Enough is Enough

Sorry, Brett, but I'm gonna have to break up with you. I tried hard to be on your side in all this. I said the Packers should welcome you back with open arms. I believed you when you said you felt pushed to retire and then changed your mind. Your love for the game gives me goosebumps. I respect all your many records.

But really, you're calling other sweethearts on the phone issued to you by Green Bay? Now you've just been stupid. People can forgive mistakes in judgment made in the name of passion, but stupidity is harder to ignore. As is cheating on your team by making late-night whispered calls to Minnesota. Green Bay was going to retire your jersey this season, and now that will all be put on hold.

It's all too much drama now Brett. The Pack has the goods on your calls, which means you will not play for the Vikings and they will likely lose draft picks over a guy who will never take a snap for them. See what you did? And now if you're traded you might be stuck in Tampa Bay where you will have nearly no chance to do much good. What fun is that?

Just stay retired. Make a nice speech about how much you love the Packers fans too much to cause a quarterback controversy. Say how you love the game too much to go somewhere and be ineffective for a team that will have to pay you too much money. Say how you didn't think you could live without the game, so now you're gonna coach quarterbacks at your local high school as a volunteer. Just go home though. Even the people in your corner are getting sick of it.

Sell Me, Don't Berate Me

I found this particular T-shirt on cafepress.com, and it reminds me of the thing I hate most about politics. Why is it that people can't sell me on their candidate rather than bashing the other guy?

I'm prepared for a particularly vicious presidential campaign this year, but I'm already sick of it. Politics is not a sport in which it is OK to hate your rival, because in this case your rival is an American citizen offering himself or herself for service, and by extension, your rival is anyone who supports that candidate. I frankly don't think it is healthy or productive to hate half the country.

This doesn't mean it isn't OK to be adamantly fanatic about your candidate, but show me somebody who is. What I see most of the time are people who are adamantly antagonistic to somebody else. If you really care, sell me on your guy. Don't just bash somebody else until I truly feel I'm left with the choice between a Giant Douche or a Turd Sandwich.

I'll be more specific: Don't scream at me how inexperienced Barack Obama is. Inexperience doesn't make him stupid or incapable. Tell me instead how John McCain's experience makes him the better choice. And don't just tell me that "McCain = McSame." Any fool can quote a catchy, smartass soundbite. Tell me instead how Obama's differences make him the superior pick. Sell me your guy, don't sell the other guy down the river. Because he might be your president, and I guarantee you live with or work with or associate with someone who supports him. And if your guy wins, don't you hope "the other side" can be swayed to see some value in him?

Or maybe you'd just rather fight.

New Blog

Yes, I'm easily distracted. You should be able to recognize this from this blog. But now I have a new blog project which is a little more focused. It's all about travel. Problem is, I haven't done much of it. So, without further ado, I'm happy to announce the creation of The Virtual Vagabond. Come check it out if you feel like it here. Thanks!

Big Bag

Moms can be full of shit and full of truth, sometimes at the same time. This means you don't have to do everything they say, but it doesn't hurt to listen well and sort. You'll get some good stuff if you do. My mother has said many true things over the years, but none more true than this: However large your purse is, that's how much junk you'll carry.

People who know me know that I have always had a handbag fetish. At present I have approximately 40 different purses and totes in a variety of sizes, shapes and configurations. Do I need this many bags? No. Did I almost buy a new bag just two nights ago? Yep. But I didn't!

Anyhow, back to the point. In my younger days I always carried the smallest bags. They were so small people wondered why I carried them at all. "What can you possibly fit in there?" they would ask, incredulous. (You'd be surprised. A woman's bag is like Snoopy's doghouse. It's a lot bigger inside than it looks from the outside. Even a small bag will hold a lot of junk.) Then things changed, and I started carrying larger and larger bags. Mom was right. Whichever bag I carry, it is full. Let's review the contents of the bag I'm using right now:

Wallet
Makeup bag
Jewelry pouch
iPod in its case w/USB connector
Digital camera
Body spray
Hand lotion
Cell phone
One pair of reading glasses (no longer needed)
Two pairs of sunglasses (no longer needed)
Eyeglass case with prescription sunglasses
One dozen pens and pencils (approx.)
Notepad
Bag of "good luck" stones and totems
Two sets of polyhedral dice
Palm Pilot
Two Tangle Jr. toys
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Love Poems by Pablo Neruda
Gum
Keys
Digital recorder
Pill sorter full of vitamins

Whew. That is a lot of junk. There is no reason for me to have 90 percent of that stuff with me all the time. But I have room for it. And that isn't even my biggest bag.

Shit Or Get Off The Pot

Don't just stand there with your hands on your hips, looking up, trying to figure it out. God isn't going to tell you what to do. You have to make the call. One way or the other, Brett. Shit or get off the pot. Fish or cut bait. Retire or play. Your team needs to know now.

It was only in March, four months ago, when you made your tearful retirement speech. I got a little misty. This earned me some scorn in the Browns forum, mainly because they knew you were likely full of it. Well, piss on them. I was still a Favre fan and more so because you knew when to hang up the cleats and go fishing. Besides that, you're a southern boy, and I am loyal to my own kind.

I hate to say it, Brett, but this is getting a little embarrassing now. Peyton Manning called it when he said he wasn't going to send his standard quarterback retirement letter to you because he didn't buy it. The forum guys were right. You never even cleaned out your locker. So quit messing around and make the decision. Go to camp or go ride your tractor. You can't do both.

My advice? Stay home. You've done enough. You're Hall of Fame. You own the most and best quarterback records in the NFL. You've been the MVP a million times. You're a multi-time Pro Bowler. You've won a Super Bowl. Not to mention that you'll be 39 years old in October, which is not too old for most uses but is plenty old enough to be smart. Go out with your fans begging you to stay. Don't stay until they beg you to go.

Or play. But we can't have a Brett Favre retirement at the end of every season. So if you do come back and play, play 'til you drop dead. That's what you want to do anyway, right?

Sucks to be you, Nick

So, what about it, Nicky? This one was just the cherry on the sundae, wasn't it? How many is this now, nine? Nine players from your squad arrested on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to assault to cocaine distribution in a year's time. This is some pickle you're in, Nicky. Miami looking not-so-bad now?

It's bad enough to be you already. You have to live down the rep of being a liar or being disloyal because you took the Bama job in the first place. You have to justify your ridiculous salary. You have to resurrect a dying program and restore it to glory. You have to deal with what is arguably the most demanding, impatient and sometimes delusional fanbase in all of college sports. It can't be fun a lot of days. And now you have to explain how you said you were going to reinstate discipline to the team and yet nine of your guys now have mug shots on record in Tuscaloosa County. In a year's time.

But while I have no sympathy for Jimmy Johns, I do have sympathy for you, Nicky. I feel bad you're expected to create something magic and perfect from Mike Shula's mixed bag of recruits who were accustomed to ice cream cone discipline for four years. I feel bad that by the time you are actually able to field a team entirely of your own recruits and who have been guided by your standards of discipline from the start, your fans will probably be calling for your head based on the bad behavior of these other thugs. I feel bad that you're expected to make Bama perfect again overnight when that isn't possible.

But I feel better when I see you kick these guys off the team, suspend them for games and dish out other punishment. It tells me you might really care about how the program runs. So we'll see.

Sucks to be you, Jimmy

He was Mr. Football in the state of Mississippi when the coaches came calling for him and Mike Shula pulled off an upset and recruited Jimmy Johns to Alabama. Now he'll go to prison for many years instead of going pro because he's a coke dealer. He even did a deal in the shadow of Bryant-Denny Stadium. That's enough to make even an Auburn fan cry blasphemy.

I don't get it. You're given free college, free food, free place to stay. You have access to an education that can take you anywhere you want to go, and you have a chance for a very lucrative career in the NFL. All you have to do is go to class, fulfill your obligation to the team and stay out of trouble. That's it. How many would give their proverbial left nut for that sort of deal? Four years, sometimes five, with very little responsibility and the world just waiting to open up for you. Now you're off the team, headed to prison and all that prospect is down the toilet. Way to go, dumbass. I have no sympathy.

Play Ball! (That Means Everybody)

"I believe there should be a constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter." -- Crash Davis, Bull Durham

Crash is one of my movie heroes and it's because the man was simple and straightforward. He cut through the bullshit. He played ball, and he understood that everything else was good because he got to make a living playing ball. And stupid things that screwed that up--like "turf toe" and designated hitters--needed to be cast aside in honor of purity and bliss.

I'm guessing Hank Steinbrenner is not a Crash fan. This week Hank lost a pitcher to an injury sustained while (gasp!) running bases. See, the Yankees are an American League team which use a designated hitter, but they were playing an interleague game in a National League park where pitchers are expected to play a whole game like everyone else. Hank was pissed, and issued this pissy little statement:

“My only message is simple. The National League needs to join the 21st century. They need to grow up and join the 21st century. I’ve got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He’s going to be out. I don’t like that, and it’s about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s.”

I hate to point out your stupidity, Hank, but what rule are you talking about? You mean the rule that authorized the use of a non-fielding player to do half the work of a non-batting pitcher? That rule was discussed since the early 1900s, sure, but didn't go into effect until 1973.

Yes, the DH is exciting. He swings a big bat. He makes a lot of home runs. Good for him. But what of the game? Essentially, you have two players who only work half the time. Two prima donnas who only do what they like best. Is that fair to the rest of the guys who play on both sides of the plate, running, batting, fielding? Why don't we really get into the 21st Century and carry this idea out to its natural conclusion. We can play 18 players a game with nine guys to do the fielding and nine big bats to do the hitting. Boy, wouldn't that be fun?

In baseball, everyone should play the whole game, and that means the pitcher too. Baseball is a team sport and everyone brings their particular skills to the field. Some are better batters, and some can break a batter's heart with an unhittable pitch or a diving, body-sacrificing catch. That's what makes it cool. I don't want baseball to be "in the 21st Century." I like the kind of baseball Babe Ruth played. The Babe was a first class pitcher and hitter. I have an idea he's smirking down on Hank about now.

Tiger

Walt Whitman wrote in
I Sing The Body Electric,

"But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side."

I'm not a big golf fan. I don't play it, and I have never understood the obsessive level of devotion to the game that so many men have. In fact, I got banned from the Browns forum this week for saying that golf was boring. How wrong was I? I was watching that incredible playoff round of the U.S. Open this week and, fan of the game or not, at some point you have to realize that you are witnessing greatness and appreciate it for what it is. It transcends sport; it is about being the best at what you do and how you got that way. It is amazing to watch people who are the best at what they do.

Preparing for a putt, Tiger made some small motion with his hand, and it was the elegance of his wrist that caught my eye and made me think of the Whitman. I began to notice the deliberateness of every motion. It was in his posture, his gait and stance. It was in his facial expression. And it isn't just that he is beautiful in a physical sense as an athlete. He is that, but all those things were the outward expression of a mental toughness and discipline that I so severely lack I cannot help but be drawn to it in fascination. The intensity. The concentration. The focus. It is one thing to be graced with great physical or intellectual ability. It is another thing to have the force of will and the discipline and drive to hone those gifts into perfection.

Tiger plays golf for a living. He might have been a surgeon or a musician or a painter or a poet, and he would have excelled at any of those things I feel certain. He's the expression of a well-made man. Dress does not hide people like that.

Cadillac Escalade

Nothing pisses me off like a Cadillac Escalade. Especially the pearl white.

It's not that I can't afford to drive one. I admire and respect the success of people who have worked hard enough to afford luxury items. It's the whole concept of the Escalade that bothers me.

An Escalade is just another SUV. A sport-utility vehicle. SUVs were, in theory, designed to pull loads, carry cargo, accommodate multiple persons and go off road. Who goes off road in their Caddi? Anyone? I didn't think so. And I have rarely seen a woman driver of an Escalade who I believed would ever load cargo.

A while back we went to dinner and there was an Escalade parked right at the front door, using two spaces. The driver did it intentionally, as the vehicle was parked directly on top of the line between the spaces. It wouldn't get bumped by the door of somebody's old Ford POS that way. This is my proof that people who drive an Escalade do not drive it because it is a performance SUV that can endure the punishment of rugged treatment. They drive it because it is a big, giant Cadillac and it demonstrates their carefree attitude toward the price of gas. I have never wanted to key a car so badly in my life.