of Alexandria. In essence, Cleopatra is bipolar, Antony can’t do anything correctly including kill himself and Caesar is really Octavian though he is called Caesar the entire play despite the fact that this just confuses everyone into thinking that it refers to Julius Caesar. Not one of the bard’s best works though the scene of Cleopatra beating the crap out of a messenger for bringing bad news is all kinds of awesome.

Wednesday Night Music Club: I think all alarm clocks should be reprogramed to go off with Arcade Fire’s “Ready to Start.” No one would sleep late again.

2010 Bowl Preview: Part Four: The Final Chapter

This is it. The final set of bowl games. The only games that matter except for the fact that a number of these games are utterly meaningless. Why the bowl season extends to January 10th is also a mystery as I don’t think that teams having a month off between games adds to the excitement.

(Also, addendum to last night’s post. It is officially the Progressive Gator Bowl. Typically you don’t hear the words Progressive and Jacksonville in the same sentence. I believe that Glenn Beck is leading a boycott of this game.)

January 3rd
Discover Orange Bowl: Stanford vs. Virginia Tech (ESPN): Do we really need to discover oranges? I am pretty sure that the world is well aware of the fruit. Also, college football has never been the same since we lost the Orange Bowl Halftime Spectacular that took 45 minutes, featured every cruise ship performer wannabe in the Miami area, destroyed the field for the second half and allowed the teams to perform emergency surgery on any players that were injured in the first half. It was pure 80’s decadence at its finest.

Stanford was way better than anyone expected this year. Not that you can ever really root for Stanford other than saying things like, “Well, they’re less arrogant than Berkley students” or “Maybe having a drunk tree as your mascot is a good choice.” Virginia Tech started the season by losing to Boise State and then James Madison and somehow turned their season around completely. This is one of the reasons why a playoff would be nice because it would at least give a team like Virginia Tech a chance even though they started slow. I’ve always liked Virginia Tech so I will cheer for them in the hopes of finding out just what a Hokie is.

January 4th
Allstate Sugar Bowl: Ohio State vs. Arkansas (ESPN): Good pick of teams for the Sugar Bowl which states in its bylaws that is must choose the two teams with the drunkest fanbase possible. This really isn’t that far from the truth. The Sugar Bowl is one of the times of the year that New Orleans bars make a lot of money and one year they were freaking out over the possibility of BYU making it to the game. This is about as close to a meaningful Ohio State – Michigan game that we have seen in years due to Ryan Mallett quarterbacking Arkansas. I still think Ohio State will win just out of force of habit. Tyrell Pryor will bitch about not getting the Heisman as great practice for bitching about not being a first round draft choice, bitching about not getting playing time in the NFL and finally, bitching about being the second string quarterback for the Edmonton Eskimos.

January 6th
GoDaddy.com Bowl: Middle Tennessee vs. Miami (Ohio) (ESPN): Some poor fan bought tickets for this game thinking it was Tennessee vs. Miami. Heck, ESPN might as well promote it that way because I know absolutely nothing about either team. Most people have no idea what GoDaddy.com does either other than make racy commercials that don’t show anything yet direct you to their website in which you can see more racy commercials that don’t show anything. I believe their entire business model is centered on obtaining as much money from people who desire to see Danica Patrick naked without ever providing them with what they hope for. Yet we’ll all tune in to the game thinking “This time they’ll have to show it….”

January 7th
AT&T Cotton Bowl: LSU vs. Texas A&M (Fox): The Cotton Bowl is no longer being played at the Cotton Bowl. Just let that one sink in for a while. I know that the Orange Bowl is no longer played at the Orange Bowl but at least the Orange Bowl no longer exists. The Cotton Bowl is hosting a game this same week yet they are playing it in the new Cowboys Stadium where there is a roof so Jerry Jones could fit his gigantic head in. Apparently no one gives a damn about tradition anymore.

Let’s give it up for Les Miles of LSU, the only head coach who reminds you of that drunk uncle you see during the holidays who tells you stories that are completely false but funny all the same. No other coach uses a gameplan that involves five fake field goal attempts and time management decisions chosen via the Magic 8 Ball. Yet somehow this guy always leads a team to a major bowl game despite showing no knowledge of football whatsoever. That my friends takes talent.

January 8th
BBVA Compass Bowl: Pittsburgh vs. Kentucky (ESPN): Do people even use compasses anymore? In these days of GPS does anyone literally have a compass with a needle on it that points north? I’m not even going to begin to guess what the bell BBVA is; if they can’t bother getting a more descriptive brand name I’m not going to waste my time googling it. Here it is the first weekend of January, NFL Playoffs will be starting, yet we are supposed to care about two schools who are way more focused on basketball right now than football. Plus, Dave Waanstadt still coaches Pitt. Wanny is the worst coach ever and I spent way too many Bears games watching him coach the team to a loss to ever desire to see him on a sideline again and that includes the times I’ve had to watch him beat ND. Do you know how embarrassing it is to watch your school lose to Dave Freaking Waanstadt?

January 9th
Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: Nevada vs. Boston College (ESPN): Note to Kraft. If you really want to Fight Hunger why don’t you, I don’t know, donate some of the food in your warehouse? Or maybe lower the price on Macaroni and Cheese? You just know every other commercial is about how we can work to fight hunger when the sponsor is literally sitting on a stockpile of food. Unless this is about some new product that is meant to fight hunger in which I will just throw up my hands in exasperation at what now goes for marketing in today’s world. Just cheer for Boston College and move on with your life.

January 10th
Tostitos BCS National Championship Game: Oregon vs. Auburn (ESPN): This is it. The biggest bowl game of them all, except for the fact that it is not technically a bowl game. Why when the only reason we don’t have a playoff is “to keep the integrity of the bowl system” we don’t have the last game be a freaking bowl game just explains how screwed up the NCAA is. There is not enough moderately priced chips and salsa in this world to make this right.

But at least the game has the two major conference undefeated schools (sorry TCU). Oregon will most likely take the field in fluorescent yellow jerseys in an attempt to either confuse Auburn or destroy every HD television set in the country. Auburn is led by Cam Newton, who will end up having to take a pay cut next year if the NFL doesn’t sign a new collective bargaining agreement. This has the makings of a good game but my gut is really saying Oregon will take this one. Auburn has won a lot of close games and come from behind games and while that shows a ton of talent it also shows that they have been lucky as sin. While Cam Newton has been the best player in the country you also can’t tell me the fact that they essentially loaned him the Heisman knowing that he will have to give it back can’t make things easy for him. Oregon by a touchdown.

That is it. Every bowl game. Now excuse me, I have to curl up in a ball and remember that there is more to life than football.

Wednesday Night Music Club: Of all the Christmas specials out there my favorite one of all time is Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas and it is impossible to find this anywhere. There are three dozen Frosty the Snowman specials but it is impossible to watch this inventive retelling of the Gift of the Magi featuring otters. Here is one of the musical numbers just so we can all relive the wonders of our childhood.

About last night...

I have a few thoughts on the election from last night that I didn’t bother sharing because everyone on the planet was sharing their thoughts on the election and to be honest no one cared. I doubt that anyone will care now but at least my voice will have a little less competition. Also, I like to say that I completely avoided watching any election coverage because it is quite possibly the most boring coverage in the world. It is just a bunch of numbers on a screen and that is incredibly uninteresting and this is coming from a guy who looks at spreadsheets all day.

I think the big story of the election is not the Republican victory but which Republican candidates lost. Particularly the triumvirate of Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle and to a lesser extent Linda McMahon. I’m not targeting them because they are women though there is an interesting argument that they are anti-feminist candidates to be made. My main point is that they ran as outsider, rather radical candidates in elections that they could easily have won but all lost, often at great expense. Their losses will probably be the biggest strike against a Sarah Palin presidency run.

There is only so much one can do as an outsider candidate running on a platform that contains outrageous statements. You can tap into a vein of popular sentiment against the incumbent but unless you have some bona fide credentials behind you the tactic tends to not work. Sharon Angle is a clear example of this. Despite the fact that everyone, including members of his family, hates Harry Reid she still couldn’t beat him because voters could not rally behind her image and her message. We want change, we want new voices, but there is a point where we get really nervous. I did not want to vote for Chris Coons in Delaware but Christine O’Donnell gave me no reason to vote for her other than she was mildly attractive.

Sarah Palin is going to fall right into this trap. She can’t run as the experienced candidate when she quit the governorship to star in a reality TV show with Kate Gosselin and whatever number of kids were available for filming that day. Candidates running as free speaking outsiders without credentials don’t win on the level necessary to be president. The fact that the Republicans didn’t take the senate shows that the party is going to need a candidate more towards the middle and more traditional in order to win the presidency in 2012.

(Yes, I know that Rand Paul winning in Kentucky despite saying quite amazing things such as that he wouldn’t vote for the Civil Rights Act kind of shoots a hole in my theory. However, it is Kentucky where it is a state law that the senators be technically insane. It is in the same section of the constitution that states that all elected officials must down a fifth of Jim Beam every morning.)

Basically what I am saying is that we are going to be returning to politics as usual. Washington will be gridlock, which is usually the best we can hope for. The best government is one that doesn’t actually accomplish anything and that keeps the politicians off the streets where they could do real damage. We’ll see both parties merge towards the middle, the rhetoric will die down some and we can all get a little bit of peace and quiet. Hopefully.

Wednesday Night Music Club: I’m in a Soul Coughing mood at the moment plus this video features cartoon angst. All you really need to ask for.