Jose's Mesa

The Goat

2012-01-02T10:47:00.000-05:00

Forget for a second that I haven't exactly reached the 'after' yet, and let me tell you about the 'before' moment I had on the North Shore in 2007. And don't get carried away with the before-and-after gimmick I'm pulling here. This has nothing to do with a Biggest Loser-style weight loss ... or a weight gain, for that matter. I haven't lifted so much as an aerobics dumbbell since the infamous Turkey Bowl pinky dislocation that derailed my run at Mr. Universe ... this year.

I'm not sure why I remember this night, specifically, because I've attempted to take mental snapshots before, and most of them just never took and maybe ended up killing a few people like that evil camera in Goosebumps. Rest assured, nobody died on this balmy, summer twilight as I filed toward that parking garage on the North Shore. In fact, I considered this walk to the car a birth, of sorts. Not a Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up birth, but more like a Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness birth, though this did not involve sleeping in a public restroom with my son. I don't even have a son.

This was the summer sandwiched between my second and third year at Pitt, and I was coming off a sophomore campaign that saw me inherit the reigns of The Pitt News sports section, wield a cash advance in New York City during the Big East Tournament and see my name in the Trib for the first time all at the ripe age of 19. This night came about a month into an internship that I thought was going well, and I had those impressions reinforced by a couple of superiors on a mid-week walk out after we'd all knocked off around midnight. Someone cracked what was likely a joke poking fun at one of the interns who weren't as cool, at least that's how I remember it. Anyway, I laughed, glanced off toward Heinz Field, which still awaited a myriad of mustachioed coaching blunders, and thought: I will make it. I'm just not there yet. To me, like the closing credits of Contagion promised about the next devastating viral outbreak, my success wasn't a question of 'if,' but 'when.'

That was closer to five years ago than to four, and as the Times Square ball dropped to light up the big, 2012 sign on TV, I raised whatever was in my right hand, turned to my left and let Ryan Rylands kiss me on the forehead, neglecting to consider where his mouth has been. Nevertheless, I woke up in my own bed on New Year's Day, pleased to have spent the previous night with at least a couple old friends, none of whom were named with any combination of the words 'Ice,' 'Light,' or 'Natural.' While they'll have to wait another week for my company, everyone I saw on my 24th New Year's Eve, I'm sorry to say, will appear in another mental snapshot filed in my 'before' scrapbook. (I'm sorry, first because there's a chance you now might mysteriously die, and second, because being my friend up to this point has likely reaped you little to no tangible benefit. ... Actually, I shouldn't be apologizing for that second one. That's your fault. Thanks for reading, by the way. You look nice. You losin' weight?)

What's funny about New Year's Eve is actually pretty close to what I remember Ashton Kutcher (real name: Chris Kutcher) saying in that one commercial I kept inadvertently seeing for the New Year's Eve movie, which I can only assume is out of theaters by now, and that's a shame, because I really did not want to see it. I'm a man of principle, too, so I refuse to Google New Year's Eve quotes to try to figure out exactly what he said, but it was something like, 'Nobody parties all year, then all of a sudden goes all Kanye on you,' on New Year's Eve. And ayo, Ashton, I'm really happy for you, and I'ma let you finish, but I have one of the best New Year's Eve philosophies of all time.

I think of it like this. At the crux of it, and I don't say crux enough, New Year's Eve, for most of us, is not that different from any other planned night out. Maybe you dress up, maybe put on a bow-tie if you're looking for attention, but you hang around the same people. Chances are you go somewhere you've been before, and when it's all said and done, at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, what you did on New Year's Eve probably wasn't any more spectacular than a big Saturday night. But because it signifies the beginning of another calendar year, it's memorable. You know what it's like? Rain on your wedding day. Or a free ride when you've already paid. Good advice that you just didn't take. I wouldn't have thought, but New Year's Eve figures.

No matter how ironic it is, though, New Year's Eve still is often celebrated at social gatherings in modern society, according to a source with knowledge of the event, and this is a modern society, much to the chagrin of every sports columnist at every newspaper in America. After all, they didn't make a movie titled 'That One Saturday After Finals' ... they called it 'New Year's Eve,' and that's already far too many New Year's Eve movie references for a supposed man of principle. I should just admit that I wanted to see it but was waiting until after the holidays to get discounted admission. And now I'll have to wait until the Blu Ray comes out. #firstworldproblems #whitgirlproblems

For me, New Year's Eves have served as somewhat of a social timeline, meaning I had this idea way before Facebook ever thought of it. That makes me, like, the third Winklevoss twin, so you can bet that Zuckerberg's going to be getting a call here soon. From the eventful New Year's Eve that rung in 2004 in Marshall, to the eventful New Year's Eve that rung in 2008 on the South Side to the not-as-eventful but still pretty cool New Year's Eve hosted on Semple Street that welcomed in 2009, these nights are your life condensed to a couple hours. Whether you want to accept it, and you probably don't if you didn't have a whole lot of fun Saturday, you are your New Year's Eve plans.

Which brings me back to me. I didn't have a whole lot of fun this New Year's Eve, but I didn't expect to have a whole lot of fun. I expected to have some fun, and I did have some fun. I hung out with Ryan and Pede in the South Side and Squirrel Hill, then enjoyed the company of one of my best friends from high school before heading home for a comfortable night's sleep. The next morning, as I digested a New Year's pretzel slathered in icing and prepared for my second fantasy football championship loss of the season, I couldn't think of anything I would have done differently the night before, and that is the first time I have ever said/typed/thought that ... ever. And there's proof.

When I moved back home four months ago, I don't know how long I thought I'd be around. After about a week, I began to write a post that I never finished in the most non-surprising development of 2011 that didn't involve the words 'Sunseri' and 'sack.' Thanks to the magical powers of the internet, here's a snippet of that from the Jose's Mesa cutting room floor:

If you're wondering how my first week back in Pittsburgh is going (That's a Vin Scully tribute, for our baseball dorks), picture me wielding my cell phone like a gun and forcing all my friends to look at the pics I took over the past year, and you'd have something resembling what took place on the South Side Friday and Saturday night. If I wasn't starting a sentence with, "In New York ..." or, "Oh yeah, the bars close at two ..." I assaulted every old friend I saw with a cell-phone pic gauntlet that surely would have bored even the most enthusiastic parents of a newborn baby. Because, you know, they like to take a lot of pictures.

I did this because I had to do this. When you suddenly appear on East Carson Street like Jim Carrey in The Majestic, it's a lot like you've gone off to war, died and come back as somebody else who looks like you. You see old friends, and they're surprised. 'Whoa! I haven't seen you in a while,' they say. 'What have you been up to?' That's when I take the entire bar hostage, rig everyone up to the thing that held that guy's eyelids open in A Clockwork Orange (Google it, you'll see) and scroll through my camera roll until they're forced to acknowledge that I was having some mild success in life. At least until the cops come.

On Saturday, I mentioned New York once to relive a fun concert some friends and I went to over the summer, and that was it. I talked some Twitter hijinks, gossiped about friends, opined on the state of rap in Pittsburgh and cackled about some high school Tom Foolery. I ate meatballs and briefly wore a questionable hat, which, of course, was underneath the coffee table when I posed for my only photo. I watched backyard fireworks and lit up a Swisher at midnight, fumbling it into the dirt about halfway through. I toasted the good times, and -- AND -- I got home safely.

My New Year's Eve 2011 snapshot will include all of these things, though I'm no longer sure it belongs in 'before,' because I certainly don't act like a 19-year old, at least when I'm around people. It's not meant for 'after,' either, and quite frankly, I'm not so sure there will be an 'after,' but if there will be, this is assuredly not it. Where I am right now reminds me of a movie that spawned a lot of strange activity on the third floor of Litchfield Tower B in 2006, activity I will not characterize here in order to protect the guilty.

That movie was called 'Waiting,' and though I won't quote it any further than I already have, I think it fits the theme of New Year's Eve 2011, and thus with yours truly as he currently stands.

For now? I don't mind it.

But check back with me next year.

The Amazing Chicken

2011-11-22T21:17:00.007-05:00

For everyone who never attended middle school, or attended middle school but was too confused by ... a lot of things ... to actually learn, let me give you a near crash course on something I was taught in either sixth, seventh or eighth grade. Or, really, anytime before 2006. All those years seem to blend together.

Somewhere along the way, in between various overtures to get into R-rated movies and around parental advisory stickers, I learned about something called the 'inciting incident' of a story. A quick visit to Answers.com (There's one thing you never forget, and that's how to cheat) reminds us that the inciting incident is, "the conflict that begins the action of the story and causes the protagonist to act," and that, "Without this event, there would be no story."

I said 'near crash course' because the inciting incident here was a near crash. I'll spare you the petty details (Unless you want to hear them. ... Anybody? No? Nobody? OK), but what matters is this: I was right. The camo-hatted doofus in the pickup was wrong. And yet, somehow, I found MYSELF staring down a middle finger! This guy flicked me off! You believe that?!

Had I not been on my way to pick up a very important order of Chinese food, I would have turned around and followed the guy until I chickened out and went home. Lucky for him, I had a date with the Sesame Inn's Amazing Chicken, and I never stand up Chinese food. Next time, pal. Just you wait.

Nonetheless, as I crunched my way through fortune cookie No. 2 and struggled with the Chinese pronunciation of 'breakfast,' I thought more about this asshole and how he ran a stop sign, nearly ran into me, decided that I was wrong and flipped me the bird all in about 7 seconds. In the same -- Oops, sorry -- In the same amount of time, I did the 'This guy's gonna stop ...' drive ... the 'This guy's really not stopping?' drive ... the 'Jesus!' slam on the breaks ... and the 'What the hell, dude?!' glare through the windshield, fully expecting to receive and acknowledge a friendly wave. Instead, I got a big, healthy, 'F**k you.'

I already told you how I handled the immediate aftermath, by ravaging a carton of Chinese takeout and turning to fortune cookies for inspiration and wisdom (The joyfulness of man prolongeth his days. Remember that). What I didn't tell you is that the situation played out far differently in the alternate universe that exists inside my brain, which has seen me throw a perfect game to win the World Series, score the winning goal of the Stanley Cup on a penalty shot, bang home a half-courter to win the NCAA title (followed by the MJ shrug) ... I could go on, but you get the idea. (Unless you ... Right, right, you get the idea.)

The near-accident re-enactment? Let's just say that instead of waiting for the guy to drive away and continuing on to prolong my lustful affair with the Amazing Chicken, I roll down my window and offer the fella some choice words. He retorts. I get out. He gets out, and we start to whale right there in the Northway Mall parking lot, something I'm fairly confident would be a first.

However, before I get to that point, where I'm pummeling the guy with blows, screaming 'WANT ME TO STOP, NOW?!' (Good line, right?) I stop and suddenly have doubts -- Well, I don't know how big that guy was ... -- in my own freakin' fantasy world, where I can dunk over 7-footers, let alone dribble a basketball. But I can't take on a dude wearing camouflage in the suburbs of Pittsburgh? Doesn't sound right, does it? Actually, that probably sounds absolutely right. Well, this is my blog. I say it doesn't. Why? I'LL TELL YOU WHY!

Like I said above, my life up until yesterday is a big grab bag of memories. Somewhere in there, though, jumbling around between chicken pox and getting yelled at during football practice, is a lot of reflective thought on what sports mean, and why people care so much about whether or not their favorite team wins. Certainly, many smarter but probably not as good looking people have devoted way more effort toward making sense of this topic, and they probably have come up with theories and explanations that read like Plato compared to the content that regularly appears on good old Jose's Mesa. But I took a philosophy class in college, and only one of the papers I handed in came back with a D on it. Might as well call me Patroclus.

Before I put on my philosopher's robes, start growing a long yet remarkably wispy goatee and begin using words like 'wherein,' allow me to briefly swing by the other end of respectability. Perhaps not coincidentally, this involves two college freshman whose names rhyme with Pat Mitsch and Steve Pede, who attended a Pitt basketball game in which a pesky Chris Quinn defied all of the forces of nature and gave the Krauser-era Panthers a real scare, more so than Krauser himself ever could. Pitt won the game, but that's not the issue. My point wasn't proved on the floor, but instead in the section of stands so blithely referred to as the Oakland Zoo.

During Quinn's rage against the cosmos, a chant began to fester among the mostly unshowered kids, clad in our kind-of-gold-but-not-really T-shirts, and finally broke open like an angry tempest, likely because of a correct call by Jim Burr or Tim Higgins. (You're welcome for the photos, by the way. I know you were like, 'Jim Burr, who? *click* Oh, yeah, that guy.') You might remember the chant if you were there, if you were watching on TV, or if you were somewhere within earshot of the arena. Otherwise, it's since been forgotten, and that's probably for the best.

Since I'd like to keep Jose's Mesa PG-13 -- therefore discouraging today's tweens from buying tickets to Spy Kids and 'mistakenly' wandering into Bad Boys 2 -- I will not repeat the chant here and instead do what any responsible adult would and link to somebody else's blog post that does mention it about halfway down. (The trick is finding an appropriately rated movie on the same side of the theater as the movie you really want to see, then having your friend's mom buy you tickets anyway.) Yes, I was in the Zoo that night. Yes, I almost assuredly took part in the chant. However, five years passed before I realized that night's true significance, when one of Pittsburgh's most gracious outdoorsmen flicked me off at an intersection.

By the time this latest batch of Amazing Chicken had won yet another battle in its ongoing war with my intestines, a Sports Illustrated showed up in my mailbox. 'SPORT IN AMERICA' it read across the cover, 'This is where we tell each other who we are.' I flipped to the back to scour this story, stopping briefly to sniff the Calvin Klein ad, and read about halfway through until I started to doze off (Happens a lot when I read). Before slipping away to dream about something weird, I'm sure, the story reminded me of a presentation I made as a senior at Pitt, in which I discussed the merits of college football as a civil religion. (If it's late and you can't sleep, go ahead and read that.) In it, one of the points I discussed was that on the field of play, a certain level of violence was sanctioned, and I played this video.

If you're able to ignore the video quality that I'm sure was awe-inspiring in 2002 and just be happy that I found a clip that helped get me an A (Forgetting that it probably took me all of 10 seconds to find after searching the exact title, 'Hard college football hit'), you'll realize that if our guy Dwayne Slay, God bless whatever life insurance firm he's probably working for now, hit that guy that hard in the street, he'd have gone to jail. No question. But that's the magic of sports. When we're out on the street, shopping for groceries or waiting in line for the port-a-potty, we abide by physical laws and verbal guidelines necessary to hold off the complete degeneration of society (Maybe not around port-a-johns, that was a bad example). When we're on the field, or in the stadium, though, both of those pretty much hang out in the parking lot until the game is over.

What we know is that it's OK to be recklessly passionate about sports (We'll save the 'Why' for somebody more qualified to answer). Cheering is encouraged. Gloating occurs. Verbal abuse is taken. Had the guy who spawned this whole story been wearing a Ravens jersey down at Heinz, I likely would have engaged him in a savvy back-and-forth of F-yous and F-YOUS! (Hey, I'm the guy who unabashedly provoked a fine gentleman in a Bowling Green jersey before a Pitt game, because I knew Dave Wannstedt would have my back and not lose to a MAC team in the season opener following 13-9 .... OH WAIT.) But, this time, because I was driving through a mall parking lot to go get dinner, I was stunned to see this dude's middle finger raised through the glass.

Those were normal circumstances, and I am not Dominic Torretto, even in make believe normal circumstances. Sports are most certainly not normal circumstances, real or make believe. Instead, I think they fall somewhere in between -- real and make believe, that is -- and, deep down, while we all can't be Mike Lowery, Aladdin or the Beast (or the Beauty, you know, if that's your thing, and that's fine, nothing wrong with that) one of the next best things is seeing the Beast wearing your favorite colors. (#TeamBeast on Twitter.)

Unless you're the Browns.

Then you're like, #TeamCogsworth.

Yes, he's the fat clock.

Here's to the night ...

2011-10-16T19:52:00.015-05:00

In an effort to appear more educated and culturally advanced, I'm going to borrow a phrase from Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, one of my favorite 19th Century French critics. I don't anticipate any of you being able to translate this, mostly because nobody I know speaks French, has a hyphenated first name or is smart, so please, allow me:

The more things change, the more they stay the same. (Just know that I could have chosen to quote Bon Jovi here and didn't. I said I was making an effort. There it is.)

I'll save the French chortle, but it appears that Jean-Baptiste and Patrique Mitsche' came to the same conclusion independently, 200-some years apart. I'm not sure where my boy JB was when this occurred to him, but I know where I was, and that's a good start, because I was on the South Side.

Now, the closest thing you'll get to refinement (or France, for that matter) on East Carson Street is a Grey Goose bottle. You go to the South Side for a lot of things, none of which include the word 'think.' However, on this Saturday night, when the line at Jimmy D's was just too long, the upstairs at Local just too crowded and the girls at Mario's just too ugly, a decision had to be made. That's where I come in. Sort of.

On the corner of 15th and East Carson, just past the deli and across the street from the Elixir Ultra Lounge that nobody ever goes to, is a bar called Finn McCool's, and it's where we set a course for next. I would say we stop there every time I appear on Carson Street, but ... well, no, that's accurate. The reason why is near the front, on the right wall, in between the juke box and the bar. How it got there is the subject of many theories, all of which are false, because I'm sure it's simple coincidence that whoever decorated the place subconsciously painted an impossibly handsome male figure in order to attract and/or retain more female customers. Just so happens it looks exactly like me. Go figure, right?

This shot is from a few years back, and thanks to Joe Connor being the only person in the world I don't call 'grandma' without Facebook, it's the only one you're gonna see. Anyway, the real me is on the right (shout out to whoever that girl is on the left duckin' out the way, though she could probably use a few more inches of sleeve), and I struck a nearly identical pose this time around. Joe snapped the pic and flipped it back for me to see. I hesitated.

At first, I thought maybe Finn McCool's had a painter come in and touch up some of the wrinkles on gorgeous up there, because he just looked younger this time. After a confused bartender informed me that this was not the case, I had what Samuel L. Jackson said alcoholics call 'a moment of clarity.' I was just sitting there eating my muffin, when I realized that my beautiful wall portrait hadn't gone all desperate housewives on me and hit the botox clinic, but that somehow that bastard time had come back around and caught me in the shins. Like most inanimate drawings, mine hadn't gotten any younger, and like all people except Keeanu Reeves, I had gotten just a wee tiny bit older (How does he still look the same?! ... Keeanu.)

I don't know what Jean-Baptiste whatever-his-name-is (HYPHENS) did when Leo DiCaprio clearly incepted today's theme into his brain, though the chances are high that it involved a crepe, some other kind of pastry, the hunchback of Notre Dame or the Eiffel Tower. Conversely, the chances are extremely high that upon figuring out that I no longer looked like a college kid I shoved my way up to the bar and slugged a Coors Light. When in Rome, indeed. (And yes, it does apply here.)

The backdrop for this whole mess couldn't have been more appropriate. It was homecoming weekend for your University of Pittsburgh Panthers, and I'll admit, I was kind of feelin' it. Mostly because I didn't have to ask anyone to a dance, take embarassing pictures in front of my parents on some rich girl's staircase or think of how much better it all could be if I were only able to legally purchase alcohol, but also because the college homecoming weekend actually gains significance the further you're removed from college. See, I never had a reason to get amped for any homecomings past, because I either 1. Lived in New York, which is way cooler anyways, or B. Lived in Pittsburgh, along with all of my other recently graduated and still jobless friends, and I was probably tired of seeing them all the time anyway. Before that, I was still in school. So homecoming, to this point, was just an opportunity to resurrect some old jokes about high school, a lot like the ones I started -- and ended -- this paragraph with.

However, another year went down the toilet, I involuntarily moved back to Pittsburgh and have selfishly hoped to surround myself with people who are just as miserable as I am. So when I heard there would be tailgating before what surely would be a highly attended Pitt-Utah football contest and that many old pals who have yet to achieve wealth or fame would be present, I dusted off my backwards hat and got my ass down to Heinz Field to hang out with some buds and do one of my favorite things in the world, and that's drink beer in a parking lot. Jokes were cracked. Insults were hurled, and other kinds of hurling happened, I'm sure. But most of all, it felt like Pitt again, all the way down to the fact that the only looks I got from girls were strange ones. And since people are desperate to get rid of their Pitt tickets, my buddy Craig and I scored a pair of club-level seats for 20 bones each and headed in.

As Craig and I chomped down a pair of footlong hot dogs with the utmost class, I took in the sights of the Heinz Field Club West, where I'd never set foot until some guy decided he'd rather eat half the cost of his tickets than attend a game he'd already come down to (Pitt football, ladies and gentlemen). As people filed in wearing their best Panthers sweats, I chomped down on my hot dog and turned to Craig. "You know," I said, "one thing I love about Pittsburgh is that here, you and I ..." I pointed to his sweatshirt, then back to mine, "don't look out of place."

He laughed, I dabbed the mustard off my sleeve, and we went out to watch Pitt lose. Throughout it all, I cracked a few more jokes at the Pitt players' expense (really, they stink, they're asking for it), drew a few cackles out of the folks sitting around us and befriended the guy in the next row. As we filed out of the stadium, bumping shoulders with other grumbling Pitt fans, a guy asked his friend if Joe Flacco had been at Pitt with Dave Wannstedt (an era defined by a mustache) or Walt Harris (an era defined by a lisp). I chimed in, informing them both that Flacco was indeed a Pitt Panther during Not My Fault Walt's reign, and that I would easily break several laws to have either Joe Flacco or Tyler Palko back as Pitt's quarterback. Then we all shared a hearty laugh and scheduled a fishing trip for the spring. (Haha, not really. Can you imagine?)

Riding home, I listened to a somber postgame show, which my father appropriately calls 'The Excuse Line,' and reflected on all the figurative horse shit I've seen Pitt dump on the Heinz Field turf over the years (Thank God it's not literal horse shit, because the field would be Fern Gully by now, I swear). Oddly enough, it reminded me of something that DOES involve literal horse shit on a football field. I mean ... what are the odds? (There's a point to all this. We're getting there.)

It happened the night before the Pitt game in what I just now realized was a terrific moment of foreshadowing. I drove out to cover a high school football game at Aliquippa, at the stadium they call 'The Pit.' If you've never been there (guessing that's everybody who reads this blog), it's a setting that's as impressive as it is unsettling. The Quips, ever the powerhouse team from the disparaged neighborhood, went on to win, of course, and I drove home through the small downtown that looks as if everybody left when the steel mill closed.

(Hmm? Oh, yeah, the horse shit! Well, I'll transcribe you an approximated version of the radio broadcast coming from a few seats down in the press box:

Red: Annnd we're ready for kickoff here between the Beaver Bobcats and the Aliquippa Quips! Aliquippa with two players back deep to receive, and Beaver ready to kick off.
Hal: Well, now, hold on, now, it looks like ... Well, the Beaver players are coming off the field, ah ...
Red: Well, here come the Quips to their sideline, Hal, so ... haha ... a bit of a delay here to start the game. Perhaps an issue with the field, with all this rain we've had in the last couple of days, perhaps, ah, maybe there's some mud out there that the coaches wanted taken care of, and ...
Hal: The lead official is pointing to a specific area near the 50-yard line, now, and if it is what I think it is ...
Red: Oh, now, here comes someone with a shovel! (At this moment, some poor SOB trudges out from behind the end zone with a shovel and bucket.) So ... haha ... it looks like 'War Eagle' may have made a deposit at the 50-yard line!
Hal: We've seen that before.
Red: For those who are unfamiliar, Aliquippa's 'Indian' mascot traditionally rides out on his horse, 'War Eagle,' and throws a flaming spear into the turf as a challenge to the visiting team. For everyone reading the abridged transcript of our broadcast on Pat Mitsch's blog, if you scroll back up and click the link to the photo of the stadium -- Yep, right up there -- you'll see 'War Eagle' leading the players out onto the field. Just so happened the horse, ah, well ... haha ...
Hal: The horse pooped on the field, Red.
Red: And you can't blame the players for wanting it cleaned up.)

The game at Aliquippa made me think of the Sports Illustrated feature written last year about the town and the team. The Heart of Football Beats in Aliquippa. I liked it so much I kept a copy of the magazine, and I dug it out and flipped it open when I got home. I won't quote too much of it, because I refuse to make my writing look bad on my own blog, but on the last page, the writer, S.L. Price, quotes Aliquippa's own Tony Dorsett:

"Every time I come back, the feeling's there, more and more," Dorsett said in September, steering his Chrysler 300 up Monaca Road. "It hurts me to see it, but this is Aliquippa. This is me. This is where I got everything."

It was after midnight on Saturday, and I had to drive home. I left Finn McCool's and walked back to the car (Re-confirming with every other step that I'd only had two beers) and headed toward the Hot Metal Bridge. I drove up the hill until Bates Street flattens out, where it's now under construction near the house where my friends used to live. I made a left. To go home, I would've kept straight onto the highway. Instead, I turned right, and made the next right onto Forbes Avenue -- back into Oakland and back toward Pitt.

I drove past the gas station on the right, then the Quaker Steak, the Chipotle, Joe Mama's and Panera, the Primanti's, the Five Guys (where Ernie and Pede worked for like two hours), finally saw the Dunkin' Donuts that replaced Boomerang's (sad, but not really), then I circled around on Bigelow, down Fifth and back toward the boulevard.

I watched in the rear-view as the downtown buildings disappeared behind the trees. With the highway guiding me home, I wondered where life will take me next, and if 'where' even matters.

Because coming back this time, I realized, I really never left.

There and Back

2011-07-29T21:24:00.021-05:00

Since this isn't one of my college papers, I'm glad to begin with an excerpt from Wikipedia. Or at least I'm glad to openly begin with an excerpt from Wikipedia. Finally.

Because I love spoiling surprises by trying to guess them, I'll give you three clues as to what it is ...

1. It's from a TV show.
2. You may or may not remember this TV show.
3. Refer to clues 1 and 2.

... Give up? OK. Here is Wikipedia's synopsis for the first episode of ... 'There and Back: Ashley Parker Angel' ... My comments in parentheses .

Who can forget the blond, spike-haired Ashley from the platinum-selling group, O-Town? (CERTAINLY NO ONE) Well, now things have changed. (OH HAVE THEY?) O-Town is over (WHAT?!), and Ashley's back as a solo artist (INTERESTING, I'M NOT SURE HIS SOUND HOLDS UP ON ITS OWN, BUT OK). But Ashley is broke, living with his pregnant girlfriend (OOPS) and her mother (DOUBLE OOPS) in a small apartment. Added to Ashley's frustration are feelings that his album producers are holding back on his money advance (PROBABLY A SHREWD FINANCIAL DECISION ON THEIR PART). Ashley's manager tells him his songs are good but not great (SEE? HE NEVER SPOKE TO ME AS A SOLO ARTIST BUT IT CAN BE CHALLENGING TO ACCURATELY JUDGE INDIVIDUAL TALENT AMONG MEMBERS OF AN ENSEMBLE. BUT IT SOUNDS AS IF I WAS CORRECT IN MY SKEPTICISM BECAUSE HIS MANAGER SEEMS TO BE WAVERING SIMILAR TO HOW I THINK I WOULD WAVER IF I WERE HIS MANAGER). Ashley and former O-Town member, Jacob Underwood (OH YEAH, HIM), reminisce about their stardom.

The saying goes 'It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.' Whether or not you believe it I guess depends mostly on whether you've loved and lost, never loved at all or on how touching you found Tommy Lee Jones' performance in Men in Black (I thought he was good). I bring this up not to prime a discussion on the L word, the word itself or the show, but to prove that most American adages are no different than a Pimp My Ride car, in that the frame is what makes it go, not the neon-green 20s or the two-inch TV in the rear-view mirror. Don't believe me? 'It's better to have played and lost than to have never played at all.' See? It still works. Somewhere, Xzibit is acknowledging this.

So, here's where Ashley Parker Angel and I finally meet, just like I'd always imagined, only at a veritable West Coast Customs for proverbs:

'It's better to have been there and back than never to have been there at all.'

I thought about this on a summer afternoon in midtown Manhattan, sitting on a bench in Rockefeller Center, eating soup with my boy Mike. We faced the sunken plaza where people ice skate in the winter, as passing tourists posed for pictures two feet in front of us. A nice guy approached me to take a photo of him and his family, and I made sure to fit the golden Prometheus statue in the frame behind them as I snapped the photo, showing them the preview to make sure it was OK.

I sat back down and scraped out the last bits of chili.

"You know," I said, "These people are coming here from all over to take photos, and we're sittin' here eating lunch." I looked up to the top of the buildings, the blue sky. "We could have it a lot worse."

I'm not there and back -- yet. I'm still there, although my time living and working in New York City -- in between flights around the country -- will soon run out. I'd make a reference to Jeff Goldblum's 'Checkmate' line in Independence Day, but I've already made enough mid-90s blockbuster allusions for one afternoon. Nonetheless, El Toro is about to be completely destroyed, so it's time to throw down with one last intergalactic kegger (YES I DID).

As excited as I am, though, to have pimped out a worn cliche with Ashley Parker Angel's post-O-Town flowing blond locks, I wonder if I'm right. Is it really better to have been there and back than never to have been there at all? Let's figure this out.

I'm flashing back to the Summer of 2008, which I've detailed ad nauseum to have been the grand piano of my all-time summers, when I spent about two months in New York City. I lived at Columbia University way up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and it took until my last night in the city to get my one buddy up there to visit. While the sunlight dimmed as we ate dinner at a sidewalk bistro on Broadway (It was a bistro, trust me), I looked out to the buzzing street. 'This time tomorrow night,'I said, 'I will be on my parents' couch back at home in Pittsburgh.' We laughed, finished our food and went out for a few drinks. The next night, at the same exact time, I stared at the television from the couch in my parents' living room. And that was that. No Broadway. No sidewalk caf--er--bistro. New York life, the company you're supposed to keep, gone.

Later that same week, with my clothes nestling back into their old, familiar drawers, my buddy Craig picked me up and we went to go hang out at this girl's house. It was the first time I'd go out after coming back from New York. It was early August. (I had left in late May.) It was a balmy night, so we sat out on the back deck, and after a while, a girl I know from high school turned to me and asked, 'Mitsch, where have you been all summer?'

Then, when the leaves turned red, I was again walking the Pitt campus during my final year of college, doing the best I could to get by on the least amount of possible effort (3.82. Eat it). So, if you're keeping score at home, my first summer in New York, one I wrote a whole big thing about telling all five of you how cool it was, dropped me right back off at college before anyone noticed I was gone. If only I could have been so stealthy during some ... other endeavors.

But, no matter how foolish I was back in 2008 (so long ago), I never expected to stay in New York, because summer internships only last for ... the ... (Kids? Anyone?) ... summer! (Seriously, a summer intern in September is like a blizzard in May. As soon as you hear your first 'You're still here?!' it's time to go.) So, the back-to-earth logic applied then, but only in the same sense that all the astronauts who went to the moon back in the 60s didn't really expect to stay on the moon. Or maybe they did, I don't know. Times were different back then. People smoked on TV!

No, the REAL reality check came some months later, when many, and that includes myself, expected me to go back to New York after graduating ... and I didn't. Not by choice, but because the company at which I had interned, one I thought was antsy to hire me as soon as I sauntered onto the job market with my college degree and little else, hit some hard times and couldn't offer me anything. The people I knew there had moved on, voluntarily or ... otherwise, and that was that for me. I remember the lynchpin moment for this. It was a night in December. I was a senior. I typed a nice, sincere but confident email to my main contact -- a great woman who had been with the company for 20-plus years, who absolutely loved me, who told me to email her when I was ready to come back full-time -- I fired it off, leaned back in my chair and got an instant reply. Undeliverable. Slam.

So, technically, I had been there and back. But by the time 2009 bullied its way onto the scene, it was like I'd never been there at all.

You may already know the story of the next year and a half: the 'Grace Period' summer in Oakland ... the newspaper job and high school football ... then the move to Colorado for Summer 2010: 'Let's See What Happens.' It culminated on a Tuesday night that September, when I sent a few texts as I waited for my dad outside Denver International. I'd be back in Pittsburgh on Friday. And two weeks later, I'd be back in New York. For good.

So I'd hoped.

It's August. I'm still going to work, only nobody double-takes when I walk through the office (at least not yet) and I've yet to get my first 'You're still here?!' (at least to my face). I'm not a summer intern, rather a glorified temp (I added the 'glorified') who stuck around for 11 strong months, during which I got to do some pretty cool things. I chatted up Chris Mullin while lifting weights in Miami and guarded Bill Simmons in a pick-up hoops game in Dallas. When you do these things, you feel like you've made it. I did these things.

Thing is, I also count Minnesota as one of the 37 states I've visited. You're like, 'OK, I'm not sure what you'd be doing there, but ... whoa, 37 states? That's a lot!' See what happened? You didn't even bother to ask what I was doing in Minnesota, just that I counted it. The truth? I spent two hours in the Twin Cities airport, cussing softly in a TGI Friday's as I watched Pitt lose a basketball game. But I was there. So it f**king counts. (You hear that Gilbert Brown? It COUNTS! MAKE A ******* FREE THROW.)

So if you got a text from me that night in September, before my dad and I, along with all my worldly possessions, pulled away from Denver International in what surely was the heaviest Honda Civic ever, I gave you my future -- Colorado-Pittsburgh-New York -- with a dash of Minnesota. The layover wasn't two weeks in Pittsburgh. It was 11 months in the Big Apple. My final destination? The living room couch at 506 Mohican Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA. As always, it's an open-ended ticket. And we're about to start boarding.

Oddly enough, I might as well be taking off from Denver again, where I stopped off in late January between legs of a trip from Salt Lake to New York. I strolled through the concourse and remembered the last time I'd actually been inside. It was in July 2010, when I still lived in Colorado Springs. I'd returned from a work trip to Vegas, the trip during which I met my boss before he was my boss. That time, I drove the hour south home, with the hulking crest of Pike's Peak guiding me. This time, I took off Eastward and pressed my nose against the window to see the front range of the Rockies, dominated by the mountain I once stood on top of, disappear. I slumped in my seat and closed my eyes, knowing that at one time, that was my life. You know, too, if you've ever seen my profile pic on Facebook and Twitter ... or my desktop background.

I leave New York this time knowing that this was my life. (Get ready, because I'm about to hold you hostage like an 80-year old showing slides of their trip to Branson. Dim the lights please?)

And this ...

This, too ...

And we'll throw in some South Beach for good measure. (The blurriness is all part of the whole ambiance, so just go with it ...)

(OK, lights up.)

Pretty soon -- HEY! You awake? -- Pretty soon, I'll leave New York like I left Colorado and return to Pittsburgh like I returned twice before before leaving again (Just making sure you're paying attention and weren't eying up Ashley down there.)

Though I would have liked to have stayed here longer, I bet Neil Armstrong and, to a lesser degree, Buzz Aldrin would have taken another couple days on the moon. And I'm thinking Ashley Parker Angel juuuust may have preferred another few years of O-Town as opposed to living with his pregnant girlfriend and her mom and not making any money while being taped for a reality show exploiting his plummet from success.

Nonetheless, in far different ways, we were there. Which beats not having been there at all. There's nowhere left to fall, when you've reached the bottom, it's now ... or never ......

The Tipping Point

2011-05-24T17:09:00.010-05:00

A lot like the mystical 'almost made it' nights in college, this story begins and ends in a taxi. Only difference is that I'm comfortable putting this on the internet. Well, that and a lot of other stuff.

Nonetheless, I slide into a cab outside a Sheraton in downtown Oklahoma City around 9. The concierge gives me daps and tells me to have a good trip. I'm not sure if he'd have offered the same friendly wishes if he hadn't been stuffing five of my dollars in his vest. Either way, I'm glad to be purchasing friendliness. I know the alternative, and this goes back a ways.

Despite having worked in the restaurant industry, albeit while still an idiot in high school, I've always been a careless tipper. I used to over-tip, then I under-tipped, then I only tipped certain people, then I didn't tip anybody, then I tipped everybody ... and really only some of that is true, I just thought it flowed nicely. To cut to the chase, I tip people erratically, with no real reason why, and never realized until the weekend before I hit the road this time, when my tipping tipped. (And that is absolutely the appropriate analogy, ask any Malcolm Gladwell reader. Just so happens it makes a nice pun. I would never go out of my way to make a play on words, despite my background in newspapers ...

OK, I would. A few of The Pitt News headlines I wrote that were both great and horrible:

'Orange game has appeal for Pitt' ... and my all-time favorite ... 'UConn't be serious' ... I just bowed to my own standing ovation.)

All right, back to the story. A friend invites me out and we hit up a Lower, Lower East Side dump, to quote SNL's Stefon. I order the first round, which ended up being something like 15 dollars, and thanks to my arbitrary system for tipping, I left the guy a buck. The bartender then ignored us for 15 minutes, finally came back and my buddy ordered the second round, myself happily aloof. The bartender stares at him and says, 'What, so you can leave me another big dollar? The better the tip, the better the service.' Then he walked away, and delivered us our beers in what was assuredly the most awkward/tense exchange of alcohol ever involving no one underage. Add in that the bartender strongly resembled the Kodiak's Skipper Bill on Deadliest Catch, and this made one heck of a tipping point. (Pun City. Population: This guy.)

Days after, I thought about this while I waited for my flight to Dallas to board. If the round was 15 dollars, and I only tipped the guy a buck, that's a 7 percent tip ... rounding up (yeah, I used a calculator. You figure out in your head.) I would consider that an insulting tip to give to a waiter or a waitress, without question. But for some reason, I never tipped bartenders by the same scale. For me, one round of drinks has always equaled a one-buck tip (as opposed to a one-tip buck, which equals a unicorn). Why? It's actually pretty simple, now that I've thought about it. When I first started buying drinks at the bar -- which, by the way, began not one second before 12:00.00 a.m. on June 15, 2008 -- my tips corresponded to the prices of the drinks I was buying at the time. Therefore, I tipped according to the prices set by the shrewd businessmen at Boomerang's and Peter's Pub, the Fortune 500 companies at which I imbibed whilst a senior in college. And when you sell entire pitchers of beer for 5 measly dollars, tipping a buck for a bottle of Yuengling Light makes you freakin' Donny Warbucks. Just so happens Boom's is now a Dunkin' Donuts, and I have yet to make it rain.

The problem, then, was this: Over the years, I failed to adjust my tips according to inflation, and, unknowingly, I became locked in to the one-dollar bartender tip. So no matter where I've been or which light beer I've ordered, the bartender who got it for me received a tip at 2008 Boomerang's prices. And that's how we got here. I can't imagine how many birds have been flipped to my back at this point, but all I needed was a nice insult to the face to wake me up. And who better than a salty crab fisherman to oblige.

Back to Oklahoma. The cab leaves the hotel and cuts into the wind toward the airport, and the driver strikes up a conversation. I tell him I'm flying back to New York, where I live, and he starts asking New York questions I can't answer. First, he asks how much a cab ride in Manhattan costs, both to get into the car and per mile. (It's $2.50 to hop in, and there are an astonishing six metrics to determine the rate charge. Surprisingly, one of them is not 'If you're drunk enough, all cab rides are free.') I just looked that up now, so I had to tell the driver I didn't know. Then he asks how tall the new World Trade Center is going to be, saying he heard one number, 1776 feet, then heard that they changed it. I looked out the window, scratched my head and told him I didn't know. 'But that sounds right,' I said. (It is. 1776 feet.)

He kept on talking. I learned that he grew up in Denver. I told him I lived in Colorado Springs. I learned that his family once planned a trip to Garden of the Gods, but, instead, went to the dog races. I learned that in one calendar year of driving a cab in Oklahoma, this man would not turn a profit. I learned all of those things, and because of our conversation, I learned that there are six different charge rates in a New York City taxi (and that cab rides are NOT free after 2 a.m.) and that the new 1 World Trade Center building going up at Ground Zero, not three miles from where I'm typing this, will rise the same amount of feet as the years it took for our country to form.

As it turns out, there's also a new skyscraper going up in downtown OKC. It's not close to being finished, but it already dominates the cityscape that I'm getting an extra-long look at from the back seat of the cab. We're stopped in front of the Delta gate, waiting for my credit card charge to go through. I would have paid cash, but I spent it all a few nights earlier with a bunch of strangers I now consider my Oklahoma friends. Well, sort of.

I know what you're thinking. It's been too long since I pointed out one of countless parallels between me and George Clooney. So, I'd like to nab one of Clooney's lines from 'Up in the Air' to describe my Friday night in Bricktown: Life is better with company. Just so happened, one of the guys I worked with all year is an Oklahoma guy, lives in Tulsa and was in OKC the same time I was. I asked him to show me around the city's chic, growing entertainment district -- Bricktown (Which, coincidentally, shares its name with the area surrounding the basketball hoop in Ryan Haddad's driveway). So, naturally, he took me to his college buddies' apartment, where I guzzled a beer and pretended to laugh at their inside jokes.

Soon enough, though, the conversation loosened up, and I explained why I was in town, that I'm from Pittsburgh but live in New York, and that they're apartment would cost at least triple in Manhattan what it does in OKC. When we started to head back to Bricktown, one of the guys interrupted one exchange to say, "I feel bad for the guy who lives in Manhattan and is about to head out with us right now." He was only half right.

Just like it is in New York, the nightlife anywhere isn't a passive experience. It sounds dumb saying this, but having a good time, regardless of where, takes effort. In New York, there are so many options and so many people out that you have to try a ton of different spots to find the ones that 1. Let you in; and 2. Bring the best out of you. I've been here eight months, and I'm still at it. It's a noble fight. Conversely, when there aren't as many options, it takes work to keep things fresh, to find new ways to have fun at places where you've already done that bunch of times. I'm familiar with both sides of this battle, and I don't know that I prefer one over the other.

I communicated that as the six of us did the 'We've been walking like we were headed somewhere but weren't really headed anywhere now we've passed pretty much everything and need to stop and make a decision before we end up on the freeway' stop. I know that stop well, very well, in fact, and as the other guys began to get testy, I couldn't help but smile. It was only fitting that we settled on the dueling-pianos bar, which is the exact type of place my crew spent our Last Supper-like night of college. Sure enough, the six of us cracked some jokes, told some stories and had what qualifies as a good time. When I left, I told my buddy that you can enjoy living anywhere as long as you're around good people.

My plane touches down at LaGuardia just after 5, and I never break stride as I pull my bag from the claim belt. I hop in a cab home and roll down the window as the driver pulls onto the highway. I left New York in dense fog. I've returned to pure sunshine and a sky that's a perfect swirl of light orange and blue. The driver and I start BS'ing about the good weather, about traveling and about which route to lower east Manhattan is the best. I say to take whichever he wants.

He blew past some traffic and made the pull up the the Williamsburg Bridge, which connects Manhattan to the neighborhood in Brooklyn, not Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia, although it wouldn't surprise me to see some similarities in the dress of those inhabiting both Williamsburgs. Out the window on the right, I see this. And I just stare until the closer buildings block the midtown skyline and eventually yield to streets lined with green trees and teaming with people.

The cabbie and I joke back and forth some more until he pulls up in front of my place and unloads my bag. I tip him 8 dollars.

'Thank you, man, thank you!' he says. 'Enjoy ... summer. Enjoy ... everything!'

I know what you're thinking. What was the point of this story?

If you enjoyed it, then there you go.

If you didn't, don't ask me to write anything ever again. What, so you can leave me another big dollar? Ass.

It was a good day ...

2011-04-16T20:15:00.005-05:00

It's a wet Saturday night in New York, and this is why the phrase 'for a rainy day' exists.

You can store things away for a rainy day, you can put things away for a rainy day, you can have things for a rainy day, you can even stack chips for a rainy day, as Jay-Z prefers doing. Whichever you prefer, you'd better be doin' it in New York City. I'll tell you why.

I pay way too much to live in an apartment in Manhattan that's at least 20 yards removed from my nearest option for transportation. That's if I want to run to the corner to frantically hail the first cab that zooms by. If I want to take the bus? Fifty yards. Subway? At least two football fields. I have no car. I have no garage. If I want to leave my home, and it's raining, I'm getting wet. (Reminds me of Denzel in 'Training Day' ... Didn't know ya liked to get wet tho ... And THAT reminds me of Wayne Brady laughing in slow motion on Chappelle's Show! Hah-hah-hah. Classic.)

So, yeah, a rainy day in a city that's as walk-centric-ick-y as New York gets you a lot wetter (And just to be clear, these are NOT PCP references) than anywhere else where cars and garages prevail. This is especially true for me, because, somehow, inexplicably, I don't have an umbrella. (This has been such a problem for me for years that it's almost become a character flaw. Who, Pat? Oh, he NEVER has an umbrella! He's hilarious. The most bizarre part of this for me is that I've gone out on a nice day to buy an umbrella, have gotten to the department store, found the umbrellas, stared at the umbrellas and not bought an umbrella. Even as I'm typing this I can't remember why not. It baffles me.)

Tonight, it's monsoon conditions in New York City. Therefore, this is a Saturday night that 19-year old me would have balked at -- staying in, watching basketball, listening to Alanis Morisette. I'm not even kidding. Nineteen-year old me just puked. And he might puke again when he finds out about this (Likely dry heaves at that point, but still). Nonetheless, I'm a few months away from 24, and I've stacked plenty of chips (WHAT'S UP JAY-Z) for a night like this.

These chips, though, aren't Lays or sour cream and cheddar Baked Lays. If they were, I'd have already eaten them all years ago. These chips are the kind Hines Ward deposited in Mike Tomlin's emotional bank account that one year. These chips are memories.

When there's a big sports event on TV, I imagine being fan of the home team with tickets to the game. Maybe even good seats. Oh man. I'm starting to get flustered thinking of being a hypothetical fan going to a hypothetical game. I mean, read this. Remember that Pede? How psyched were you that day? I know I was amped. It was a good day. These are the days I have stashed away, because it rains a lot in New York. Especially for a Pittsburgh kid.

This was a great time of year for me the last few years. Let's take it back to the spring of 2009, before the dust in my room back home had a diploma to gather on. (This was actually after graduation, but there was a problem with the shipping of the diplomas. The hall where the diplomas were stored flooded, and many were destroyed and had to be reprinted. Remember that? Crazy.) This was the Stanley Cup year, and we were all still living in Oakland (!!!!). There were Pens games, like, every night, which means there was drinking for Pens games, like, every night, which is the most awesome thing ever. (Those post-grad, no-school months in Oakland I refer to now as 'The Grace Period'). Even last spring, good weather for the Buccos home opener, Pens in the Playoffs, me and Pede just bein' awesome. It was good. It was really good.

Then I moved to Colorado, and I haven't cheered as hard since. I enjoyed myself at a few Rockies games at Coors Field, which is also the only park in America where they serve Coors Original. I got great seats for dirt cheap to see the Colorado Springs SkySox a few times, and chuckled at the antics of 'Sox the Fox.' I've been to Knicks games, a Nets game, and behind the scenes of all the all-star stuff, which was cool. (There exists a photo of me in the same frame as Bieber. I don't know whether to be ashamed or proud.) But the euphoria of 2009 and 2010? Pirates tailgates, Pens games followed by South Side prowling? If I'm an airplane, and my sports memories are all in the white vapor stream coming out of my tail end (hah), well, the airplane's still moving. And we all know that airplane vapor streams eventually disappear. (I had to google what that was called, the vapor stream. Started with 'jet stream,' but that's the weather-thingy. Then I tried 'air plane tail stream,' then several combinations of airplane, jet, stream and tail, before finally hitting with 'white streak coming out of the end of an airplane.' Got it.)

This has me believing in something I haven't even read, which is Bill Simmons' column (easy Ryan, easy) about what it takes to be a real fan of a sports team. One of the requirements, if I remember correctly, was living in the team's city. Actually, it doesn't even matter if that was one of them, because I'm experiencing that one firsthand.

I haven't lived in Pittsburgh for close to a year now, and I'm starting to notice. Not that I just woke up today and I'm like 'HEY, this isn't PITTSBURGH! ... No, come on, I mean that I'm noticing my fading interest in my Pittsburgh sports teams, because I can't see them as often, if ever. Sure, I go to bars for the Steelers, and caught a Pens game in Jersey, which was nice. Had Pitt played in the Big East Tournament and lost in the first game because Gary McGhee switched onto Kemba Walker and had his legs broken and fell over like a a tree in the forest, giving the kid an un-missable shot that looked like freakin' Michael Jordan over Craig Ehlo, I'm sure I would have gone to that. But that didn't happen.

Before, if I wanted to watch any Pirates or Penguins game, I could. Now, I gotta follow the scores on the internet or the Twitter feeds for commentary. Even that stuff is hard for me to get into, because it's not like anyone else around here is talking about why Kris Letang pinched down on that first goal. Things that are a big deal in Pittsburgh aren't a big deal in New York or really anywhere else. So when you're anywhere else, they really just don't matter.

But the problem is that you just can't adopt new sports teams. Why is a bigger discussion than I'm ready to have at this point, it's almost 1 a.m. now, but the root of it is that you can't change who you are, and your favorite teams are a part of that. As sports fans, we're like cement. My formative years were spent in Pittsburgh, so I grew up cheering the Steelers, Pirates and Penguins. And now it's set, like a little kid's handprint or 'Sonny wuz here '97.'

I, however, am nowhere close to being set. I've already had two big moves, and who knows, there could be more in the future. But unless the end destination is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I won't have the same relationships with my beloved sports teams that I once had. Which is why I'm glad I stacked my chips. Rain or shine.

How to make it in America

2011-02-08T20:27:00.010-05:00

It's a chilly Wednesday night atop The Standard hotel in downtown Los Angeles, and the hipster girl in the corner is about to start the sickest dance battle I've ever seen.

It's about 9:30 Pacific, which means I should have already been asleep when Petey Rich picked me up at the Marriott a few blocks away. Amidst all the arguments against attending a rooftop bar -- a slight drizzle, it being February -- we find our way up to the hotel's 12th floor veranda despite stepping off the elevator at Floor 11. (1. Thanks to the hotel cook for the non-condescending directions; 2. In fairness to Petey Rich, we took the back way; 3. We rode up with two ladies who were both 6-foot-4. The whole ordeal made me feel a little ... small? Yep. Welcome back.)

After I get a tour of the place, I buy the first round and, since there's no room around any of the working heat lamps, we set up shop at the railing which overlooks most of the downtown LA skyline, including the tall, cylindrical building that was blown up in Independence Day. (Although you'd swear nothing ever happened to it, it looks that good). I stuff my hands in my pockets and ask Petey Rich if he likes living out here.

'It's weird living in the city where everyone comes to make it,' he says. (If I misquoted you, dude, just go with it. Or call my lawyer, I don't know, do what you want.)

If LA is where everyone comes to make it, New York, where I live, is where everyone's just tryin' to make it and barely doing so. To me, this country's two largest cities really couldn't be further apart culturally. Just so happens that they're also far apart geographically, especially when they're showing Secretariat on your five-hour flight and something has managed to piss off every baby on the plane. (Secretariat?) ... Anyway, it's a nice coincidence that helps to ask a larger question, the answer to which has led me to LA in the first place.

I'm here for the NBA All-Star Game, an event where people come to glimpse the league's biggest stars in one spot. These are some of the most famous athletes in the world, as illustrated by a 48-deep crowd at the LA Convention Center lining a pathway Dwyane Wade might walk through. The question is not are these guys famous, or even why are they famous. We know all of that. The question is ... why are we so infatuated with famous people? More broadly, why do people seek fame, and why does a movie-quality dance battle break out on a soggy rooftop in LA, and nowhere else? In short, why do people go to Los Angeles to make it ... or so said Philadelphia's Pete Richardson, right before he fumbled his half-full Jack and Coke all over the carpet.

The root question is, of course, why do people want to be famous? I think the first part of the answer starts with the difference between New York and LA.

Since I base all of my opinions on my own experiences and rarely consider the advice of anyone else (scoff), I can safely say that on a typical day in New York City, most people don't really care who you are, and I think that's for a few reasons. One, living in New York isn't cake. It's crowded everywhere all the time, which can make routine tasks, such as shopping for groceries, mailing a package or walking, somewhat difficult. Eventually, that takes a cumulative affect, and you just want to get home to not be around hoards of bodies. Soon, you stop paying attention to them. Ask Petey Rich who I blew right by on the way out of the last place we stopped that night. It'll prove my point as much as it'll disappoint you.

Second, you realize people with a lot more money than you aren't at the same places you are. They're not getting nauseous on the L or watching out for the overachieving subway rats who somehow make it onto the platform (Bravo, rats, bravo). The easy, luxurious life of celebrities? You don't see it. And so, the same reason I spend all my time in my bedroom, because my living room is furnished with empty boxes and a deflated air mattress -- it's out of sight, so it's out of mind. (The exception is when Doug Flutie is on your 6 a.m. flight home from Dallas, flying coach. This is why Flutie is the coolest. That and Flutie Flakes.)

In Los Angeles, though, it seems like it'd be difficult to pack away the good life in the closet, because it's in front of you all the time. With so much of the town devoted to the entertainment industry, you're bound to run into, well, entertainers. That, paired with the nice weather, seems to make the easy, luxurious life of celebrities far more visible to the peons and common folk like us. And when you see a Bentley parked next to your Maxima in the garage below the Staples Center, or see some big-time celeb sitting courtside on his phone the whole effing game, it's not hard to figure out which car and which seats you'd rather have.

The second part of the answer actually draws on something I learned in college (Whoa! How 'bout that, huh?). It's that every human has an ego, and that ego, according to what I remember being written in some book that I skimmed through on the way to Boomerang's, needs to be (not my word) stroked. If not, I dunno, you'll go insane and turn into a serial killer. Or something. And that's not good. So we all need our kicks, regardless of whether or not we think we do.

See, this ties in perfectly to something I was going to post a week or so back, before I inevitably got distracted and decided to watch television. It happened in the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, where I connected on my way to Salt Lake City last month (Lot of talk about airplanes and airports, I realize, but I've been flying a lot lately).

I was standing at the gate, waiting to board, when I see a kid wearing a sweatshirt with some name of a school and then 'Basketball' after it. Who I presume was his mother was standing beside him, and I decide to try my hand at a nice (Heath Ledger Joker voice) magic trick.

I travel -- always, on short trips -- with two bags: my backpack, and a blue duffel bag. The duffel bag has a big Nike logo on one side, and a huge USA Basketball logo on the other. (When I got it, it also came with a tag that read 'Hoffman #21.' I took it off when I realized that I was not Hoffman, and that I haven't worn #21 since my third year of Tiger Pride football in homage to Deion Sanders. Not too many people would make that connection now, not even the most ardent of Patrick 'The Mad Dog' Mitsch fans.)

Anyway, here's what I do: The Nike logo is facing the basketball sweatshirt kid and mom. I pick up the duffel bag, turn and look down the other concourse, as if I'm searching for a bathroom or a Quizno's or something. I'm not. I'm in the midst of a people experiment. So, yeah, I turn around, and the point is that the USA Basketball logo is now visible to basketball sweatshirt kid and mom. I drop the bag, and stare off into the distance. In my peripherals, I see mom glance downward, see the bag, then lean over and whisper something into the ear of basketball sweatshirt kid. Then they both look back at me and stare. Boom.

To them, I could have been some type of baller. Then I remembered I'm not, and I got on the plane. Nonetheless, I smirked as I choked down my single bag of dry airplane pretzels.

Now, why did I do that? Because dry pretzels aren't easy to swallow. Haha, no, no I mean the whole bag-thing. Why did I do that? Because I got a kick out of it, that's why. It's wired into your brain to get some kind of attention every now and then, and really, it's pretty boring in the Minneapolis airport, so I had to entertain myself somehow (This was pre-iPhone. Post-iPhone it never happens). It's like changing the oil in your car. If your dipstick dries up .... it ... um ... I don't know, that was a poor example. I forgot what I was talking about. Hear Carmelo's on the Knicks?

What I'm getting at is this: We're always awestruck by celebrities because, ordinarily, our lives don't intersect with theirs. When that does happen, when you see Dwyane Wade at the mall or Tom Brady taking out the trash, it closes the gap between the two of you just a tiny little bit, because the next best thing to being a celebrity is being close to a celebrity. If you aren't the celebrity, don't know them and haven't met them, but you've seen them in person, you've been closer to them than the majority of the people who know who they are. That's something.

And for most people, that's enough. However, when you're around celebrities so much that it's no longer significant to say 'Doug Flutie was on my flight,' or 'I saw Justin Bieber get carded ... at the movies,' maybe that's when you start to believe, 'Hey ... there's no reason that can't be me.' And perhaps that is when you start a dance battle on the rooftop hotel bar on a damp night in February in LA.

Soon, two appropriately dressed guys joined the girl in the dance battle, and they put on (for their city) an orchestration of moves that I swear could have been the original choreographing for 'Step Up' or 'Stomp The Yard' (both of which, somehow, I have seen.)

Me and Petey Rich watched, along with everyone else on the rooftop that night. And when they were through, we got another round, finally found an open heat lamp, and we traded stories about all the times we'd run into celebrities.

Keep your shorts on ...

2011-01-03T21:47:00.004-05:00

There was a reason a Harlem Globetrotters game was broadcast on ESPN with a play-by-play announcer. It was for our collective enjoyment ...

(On the installation of a penalty box to punish any 'funny business') 'We've heard about the 4-point play, but the penalty box? This is new ... '

'Not great defense early on from the Generals ... '

'You might want to get some clothes on, sir ... '

'If this keeps up, you gotta think the Generals are going to have a chance at making some history and ending this long losing streak ... '

'You guys have been in a little bit of a slump since '71 ... '

'The Generals looking good on offense, the problem's been on the defensive end ... '

'Special K, I believe, has taken that woman's purse. A nice diversion, it leads to two for the Globetrotters ... '

'Lot of high-percentage shots for the Globetrotters tonight ... '

'I'm just speculating at a possible depantsing ... '

I'd Never Eat Here Anyway!

2010-12-05T13:02:00.006-05:00

To clue you in on why it takes me so long to write something on here, just note the above date. That's when I began writing the below entry. I needed 22 days to finish a post that took me, in total, somewhere between 3 and 4 hours to write. The reason why it takes me so long to post something ... well, those reasons vary. But the short answer is that I get distracted and do other things with my free time, and eventually a post like this just gets buried in other material or the time window for it to be relevant lapses. Well, thanks solely to a State of Emergency blizzard that has thwarted all of my means of travel and prevented me from leaving Pittsburgh the last two days, I've had just enough down time to hit this post with the defibrilator, get it off life support and introduce it to the world. So Merry Belated Christmas. The Lord does indeed work in mysterious ways.

Since I last left you with a tale of futility, ineptitude and a generally embattled existence, I'm ready to tell you about some winning. So get ready to read hear me gloat. (Humor me, I don't get this often.)

Consider this the sequel to my post about Pitt and Dave Wannstedt (Scroll down and read it if you'd like, it's a doozy). Coincidentally, this takes place the day after I decided to slit my own wrists and attend the Backyard Brawl at Heinz Field last Friday. Since that debacle left me with such great memories to revisit on the North Shore, I decided to go back on Saturday. For what? We'll get to that. First, allow me a preface.

I'm a fan of Eminem, but not in the sense that I blindly hang on his every word, even though I'll never get the props I feel I ever deserve (That's from 'Til I Collapse. ... OK, not a good start). Well, just trust me here when I say I know he's a little nuts, and I realize it'd be equally irrational of me to throw around Slim Shady lines like they're prophetic advice. Rather, I just like the way he raps because, most of the time, it just sounds tough, and that's enjoyable to me.

However, there's a Slim line that's appropriate here, coming from the aptly titled 'Still Don't Give A Hoot' (Which is the real title of the song) on the Slim Shady LP. Don't worry, there's no profanity here. It's not even a rhyme, actually. It's just something he says at the beginning: 'I can't change the way I think.' That's it. I can't change the way I think. Regardless of how you feel about our boy Slim Shady, this is true for everyone. Unless you're some type of Buddhist monk (If you are, glad to have you here at Jose's Mesa), you really can't control your mind. This is best demonstrated by Ray thinking of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man at the end of Ghostbusters. Thought control is impossible, even when birthing the Destructor is on the line.

This has to do with me because I rarely rehash the things I've done correctly. When my mind has time to skip around, it points out my past embarassments. It just does. Why? Aside from my brain being a prick, I can only think of the 'hindsight is 20/20' cliche. Perfect hind-vision doesn't do anything for what you saw clearly the first time, when you saw the situation for what it was, knew what to do and did that. However, it clears up everything that was initially blurry for you to rampantly speculate on what you should have done, and I do this frequently. That's the preface. It was kind of long, and you probably have forgotten what we were talking about in the first place, but that was it.

OK. Let's pick up on Saturday morning at Arby's. (You're asking 'Who goes to Arby's on a Saturday morning?' Had you seen Ryan or myself there, you'd have your answer.) While scarfing down an extra-large roast beef, I overheard an old guy at the counter talking about the Clairton-Rochester football game. Immediately, I'm like 'Oh my God. That game is ON?!?! And I'm MISSING IT ?!?!'

Keep in mind this guy is referring to the WPIAL Class A championship football game at Heinz Field. Clairton and Rochester are two apallingly small high schools, each an hour from where I grew up, and they're playing a football game on a dirt field that would likely end up with a final score of 12-6, or something similarly atrocious. By all means, it was likely a horrible game, but one in which I nonetheless had legitimate interest. What's strange is that I wouldn't have when I was actually playing high school football.

Let's cut to me in the North Allegheny High School library for a second. I'm a senior, and I'm sitting next to my pal Joe, or 'Frank Buoy,' at the computers. (A note on the nicknames ... For some reason, we decided to nickname ourselves based on the culture most similar to our personalities. Joe was Frank Buoy (Southern), Craig was Richard Spanks (French), Ryan was Johnny CoCo (alternative lifestyle) and I was Flip O'Hannon (Irish). I remember originally picked Flip Flannery, but that was voted down unanimously because it wasn't realistic. Like Richard Spanks was? I'm still bitter about this).

Anyway, I remember Joe reading me the AAAA rankings off the MSA Sports website, and I recall being slightly less than interested, which I may not have let on at the time. (I'm sure Joe's flipping out somewhere right now, maybe causing a scene at work. Sorry dude. It wasn't personal.) I can comfortably say now the reason I really didn't care, and that's because I wasn't exactly the star of the 2004 North Allegheny Tigers. I've reacted the same way in my 2010 fantasy football leagues. Despite agreeing to join three leagues, I drafted three horrible teams, and the performance of each of the three has followed. Horrible. Know how I've sloughed this off? By playing the 'I don't care as much as I used to' card and downplaying my interest level to 'minimal,' when that metric for the last two seasons could be described as 'high,' 'compulsive' and 'sad.' In reality, I'm likely floating somewhere around 'moderate,' this season, because you can't just quit crack like Christian Bale does in The Fighter. But I don't tell anyone that, because I like to keep people thinking that all I do is win, win, win no matter what. If I'm not winning, I must not be trying, right? Yes. Think that.

So if I wasn't at all interested in high school football when I was a player, how did this turn around now that I'm 23? The answer is the reverse of what I explained in the above paragraph. If you can't read backwards (if you can, bravo), it's simple to explain.

There are some things I do well, and writing is among them. I've come to this conclusion largely because of compliments over the years, being recognized at Peter's a handful of times from my student newspaper column and from the persisting interest in Jose's Mesa despite my reluctance to post frequently on a blog that earns me zero monetary income. This, to me, indicates some kind of success as a writer, and I am very competitive when it comes to things at which I am successful (What up, grammar.) So, when I was actually earning money as a writer, I wanted to be good at it. Therefore, when I was charged with covering high school football, I dove right in and, eventually, became a part of that small community around here. I covered games every week. Coaches and players gradually knew who I was. I had value. So I cared.

I haven't covered high school football now for a full season, but being only one year removed from it, many of the coaches and players I knew and interacted with on a regular basis last fall were still at their schools this season. And because only Christian Bale can overcome a crack addiction in 20 minutes of a movie, I couldn't help but follow those guys this season.

OK. Back at Arby's. Saturday after Thanksgiving. This is where we were at (Ooh, grammar deduction). Hours after destroying some roast beef and curly fries, I'm driving back down to the North Shore to do two things. I'm there to check out the casino for the first time (and hopefully use some home-cookin to chase my Vegas gambling demons) and to watch the team I onced played for (OUCH. MORE GRAMMAR POINTS GONE!) try to do something my pals and I never came close to doing. Had I never covered high school football, I never would have gone to this. But I did. So I'm here.

I'm watching with two friends as North Allegheny takes a 21-0 halftime lead in the district championship at Heinz Field, and I'm not sure how to feel about it. (Remember the preface). On one hand, this is my alma mater. I played for this team, and it would be pretty contemptous to root against them for petty reasons (I have them.) that I had a large part in creating (Just remember when I said I wasn't exactly the star of the 2004 North Allegheny Tigers). That part of me says I should embrace my adolescence and be happy for these kids now when they win. On the other hand, screw them, we never got a chance to play at Heinz, so why should they? Also, over the years, I've seen what some athletic success can mean to kids who don't have much else. Therefore, I've become a guy who roots for the 'have nots.' North Allegheny is very much the 'haves.' Needless to say, I'm conflicted.

I wrestle with these ideas while I'm two deep in line for a spot at the infamous Heinz Field trough, a friendly reminder of all the good times at Pitt games and that one Steelers game I got tickets to in 2003. While we're waiting, I hear this behind me:

Clearly a dad: 'Oh, hey, ah, didn't you run the baseball tournament ... for the 9-year olds?'

An exchange about 9-year old baseball followed and perturbed me as I stepped up to the trough and unflappingly stared at the white cinder block wall. Walking out of the bathroom and back to the seats, kids and dads and moms draped in North Allegheny stuff swarmed the concourse. I'm wondering where all the drunk chicks are. I'm thinking the quality of football is surprisingly worse than what I remember when I covered it, and I'm starting to realize that maybe this is the last high school football game I'll go to for a while.

But I stick around for the second half, and NA wins. I stand up and say, 'Well, let's do what we came here to do.' And I head off toward the casino, where everyone is of the legal drinking age and there surely will be no conversation about kids' baseball. Nice.

Now, previous to this, I gambled twice, both times in Las Vegas, and both times I got slaughtered. Just absolutely steamrolled. But this time I've been practicing with the free blackjack trainer online. And this time, the dealers haven't moved to the gambling capital of the world to deal cards. They're from Pittsburgh. These are good things for me.

After hesitating to take out 100 dollars because of the four-dollar surcharge at the casino ATM (outrageous!) ... I take out 100 dollars and sit down for some blackjack. The guy next to me says he hasn't seen a winner in my seat all night, and I start sweating. Then he laughs, and I keep sweating.

Then the cards are dealt, and I'm hesitant to believe things are going well despite winning three straight hands. I recount my chips after a while, and I'm up 80 bucks. I smile. I feel good. So I put 20 in chips out there on this hand, and the dealer throws me a 6 and a 5. My eyes bulge. Then he turns over a face for himself, and I cringe. He checks it ... no blackjack. Still, I take about 10 full seconds to decide to double down with the dealer showing a face. But you got to. I got 40 bones out there on one card. He takes it out of the shoe, flips it .... face. 21. And the dealer ends up with 20. The dealer gobbles up the chips from everyone else at the table, and the groans resonate. I look around at them as I snatch 40 in winnings and think ... 'Suckers.'

The next hand I lose, and I immediately bolt to cash in exactly $112.50 in winnings. Take out the $4 ATM surcharge, and that's $108.50 in winnings. I go meet my friends and tell them I'm leaving.

The next day, I'm asked how the game was, and I reply with a complete, hand-by-hand breakdown of how I won $112.50 in blackjack at Rivers Casino. It occurs to me now that maybe they were asking about the football game.

It sounds humdrum, I know ...

2010-11-30T21:49:00.002-05:00

My Saturday in New York, as told by Ryan Haddad:

9:00 AM: Breakfast at a sidewalk bistro eating french pastries and drinking mimosas while discussing the merits of an individual health care mandate

11:00 AM: Leisurely stroll about Central Park set to a Gin Blossoms song, where you buy a snow cone from a vendor and then share a "I'm such a klutz" laugh with the vendor when the top falls off

1:00 PM: You spend some time at MoMa arguing about the primal eroticism of Georgia O'Keefe with a sexy but proper feminist

4:00 PM: Drinks on a rooftop terrace with a multi-ethnic group of friends whose careers range from big shot investment bankers to struggling playwrights

6:00 PM Dinner where you are invited to join the table of John Varvatos by an mutual acquaintance, and he tells you how much he admires the Pitt Script and laments dinokitty

9:00 PM: Probably some Broadway show, a re-imagining of Fences, set in 25th century Guam that includes a lot of full frontal male nudity set to the music of Mika

11:00 PM: You put on your best scarf, skinny jeans, and beanie, and catch a Minus The Bear show in an underground music club that you can only get to by going throw the kitchen of a Vietnamese restaurant after saying the password. The password is arugula panini

1:45 AM: VIP at the 40-40 club, where Kanye tries to interrupt your conversation, but you brush him off, because you are deep in conversation with Minka Kelly, Derek Jeter and Thierry Henry about mineral futures and the benefits of organic silk sheets

3:00 AM: Jeter realized Minka is flirting with you, and he's not as down with the menage trois stuff as A-Rod, so he politely, but firmly excuses the two of them

3:30 AM: Shots at a shotgun shack with Nick Nolte

5:00 AM: You and John McEnroe take turns urinating in public and hurling rock and insults at passing cabs

6:00 AM: You walk home, shoulders haunched, hands in pockets smiling to yourself at how important your life is, because you are in NY.

These fish have manners

2010-11-12T23:58:00.003-05:00

A celebration of victory has never left me so defeated.

Dave Wannstedt first comes into the shot after the clock had run out. Antwuan Reed has intercepted the game's final pass and is running down the sideline with the ball like he hasn't realized the game is over and that Pitt has won. The camera follows as he sprints by a tall guy in a gold shirt who's charged three or four yards onto the field. It's Dave.

A few seconds later, the camera cuts back to him. He's jubilant. He embraces an assistant, slaps the back of a player, fist pumps the air and beams uncontrollably for two or three seconds. Then, immediately, he catches himself. He runs his hands through his hair and jogs toward the middle of the field to shake hands. Somewhere, a Gatorade dump may have been aborted.

This was a celebration befitting a big win. The only thing missing was the big win.

Pitt 17, South Florida 10. To go to 6-4.

I almost wrote this immediately after the despicable loss at Connecticut. I was gonna break in by mimicking some 'breaking news' or 'emergency alert' television interruption that would have poked fun at my customary three-month breaks between posts. You would have loved it. I would have loved it. But it would have lacked rationale. Any reactionary piece does. (Really. ANY reactionary 'piece' lacks rationale. Heh? Elbow jab HEH?... Stretch? Stretch.)

So I waited. I sat on the idea (And, unavoidably, farted on it) and let the clock run on my feelings. Well, that emotion ran out as I plodded out of Heinz Field's Gate A in the middle of another yawner of a loss, to West Virginia of all teams. Not to mention my Blackberry was flooded with work emails that I'd have to tackle when I got home. At least there would be some tackling somewhere on this day.

As a Pitt fan, I've become friends with the dejected walk back to the car (And you see all your old pals when you come back to Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving. All of em.) I made this same walk earlier in the season, when a mediocre Miami team blew Pitt out. Then, my father listened as I cussed out Wannstedt, the Pitt players, the band, Heinz Field, the cheerleaders for not being hot enough, the Cathedral, everything. This time? I just walked, pursed lips and ambivalent brows gracing my vacant head. Some say they'd rather feel pain than feel nothing at all. Well, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and looked at an incoming text from a Pitt buddy:

'I have NEVER said this before,' it read, 'but FIRE WANNY.'

I never said it before this season, either, but after all the accumulating fumbles, overthrows, false starts, holds, baffling calls and choke jobs, Dave Wannstedt's tenure as Pitt's football coach has fallen completely flat, much like Tino Sunseri taking a sack on a bootleg. (JUST THROW IT AWAY!!!!). To drive me to complete apathy toward my beloved college football team might be Wanny's top accomplishment at Pitt. Then again, that's not sayin' much.

The bottom line is this: It's Dave Wannstedt's time to go. And here's why.

This starts at the beginning, and by that I mean a muggy, late August Thursday in 2005. This was before I became 'That Guy,' before we became 'Those Guys,' before any of us on the Third Floor of Tower B became any guys at all. This night happened to be the second I was living at college, a night I normally would have rolled 10, 12, 26-deep to the Union to awkwardly eat luke-warm pizza and force conversation. Instead, this night, me and CLo, united as best friends over the summer thanks to Facebook, would meet Dave Wannstedt.

He walked out through a crowd of freshmen at Heinz Field, actually on Heinz Field for some billboard photo of which me and CLo would be right at the front (Several members of my family saw this billboard, whatever it was and wherever it was, and remarked that they could see me on it. I was confused by this, because there were a lot of kids on the field that night. But I never actually saw the billboard, so I don't know. I'll never know).

When Wanny broke through to the front of the crowd, taller than everyone, he graciously posed for cell-phone pics with me and CLo. He transitioned between conversations fluidly, asked everyone where they were from and knew at least a thousand people in each of our hometowns. And he's doing all of this with an effortless mustache. That night, I was convinced Dave Wannstedt was the most awesome human being alive and that Pitt would win a National Championship with him as head coach. It might take time, but it would happen. I was as sure of this as I was that I would have to carry around a billy club to fend off the girls in college.

The next week, a Charlie Weis-coached Notre Dame team blew us out. The week after, we lost to Ohio. Just ... Ohio. Then Nebraska in the Greg-Lee-gets-chased-down-by-a-white-guy game. These were supposed to be my prime college days, but the painful defeats kept accumulating as I gazed wistfully at my fend-off-the-girls club gathering dust in the corner. What was clear (depressingly so) was that Dave Wannstedt would not lead the 2005 Pitt Panthers to a national title. What wasn't so apparent were the prevailing reasons why. And none of us saw it then, because we all saw Wanny as I did on that balmy August evening.

To say the leash for college coaches is short is to say Tom Cruise is short. It's an understatement. (Though, I'll freely admit that I melt for A Few Good Men, Top Gun, Mission Impossible and Jerry McGuire. Every time). But even if you can't handle the truth (...HAH!), there are plenty of coaches who get fired too soon. We all know this. But 'time' is not the only ingredient to building a winning program. If the guy does not know how to win, no matter how many years he's given, he won't win. Patience won't make him a better coach. Problem is, for us fans, it takes time to realize this, especially when you want your coach to succeed. It's no different than a survey. To get an accurate representation, the sample size must be large enough. One bad season? OK. Six bad seasons? Worth a pull on the collar.

Back in 2005, we all wanted Pitt to be a 'pahrhaas' again in football, and most of us still believed this could happen, because we wanted to believe it. We wanted to believe in Wanny -- a Pitt guy, an NFL coach. You could say he had us at hello. ( .... AHAH!) As such, we ignored all the red flags challenging Wanny's ability to win, plowing through every excuse a losing program uses in the first four years after a coaching change. We're still young. These aren't his guys. They're not built for HIS system. Boy Walt really left us with NO talent. If you are a fan of Pitt football, you said every one of those words at some point between 2005 and 2007, I know you did. I did. And, much like a delusional celebrity mistress, I believed all of it. I wanted to believe all of it. I wanted Pitt to win and compete for BCS games and national titles. Why? Bragging rights. Gloating. Ego. Envy. All the things that make humans horrible.

Because of that, I ignored our pal Ross' distaste for Wanny after his jaunt with the Bears. I ignored all the play calls and game decisions that turned up your palms, all the empty hyperbole and all the games and the 2007 season Pitt fumbled away. I wanted Dave Wannstedt to be a winner, and I ignored all the glaring evidence to the contrary in the first few seasons. To me, the results couldn't be trusted, because the sample size wasn't yet adequate. It was like watching a new HBO series. You have to give it a chance!

I hoped the Dave Wannstedt era at Pitt would be Entourage. Instead, it's equating more to Hung or Flight of the Concords or Bored to Death or ... well, you get it, unless you don't have HBO. The point is that we're six seasons in, and Pitt is losing games like it was in Year One. Worse, Pitt is playing the same as it was in Year One -- tight, conservative and, worst of all, afraid. Players have come and gone, so have assistants. There's one common denominator, and it's not Matt Cavanaugh.

Now, if you're reading this right now (in which case I could probably guess who you are in like, five guesses, max) I'm making it seem like Dave Wannstedt is one final gutless loss away from being fired. In reality, I'm rather certain he isn't, because I don't make those decisions. A Pittsburgh newspaper writer already went into great detail describing why Wanny likely won't be fired (did a very fine job, the newspaper writer did), and it has mostly to do with an ideological gap. Whereas I want a top 10 team every year, it seems like those who make these decisions are content with a nice, clean program that graduates players and competes in close games. That's what it seems like.

That's what worries me. Very much like my belief that I'd have to club-off the college chicks with each walk to class, it's striking me now that maybe I had it all wrong to begin with. And like Stevie Johnson dropping the winning touchdown against the Steelers, I'm humbled. And I might never get over it. Ever.

But to quote a movie I once saw:

'Every passing minute is a another chance to turn it all around.'

-- Is it a Tom Cruise quote? You bet your ass it is.

No keys ... push to start

2010-11-03T18:21:00.004-05:00

Let's go back in time ...

It's June 2008. I'm 20, and I'm about to hear something I won't remember until three years later.

It's an impossibly nice Friday afternoon in New York City, the type of afternoon so nice it upsets you at work. People unaware of their net worth just don't get to enjoy an afternoon like this. But here's me, an unpaid college intern so new to Manhattan that I get lost on numbered streets, and I'm having the prix-fixed lunch option at a crowded sidewalk cafe on a secluded cobblestone street. We're outside. There's a building blocking the sun just enough that I don't have to keep checking the tops of my hands for sunburn. And to top it all off, the waitress seems French but understands just enough English to know that I ordered the pistachio gelato, NOT the mango.

Since you're reading this now, you know I spent the summer of 2008 in New York City as an intern at a well-known television network and only left to celebrate my 21st birthday (since my mother might read this) with several nice, low-key nights in Las Vegas. When ranking my summers of the Post-Football Camp era, Summer 2008 is the undefeated and un-scored-upon juggernaut champ. George Costanza had his summer. This was mine. And it was great.

What I realize now, though, is that my Summer of 2008 was an elaborate sandcastle built at low-tide. I'm 23 now, back in New York and still come out of the subway and walk halfway down the street before realizing I'm going the wrong way. I've returned to where I built my wondrous sandcastle (much cooler than yours) three summers ago, but all I see now is an ugly brown lump. High tide came, and I suddenly remember seeing a warning sign on the dunes.

Back to the sidewalk meal ...

I was there because my co-workers took me out for lunch to celebrate my 21st. Upon arrival, I saw 'Prix-Fixed' lunch written on a chalkboard and asked the three of them what the 'Pricks-Fixed' lunch was. After pronouncing it correctly (pre-fixed) to the French waitress who may or may not have known the difference anyway, the four of us chatted while waiting for the food to come. At the time, the three of them were my age now, so, like, 23 or 24, and they started talking about where they live and how much they pay for rent in these places. The numbers that followed included the word 'thousand,' and my initial reaction then was that they must pay their rent yearly, maybe even in intervals longer than that. Not the case. That's monthly rent, in the thousands.

At the time, I said something like, 'These numbers are frightening me," and they laughed. But I was serious. I was legitimately appalled. However, like many other encounters I had with real life while in college, I chose to ignore these numbers and keep my focus on more immediate matters, like what the difference is between gelato and ice cream (You can't tell me they're not the same thing). After all, I had all of senior year left! And rent at 353 Semple was a robust $400 a month. Life after that? Psh! SENIOR YEAR!

Fast forward from that carefree summer, and here we are now. Back to New York, like Coral and The Miz. Just like I drew it up, only with a slight delay in Pittsburgh and a random, way-out-of-the-way-but-not-necessarily-unwelcome detour through Colorado Springs. Honestly, I've wanted to come back to the city here since I left, thinking I'd just get a sweet/awesome/cool job and my whole life would be the Summer of 2008 again.

Again. Not the case.

A sweet/awesome/cool job I have, and I'm happy to have it. I am. But having a cubicle on the island of Manhattan cannot be taken at face value. Life in New York City comes at a price, and that price is steeper than the eastern face of the Flatirons in Boulder (Yeah, what up Colorado, I got you). I realized this during the Summer of 2008. However, I chose to ignore it then in lieu of good times, because everyone likes good times. Then, while paying zero dollars in rent for close to a year and really no prospects of returning to the island here, I kinda forgot about the offensive cost of living in New York. In Colorado Springs, I paid more than I should have in rent, but I had a very nice apartment with a pool and mountains in the background, and I didn't feel like I was being swindled or bamboozled in any fashion.

Then I got the job in New York, and I started looking for a place to live. Most of the bus shelters, public bathrooms and overpasses were already spoken for, so, begrudgingly, I hit Craigslist to try to find an apartment in a part of Manhattan that doesn't sound like 'Harlem.' For some inexplicable but inescapable reason, people value those properties more than the prime piece of real estate at 353 Semple Street. And the bidding starts at one thousand dollars.

Monthly rent in the thousands. I know, tastes like pistachio ice cream.

This is how New York works. It punishes you for being here. For a city that's glorified in pop culture as much as it is (we'll get to that in a second) and with so many cool things to do, it sure does its best to financially dismantle you. Again, I knew this. But I forgot.

How do you forget something like that? You just do. You live somewhere long enough and you get used to a certain way of life. I didn't live in New York too long the first time, but I was here long enough to get used to things being expensive. When I left and things got cheaper, I got used to that just the same. I used to tell a story a lot when I came back to Pittsburgh from New York the first time. It involves the cost of a certain type of beverage and said cost, on average, being exponentially higher in New York than in Pittsburgh. I got used to that while here the first time. But when I went away for a few years, I forgot about it. So when I came back up and met a buddy at an establishment that serves such beverages, I asked this:

"What's the special?"

He looked at me.

" ... There's no special."

And that's how it is. It can't help but make you think of Alicia Keys singing 'In Neew Yooooooorrrrrrrk! Con-crete jung-les where dreams are maaaaade of, there's nothing you caaaaaaaan't dooooo ..." It sounds so glorious. But think of who's singing it. Alica freakin' Keys. She's filthy rich. And she's only half right. There's nothing you caaaaaan't doooooo .... with enough money. There's tons you caaaaaaan't dooooo on a budget. Of course, there's plenty of hip-hop dedicated to New York's armpits and being strapped financially (and being strapped in other ways), but they're not singin' those on Glee.

The two most important lines from Jay Z in that song are these: if I can make it here, I can make it anywhere. Somewhere, Frank Sinatra is going, 'Hey ...' Nonetheless, it's true. The other is 'half a y'all won't make it.' Now, Old Blue Eyes is probably like, 'Well, I never said that,' but, nonetheless, that's true, too. Be the king in New York, and you're the king pretty much all over the place. But the overwhelming odds of you becoming the king everywhere aren't good.

Can it be done? It can. But I'm not sure how large the marketplace demand is for another white rapper. Or another rapper from Pittsburgh.

Hey, in New York, Wiz wouldn't even have a car to rap about, or he'd start including rhymes about the cost of parking, traffic, bad drivers and pedestrians who think the big orange hand means 'walk.'

A few other 'only in New York' tidbits:

- I met a guy who played hoops at Columbia, which is on Manhattan's Upper West Side. (Speaking of which, remember when everybody started saying 'West Side!' only pronounced it like, 'West SOID!' Remember that? What was that even about?). Anyway, yeah, Columbia hoops. The story as he told it was about a game they were set to play at Hofstra, which is on Long Island, about 30 miles away. Apparently, it was kind of a big game. 'The Battle for New York' or something like that it was called on ESPN radio. Well, the Columbia team bus set out to make the 30 mile drive to Hofstra about 4 hours before game time. And never made it. Why?
Traffic. So the game was canceled. A basketball game ... called off. Because of TRAFFIC.

- I was walking up the steps out of the subway the other day and spotted a paper bag overflowing with some type of brown substance that smelled like neither chocolate nor mud. Just ... layin' there.

- Granted, the news anywhere can be desensitizing (I'd like to create a new word for this: labotomatic. And I just named my first LP.) But the news teasers during Sunday night football here are strikingly matter-of-fact. For instance:

'A gruesome murder in Brooklyn. Details after the game.'

'Armed robbers strike in pure daylight. More after the game.'

'Deranged serial murderer at large in Manhattan, armed and dangerous. Details after the game.'

... I made the last two up.

This is a grenade-free zone

2010-08-06T20:04:00.008-05:00

I think we can all agree that the last scene of a movie is often the one that has the most influence on your feelings about the film as a whole. We'll call this the 'Hit by a bus' effect, which is best explained by a scene in Final Destination. It starts with something normal, like an argument between a guy and a girl, and the girl is so emotional and focused on the argument (and so are you) that she doesn't realize she's wandered clear into the middle of a busy road. She's shouting something about some kind of feelings (presumably), then BOOM. Hit by a bus. Dead. Bus keeps right on goin', too. Immediately, you forget about the argument, because someone just got hit by a bus and killed. That's what stays with you.

So, at least in most cases, the final scene of a movie agrees with the rest of the film. And the point of, say, a comedy, above all, is to make you laugh. Therefore, the last scenes of a funny movie often are ones designed to do just that. You don't want to come away from a comedy like, 'Wow. That was incredibly deep and profound,' because then it's really not a comedy anymore. A comedy succeeds when you leave the theater saying, 'Wow. That was hilarious,' and then quote the thing uncontrollably for the next eight years.

Problem is, laughs can bury a good message, and I realized this on Friday morning around 10:38 a.m., Mountain Daylight Time, when I saw the video of Pitt's Jabaal Sheard reading a public apology for being involved in some recent hijinks. Been a lot of public apologies lately coming from sports people, local and national. And often, these are figures that we've decided to call 'role models.' I even wrote something on here a few months back criticizing these people.

My idea of what a Role Model is, though, should have changed several years ago, after I saw the movie of that title with Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott. The two actors show that guys who initially have no business being role models actually can turn out to be pretty good ones. But I forgot about that, because the movie was just too damn funny. I came away all laughs. Now? Still chuckles, but heart-warming chuckles.

Now, we probably can't call Jabaal Sheard a role model yet, but that has nothing do with his character and everything to do with his visibility. In a sense, all high-profile athletes, in one way or another, are role models to someone. But I'm here to talk about the biggest of the big boys, the Tiger Woods', the Ben Roethlisbergers, the athletes that kids would say they look up to before mentioning the words 'mom' or 'dad.'

I'm here to contradict something I wrote and posted a few months back, when I said I'm horrified for today's kids who don't have any professional athletes to call role models. I'm here to say they do. I'm here to say it's someone like Ben Roethlisberger.

I came to this conclusion because of a decision. The Decision, specifically, and how it was handled. It upset a lot of people, case you didn't hear. Turns out, seems the only folks who aren't acknowledging The Decision's backlash are the ones who encouraged it. The only people who don't think it was poorly handled are the ones who handled it. That's the problem.

Listen to a famous athlete or celebrity who has screwed up and had a lot of people find out, and you'll hear this every time: Everyone makes mistakes. Every time, never fails. And it's true. Everyone does make mistakes. But that's not the point. The point is that famous people are indeed people, and the ones who go through embarassing public scandals are willing to admit this and, often, vow to change their ways. Most of the time, they do. Guess what that is? Yup. Role model behavior, baby.

No one person will navigate life without a few hiccups (Whether or not those hiccups were preceded by cheap booze is a different story), and the ones who have the character to realize their colossal error in judgment, admit it, admit their fallabiilty, apologize and start acting better are the ones we should admire and emulate. Not the ones who fail to recognize a colossal error in judgment and then ignore the millions who do.

And since I like this blog to generally be humorous, I'll finish with this John Russell face montage:

Happy Russell

Sad Russell

Surprised Russell

Melancholy Russell

Angry Russell

Stoic Russell

Pensive Russell

Embarassed Russell

Mischievous Russell

Confused Russell

Sanguine Russell

Lastings Milledge

- Hey, speaking of the Pirates ...

It's not often that a local broadcast of your hometown baseball team offers a fresh experience, especially when that team is the Pirates. See, I think the Pirates broadcasters are in a tougher spot than we realize. They probably like their jobs. I like their jobs. But (!SPOILER ALERT!) the Pirates aren't very good at their own. Therein lies their predicament.

The official hometown broadcasts of any sports team are never fully objective, and no one expects them to be. That's what comes with having the rights and being the official broadcasting partner of any professional sports team. Offending the organization wouldn't be good business. That's understandable. What's a little off-putting*, though, is when the broadcast material begins to stray a wee-bit too far from the middle and into what I like to call 'Double Blink Territory' or simply 'DBT.'

What's 'DBT?' Well, do this for me: blink twice and raise your eyebrows. Do it again now, but slower ... slower .... now freeze! Perfect. The face you're now making is the face you make when someone on TV makes sure to note the quality of Charlie Morton's 'stuff' or how everyone underestimates how young starting pitchers need a veteran influence like Matt Morris (Blegh!). Now just add an impatient 'All right,' and you're about to pick up the clicker. Don't lie. You are.

Now, don't get me wrong. Play Tim Neverette's voice over a babbling brook and you got maybe 25 seconds before I'm paralyzed from the neck down. What I mean is that hearing TOO much praise affects how much you trust your hometown sportscasters. And that's why hearing out-of-town voices over your hometown team are so refreshing.

Living in Colorado, I get the Rockies broadcasts. I watch them, sometimes long enough to wander into DBT and eye the remote. But I'm really not a Rockies fan, never will be, and I'll gladly abandon a Rockies-Giants tryst on a Wednesday night for old reruns of Room Raiders.

That said, I set aside time to watch the Rockies when they're playing the Buccos, because I can't see the Bucs out here. I could buy the extra innings package, sure, but I like to eat, too, and I can't have both. So in the true sense of 'don't-know-what-you-got-til-it's-gone,' because you honestly have to leave them for a few months to appreciate the Pirates, I value a full-game broadcast that involves the Pittsburgh club. And Drew Goodman and George Frazier aren't screwin' it up.

I've gotten to know the Rockies' voices well enough to recognize them when I flip through the channels, and it's their work during Pirates-Rockies broadcasts that compelled me to write this. Being a voice of the Rockies, of course, you don't have to fluff the Buccos. They pump up the Rox, sure, but they have no obligation to the opponent. Therefore, their commentary on the Pirates, to me, is unprovoked, honest and most of all: valuable.

So when Drew and George praise Andrew McCutchen, it tells me that Cutch isn't buried in Pittsburgh. They respect Garrett Jones, which means other people outside of Pittsburgh surely must. They talk about the Pirates in the 70s and the World Series titles, which says that those days aren't totally forgotten. They love PNC Park, so maybe the Pirates haven't completely ruined PNC's game experience. They even know the full dish on Pedro Alvarez, Jose Tabata and Neil Walker. I realize knowing the opponent is in the job description of a competent MLB broadcaster, and nobody's mistaking George or Drew for freakin' Vin Scully here. But the Pirates don't pay them, yet they still have nice things to say about the organization. I like that.

- Sign No. 11 that you don't chew your food enough and/or need to stop inhaling burritos: Coughing up a full, un-punctured black bean. Seeing this in your palm would be like discovering a live goat inside the belly of a T-Rex (Yes, that's a Jurassic Park reference). What it means is that this piece of food, small, to be sure, but large enough to certainly draw some kind of tooth-mark, made its way directly from my hand and down my throat without my teeth interfering. It's like I breathed in a black bean. That's not good.

- Know what else the Rockies have? Respectably funny commercials ... involving players! That kind of entertainment value coming from eager and willing professional athletes can't be underestimated when there are pro athletes out there, believe it or not, who are jerks.

Here's one that's cut off on the right side because my blog is a stubborn idiot:

* In case you forgot, I left an asterisk up there next to the phrase 'off-putting.' Off-putting didn't hit 762 home runs on steroids, now, but I wanted to address why no one should use the term anymore. This blog post is the last time.

You might use 'off-putting' on occasion, but I know you don't say 'put off' or 'puts me off.' The latter even sounds inappropriate. What you do say, or at least what I say, is 'piss off' or 'pisses me off.' And since I generally assume that everyone else in the world does what I do, I suggest we replace off-putting with off-pissing, just for consistency's sake. Good? Good.

For lack of a better word ...

2010-07-25T23:18:00.009-05:00

Everyone seems to leave Las Vegas with a money story. (As in, a story about money, not a story that 90s Vince Vaughn might find particularly delightful.) Maybe the most remarkable part of this money story is that I probably won't tell it anymore.

To this point, I've told two tales about Las Vegas, both of which took place during the now-obligatory 'We're the first friends ever to go to Vegas after we turned 21' trip I took two summers ago. The first involves me losing a lot of money in a short amount of time. The second involves me giving money to a shady guy in a bathroom to get into a club. Either story, I lose.

So naturally, when I returned to Vegas two full years later, I figured I'd give winning a try. The trip, actually, was a victory in itself, because I didn't pay anything to be there, flying under the guise of business. And make no mistake, I came to do work. Vegas, baby. ... Right? Right.

And that's the thing. When you go to Vegas, you get these crazy ideas. As soon as I touch down, I imagine hitting a million-plus dollar jackpot on one of the slots near the baggage claim at McCarren, then essentially running the town for a week -- big bets, guests lists, VIP ropes, casually makin' it rain, the works. Now, I daydream just like anyone else any day of the week when I'm not in Las Vegas. I don't need suffocating heat to get to fantasizing. Problem is, there's a chance Vegas could actually make it happen. 'What if I do get lucky,' you think. 'What if ... just this once. Just this one time. What if it happens.' Even though you know it won't.

But because there actually is a chance you could not only win, but win big, you forget that the odds of you winning anything are the same as you nailin' Brooklyn Decker. Just because Brooklyn Decker shows up to the ESPYs without Andy Roddick, it doesn't mean she divorced him for you. Even though it may seem that way. Vegas is exactly like that. It's Brooklyn Decker alone on the red carpet, and you forget Roddick was ever involved in the first place. Vegas ... it gets in your head.

Regardless of why you're in Las Vegas, it isn't long before you're on vacation. Everything is so expensive, you think, 'Hey, I might as well indulge. I'm in Vegas!' And that goes for gambling, too, even if you can't tell craps from baccarat (It's OK, I know you can't). You gamble because it's there. It feels like you should. It's 'When in Rome,' used properly. I mean, think about coming home and having this conversation:

Friend: Hey man! How was Vegas?
You: So money, dude. Totally bitchin'. I kicked that town's ass.
Friend: Yeah? You win a lot?
You: You know what? I didn't even gamble, really.
Friend: You didn't?
You: Nah, no.
Friend: Huh. So ... what did you do?
You: I, uh, I don't know.

Embarassing. The only thing worse than going home broke is going home broke without a story. So if you're goin' down, might as well take your cuts, huh?

(For some background, I wasn't nearly this fatalistic during my fresh-meat Vegas trip. This led to the first story I used to tell, the one where I lost a lot of money in a short amount of time. This story actually begins with me winning a small amount of money over a long period of time, after which I got up and decided to raise the stakes. 'Let's f***in' gamble!' So I doubled the minimum and put down my maximum: 100 dollars, and promptly lost it all in 10 minutes. Spent the rest of the afternoon in the shower ... without the water on.)

I'm four days into this trip, now, and I haven't gambled at all, for good reason. You can't lose what you don't put in the middle, and I need to pay rent. But as my company all went their separate ways on this fateful night, I decided to go full-on Matt Damon, Mikey McD. But you can't win much, either. Two years ago, I would have parked at one of the penny slot machines and started to bother the waitresses for free drinks. But I'm not interested in gettin' tanked in front of professionals. Wouldn't be professional. With the 'bloon, bloon' of the slot machines reminding me that I can't get a whole lot more broke than I already am, I hawked around the casino like a vulture (or a hawk, I guess) looking for the lowest stakes possible. Sure enough ... a 10-dollar blackjack table turned belly up with an open seat. I swooped in, like a sparrow diving beak-first into a streak-free glass window. "Ten dollars, huh?" I said to nobody, so nobody responded. "Don't mind if I have a seat."

They couldn't have minded, because I was as courteous to the casino as freakin' Mr. Magoo. Like the bottom of the Pirates' batting order, I went down quietly, before I even really knew what happened. (Still referring to the Pirates there.) Only this time, I didn't sulk upstairs to drown myself in the bathtub. I drowned myself at the hotel bar, courtesy of a few free beers. (EVERYONE ELSE WAS DOING IT!!!!)

Normally, that's where my story would end. But that's where this one begins.

After a little, I began eyeing the casino floor again. And a tractor beam-like force pulled me toward a blackjack table with a 100-dollar minimum bet, where a guy I kind-of knew was playing. I stood there watching, quietly, for a little while, when I glanced over at the table minimum. It was no longer 100, but 1000. I blinked a few times, recounted how many beers I'd had, then noticed the guy in the colored suit who'd just sat down on the far left. (I say the suit was colored because I don't know what color it was, exactly. It was something between tan, yellow and cream, but I don't know what they call that color. I have one suit. It's black.)

Black, coincidentally, is the color of the $100 dollar chips at the Wynn casino. This man's chips were yellow. All eight stacks of them. On the first hand, he threw out 10 of these chips.

On the first hand, of blackjack, this man bet $10,000. Ten thousand dollars. And he lost it. And it didn't even phase him.

It startled me to hell, and I stared at him. Jaw dropped ever-so lightly, I stared long and good, very much like the Squints kiss of Wendy Peffercorn. In 10 or so minutes, the time it takes me to lose 100 bucks, this guy had won $44,000. I know this because I counted. I was captivated. Then he got up and walked away.

That's how you win in Vegas. When you have as much money as the casino, the odds even out a little. And make no mistake, this guy was no movie star or professional athlete. He had one woman on his arm, not an army of bodyguards and flocks of hoodrats surrounding his table (Like someone else did that evening. ... Not me.) Still, he took 44,000 dollars from the Wynn that evening, and I'll remember it for the rest of my life. Thing is, I didn't do anything. I just watched it happen.

Years from now, I probably won't tell the story about this guy winning 44 thou as much as I will about me losing 100 (the first time). And I think that's a good thing.

If you leave Vegas with nothing but a story, then I think you win. Doesn't matter if that story involves you marching into the casino and offering up your hard-earned cash to the already filthy rich owner or you accepting a shady dude's proposal to escort you past the ridiculous line into a club and paying him 100 dollars in a bathroom to do so. Just as long as it involves you.

- The best game to play in Las Vegas, actually, doesn't cost any money at all ... up to a certain point. The game is called 'Yes or No,' and the premise is simple: identify a passing young lady and, based on her best night attire, declare whether or not you believe she's a hooker. 'Yes' means yes and 'no' means no. It is NOT easy.

- Not sure how I felt about the season 2 opener of Jersey Shore, but I know this much: I didn't get near enough of Mike The Situation, who is close to becoming my favorite character on television. See, I didn't like him initially, probably like most people. But then I started to realize that 'situation' is a perfect word to describe a lot of things, and every time I used 'situation' or though of it, it reminded me of The Situation. (I tried using 'position,' 'status,' even 'spot' in everyday conversation, and they just sound like you're trying to not use 'situation.') So, since he's unavoidable, I accepted him as I prepared for Season 2 by re-watching Season 1. And guess what? I loved him! I initially pegged him as a delusional creep, but I think he's very aware of who he is. And he's just goin' with it. That's awesome. Now it's like I have a new friend, and I'll take all the friends I can get in freakin' Colorado.

Problem is, I don't know if we'll get to see the Situation at full strength in Miami, where the chicks (one would assume) aren't as trashy and desperate as those at the actual Jersey Shore. (No offense to anyone, but I'm fairly certain that's an accurate assessment.) In Miami, Sitch loses some of that 'Big Fish, Little Pond' appeal that allowed him to thrive in Seaside. Will it be all 'grenades' and 'landmines' in Miami? I don't know, but I'm willing to find out now that Situation and I are on good terms.

- When asked about the possibility of getting booed at Heinz Field, Ben Roethlisberger said, 'It would tear me apart if it happened at home.' Somewhere, Billy Stull is scoffing.

- Notice how I've just smoothed right over the 80-plus day gap in posts? Didn't even realize it was that long, did ya? Yeah, it was, though.

We're not in Kansas anymore

2010-05-06T22:17:00.004-05:00

When I drove past a green road sign that read Now Leaving Kansas in cursive, all I could think was that Dorothy must have been a terrible actor.

It's actually a 12-year old Judy Garland, the actress who played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, whose skills I now question. You know the scene. It's famous. After a wicked tornado drops Dorothy and her dog, Toto, into the magical world of Oz (Not to be confused with the Dr. or the HBO drama about prison), Dorothy, as if the dog can speak and understand English, utters this:

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

Ugh ... cut!

Let's take that scene again, this time without a Greatest Generation tweeny-bopper butchering what surely was the original, intended screenwriting:

"Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore ... thank the Lord Jesus Christ."

There are places I've seen that have taken my breath away. Then, there are places that have slowly and painfully sucked the breath out of me. To get to one of the former places, I had to endure one of the latter.

The former, of course, is Colorado Springs, a city more picturesque than George Clooney in a tux (And yes, I'm comfortable with that analogy). The Springs is eye-maddening harmony between civilization and wilderness, a booming urban sector nestled at the base of the towering, snow-capped Rocky Mountains. I now live here, and I like that just fine.

The latter, of course, is Kansas.

Now, you could argue that there's a lot to see in Kansas, because Kansas is the 15th largest state in America. That's out of 50. And make no mistake: Kansas is huge. Oh, is it ever. But never have I seen a state paint so little with so much canvas. Kansas reminded me of an old Italian restaurant back on McKnight Road called the Italian Oven. It was one of those places that had paper tablecloths that you can scribble and sketch on with crayons. (Thank God it went out of business before any of us hit puberty). Well, imagine getting the party table at the Italian Oven, beholding below your eyes and elbows a vast expanse of smooth white, then getting no crayons. If that table were a state, it would be Kansas. Unmarked. Unmolested. Blank.

My dad and I didn't fully realize just how barren Kansas is until we saw it for ourselves. However, that's not to say we didn't have an idea. My father's acquaintances from work, who apparently have driven across the country (which is odd, considering they all work for an airline and can fly for free), offered this advice upon hearing of our then-forthcoming drive from Pittsburgh to Colorado: Just wait'll ya see Kansas.

Before we saw Kansas, we saw the rest of southwestern Pennsylvania, the greasy panhandle of West Virginia and all of Ohio, Indiana, southern Illinois and Missouri, most all of which look the same, save a few cities every here and there -- Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis. In each of those states, there was a benchmark to aim for. We'll stop for gas in Columbus. We'll stay overnight near Indianapolis. We'll look for food around St. Louis. The cities are like the blueberries in pancakes. They break up the monotony of a bland landscape (blandscape?) and give you something to look forward to. For most of our trip, we shot from one blueberry to the next.

What, then, when there are no more blueberries? Is it just pancake? Will there be at least some syrup (river)? This is what goes through your mind when you're sitting in rush-hour traffic around Kansas City, the last large piece of fruit on the plate. The Kansas City skyline (which is one skyline for which I cannot, in good conscience, describe as 'majestic') lingers in your rear-view for some time. When it's gone, oh boy. (Well, not really. There is Topeka, the Kansas state capitol, which is where we stayed our final night. But Topeka is the equivalent of Harrisburg, and no one in PA counts Harrisburg. Same logic applies here.)

When we readied to leave Topeka, it was like venturing into choppy, uncharted seas in the dark. Just wait'll you see Kansas. Before we pulled out of the Holiday Inn Express (which apparently is the Holiday Inn's answer to Snoop Dogg) I plugged our final destination, Colorado Springs, into the GPS. A nice feature of the GPS is that it tells you how long you have until you must change direction. Leaving Topeka for The Springs (I'm a local now, I can call it that), the first change in direction you make comes in 450 miles.

Four hundred fifty miles. And not one turn.

Minutes after we left, my father and I reached a crest on I-70, which slices Kansas in half, hot-dog style, and saw the road continuing on to infinity in front of us. To the left and right, endless green and brown fields so impossibly flat that you think God, after all, was one one us and just got a little lazy here (If you're into creationism).

Upon seeing this, this exchange followed:

Dad: Jeez, you could see for a hundred miles in each direction.
Me: (Raising my arms in front of me, palms-up) This is America!
Dad: This is the part of America I like to fly over.

Seeing Kansas with your own eyes makes you wonder about things. About why they settled on Iowa for the Field of Dreams. If the Field of Dreams were in Kansas, would Shoeless Joe/Ray Liotta have asked Kevin Costner, 'Is this Heaven?,' or, instead, 'What the hell is this?' Would James Earl Jones have said, 'People will come, Ray. People will most definitely come,' or, instead, 'People will see it from the highway, Ray, and just keep on driving.'

Kansas makes you wonder how Bill Self recruits good players to play basketball in Lawrence, and if he choppers them in and out from the Allen Fieldhouse parking lot in front of every hot girl on campus. It makes you wonder whether Frank Martin really does make recruits offers they can't refuse.

It makes you wonder whether or not this trip is actually worth it.

Ah, that's better.

FIRST ANNUAL CROSS-COUNTRY ROAD TRIP AWARDS:

Award for Largest Indoor Structure Seen: Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis. That place is huge.

Award for Worst Rest-Stop Chicken: Popeye's somewhere in Ohio. Just avoid all Popeye's in Ohio, or all Popeye's's' everywhere, would be my advice.

Award for Largest Power-Generating Windmill Farm: Wha ... Kansas? Kansas won something? Yeah, well, you know the line of those windmills on the PA Turnpike? There's like 7 of them? Well, Google 'Kansas Windmill Farm' and look at some of the photos. Only thing in Kansas that prompted an 'Oh, my goodness' from me that didn't sound like Charlie Morton had just given up another bomb.

Award for Best Roadside Sign: Kansas again, but this is an award in complete futility and unintentional comedy. There were a lot to choose from in this category, all of which grace the roadside of I-70 in Kansas, including: 'Rock City: A National Landmark!' ... Russell, Kan., actually erecting a billboard proclaiming it to be the proud home of both Arlen Specter and 'Bobby' Dole ... The Triple J Campground's rotting wood sign advertising free WiFi ... 'Come See the Greyhound Hall of Fame' ... A sign tempting you to veer off 70 to see the world's largest Prairie Dog and a live, 6-legged steer (As opposed to a dead, 6-legged steer) ... And a myriad of God signs, one of which simply read ETERNITY on one side and WHERE WILL YOU SPEND IT on the other.

It was tough to choose just one, but the winner drew the biggest laugh out of me when I actually saw it. It was supposed to read, 'Abortion stops a beating heart,' but it didn't spell out 'heart.' Instead, the word was subbed with a drawn, cartoon heart. So, at first glance, the sign read 'ABORTION' at the top and 'STOPS A BEATING' underneath it. And for a second, I thought it was about child abuse.

Award for Sketchiest Neighborhood Stopped In For Food: North St. Louis. I looked it up when we made it through to Topeka, and St. Louis is apparently one of the most dangerous cities in the country. Was that Steak N' Shake really worth it? Probably.

Award for Most Tumbleweeds Seen in One State: Colorado, with 5. Tumbleweeds seen before Colorado: 0.

Award for Highest Speed Limit: Again, Colorado. 75!

Award for most Adult Superstores: Oddly enough, Kansas. There was even one right across the road from the Russell Stover chocolate factory.

Award for Most Indulgent Rest Stop: Russell Stover's on one side. Porn on the other.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Kansas can't be THAT bad. Well, see for yourself with a camera-phone shot snapped through my windshield.

- Now, just because the Jose's Mesa World Headquarters are now 2 full hours behind the East Coast doesn't mean Jose will go all Derek Bell and order an Operation: Shutdown. Jose's Mesa, in the exact same capacity as the Death Star, is still fully operational.

The kids and The Kid

2010-04-25T17:20:00.005-05:00

When you're a kid, a lot about who you are has to do with who you like. Which is why I'm horrified for today's children.

If you've ever watched the Little League World Series on ESPN, part of how they introduce the players, and probably self-validate their coverage of 12-year olds, is by having every kid say who his favorite Major Leaguer is. Not only does it add a touch of nostalgia and innocence to a broadcast in which youth are being exploited for ad dollars, but often times it tells you more about the kids than whether or not they cry if they lose. (They all do.)

An example from a few years back: I was convinced that the Massachusetts team was just one kid who pitched, caught, fielded and batted 1-through-9, because every kid's intro was identical. Hi, my name is Jimmy Little Leaguer, I play third base, and my favorite player is Jacoby Ellsbury. And my favorite player is Jacoby Ellsbury. Favorite player Jacoby Ellsbury. Jacoby Ellsbury. Jacoby Ellsbury. JACOBY ELLSBURY!!!!! FAVORITE PLAYER!!!!!!!!

And I get it, I do. I'm from the Griffey generation, where you could pick out the stud on every T-Ball, Pinto and Little League team, from the Marlins to the Yanks, by finding the kid wearing No. 24. And the kid wearing 24 on the Mariners? Best player in the whole league, if not the whole galaxy. We all idolized Griffey because he was young, awesome AND cool, which, combined, spawned "sweet." Ken Griffey Jr. made "sweet" the quintessential superlative through much of elementary and middle school, and we all yearned to be pure sugar. For today's young Red Sox fans, Ellsbury, to some extent, I guess, is their Griffey. And that's fine. It just doesn't say much for their individuality. Not that you have any at 12.

The point is, they have a Griffey -- a sweet player with a statement number, now that Ellsbury wears No. 2. Really, with Dustin Pedroia (15), they have two Griffeys, which is unfair. Griffeys were meant to be shared, not hoarded. But the odds that another baseball player inspires kids across the nation like Griffey did are slimmer than a rookie-year Barry Bonds. Individual numbers races just don't captivate us anymore. Steroids blew that up, much like they did to Barry's melon.

So now, like the Little League team from Massachusetts, kids settle for regional heroes. And now, I'm weary for kids like me.

There's a reason the Little League World Series is televised in America and the Bantam AAA Tier 3 club hockey championship is not. The Chevy commercial didn't go, "Hockey, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet." Field of Dreams was not Rink of Dreams, and Roy Hobbs didn't explode a light tower with a slapshot. America's Pastime is baseball, and more kids here play it growing up than any other sport. I have little factual evidence to support this other than my own experiences, but I'm going to assume (or at least hope) that things haven't changed all that much since the mid to late 90s. (Kids still play pogs, right? Pretty sure they do.)

Problem is, Pittsburgh has one Griffey, and he's a hockey player. Sidney Crosby is the only professional athlete Pittsburgh sports fans can be head-over-heels in love with and feel good about it. He's the only one kids can idolize. But he plays a sport that's not the most accessible or accommodating for a young kid. I know this. I signed up to play youth hockey. Had the forms all filled out. Then my mom told me practices start at 5 a.m., and those forms were magically lost.

And I'll admit, hockey is a lot more popular here now than it ever was, and the Penguins should be commended for that. But let's not get this confused: we do not live in Canada. Playing hockey is not a rite of passage here. If you're a kid and you don't like getting up at 5 a.m. to work (Tell me that is not every kid), you're probably not playing hockey on ice. Street hockey after school, maybe. But that's no more than a hobby. Plus, if your mom and dad don't have $300 to blow on a Wednesday night, then you're not going to see Crosby in person. Crosby is every bit of an idol, but one many can really only watch on TV.

The problem, then, is this: Kids can idolize Crosby all they want, and they should. He's a shining beacon of perfection. But can a kid growing up in Pittsburgh really relate to Sidney Crosby like kids in Nova Scotia can, especially when only about 20 percent of the players in the NHL are American? See, I don't think so. Crosby, no doubt, is huge in Pittsburgh. But in Canada, he might as well be Jesus Christ. Pittsburgh kids might love to watch Sid, but I'm betting a much greater number of Canadian kids (poor things) actually aspire to be Sid. And their odds of doing it, or at least getting close, are a lot better than that of their American counterparts.

When I was 6 or 7, before we became aware of Griffey, I wanted to be Andy Van Slyke. My T-Ball team was the Reds, but you bet your ass I was wearing No. 18. I took that No. 18 off my back only to shower, and even that was probably only at my mother's insisting. Sure, I had a Mario Lemieux jersey, too, and I wore it so much that my parents eventually enforced a rule that I could wear it only once a week. (Often, I would appeal that Saturday and Sunday were, indeed, part of separate calendar weeks, therefore allowing me to wear the 66 two straight days. I was a clever little piece of work.) Still, I never remember wanting to BE Mario. I was convinced that Van Slyke was me in 20 years.

Ask a kid in Pittsburgh tomorrow who his favorite baseball player is, and what do you think you would hear? Andrew McCutchen, maybe? Well, how can you idolize a guy when the joke of a team he's on loses games by 20 runs? Roberto Clemente? Perhaps, but our generation learned about Roberto growing up because our parents actually saw Roberto play. They saw greatness with their own eyes and told us all about him. But they're now becoming grandparents. And, as unfortunate as it was, Roberto died almost 40 years ago.

Kids don't idolize losers. I watched the 20-0 debacle, partly because of the whole 'horrific train-wreck' effect, but also because I wanted to see how everyone reacted -- the players, the coaches, the fans -- on the Pittsburgh side. The players or coaches didn't give me much, but the kids in the stands did. At the end of the game, they began to cheer the Brewers. When the guys you come to see are so comically bad that you start to cheer the OTHER team, then you can't have any respect for those guys you came to see. It's not overt, but respect is essential for aspiration. Tell me this generation of kids respects the Pirates. Tell me anyone respects the Pirates. (Cue Bill Simmons) ... You can't.

Those who get the respect are the ones who get the glory. And it would be OK if the winners were all good guys, but, haha, we all know that's not true. Trouble is, the winners can get away with being not-so-good-guys because they make people money. What that says to the little kid wearing the No. 7 jersey is the same message that got Playmakers canceled. When you're a playmaker, the rules don't apply.

The rules apply, I guess, but not as swift or as strictly as they should. The hammer hit Roethlisberger, but it double-clutched and held up a little. And before all this? He was football's Crosby, at least in this city, where football rules like the O'Doyle family.

So, in Pittsburgh, where the baseball team is a laughingstock and where hockey will never unseat football in popularity, who do you think the kids have wanted to be?

Quick, somebody check the 5th-grade playground for Devil shirts and roped-off, VIP areas and bodyguards! Break up the pee-wee quarterback's entourage!

It's not too late. I know it's not too late. I pray for Neal Huntington to get it right. If not for me, than for the kids.

For the kids.

- Let's get back to the Little League World Series. I've watched it. You probably have seen it, too, which makes us both horrible, wretched people.

Think about when you've clicked it on, and why. I can give you three reasons why:

1. The Danny Almonte Factor - Whether the kid is 12 or 18, watching one player dominate the rest of the world's best Little Leaguers is wildly entertaining, partly because we love a good phenom, but also because there's bound to be controversy over the kid's birth certificate. And that he's 6-foot-2 and throwing the Major League equivalent of 108 mph with a biting curve won't help his argument.

2. The Foreign Team Factor - Maybe they're from Japan, maybe Taiwan, maybe the Dominican. You imagine the foreign team coming in undefeated, being as dominant as Team Iceland (the heavy favorite), and you want to see just how good they really are by measuring them against their American equivalent, because that's what we do with everything else in the world.

3. The Meltdown Factor - It's a shame, but it's inevitable. The Little League World Series ends in just one team's triumph. For the rest, it ends in the heartbreak of uncontrollably emotional 11- and 12-year olds. Whether the pitcher hung a curve that got blasted over the fence, the right-fielder air-mailed the throw home, the shortstop muffed the double-play exchange or the first-baseman threw home with 2 outs, these mistakes will haunt these kids for the rest of their lives. I know this, again, from my own experiences. And my blunders weren't on TV for the planet's viewing pleasure.

Wow. I feel awful.

- A few more things about Griffey ...

Had he stayed healthy for his whole career, Ken Griffey Jr. may have been the best baseball player of all time.

Sound crazy? Here are his career statistics. Look at those numbers! And that includes four seasons in which he played fewer than 84 games.

Do the math: On average, for every 162 games he played, which is a full season, Griffey hit 38 home runs. He's been playing for 22 years. Had he played every game of every season of his career, he'd now have 836 home runs. Even eliminating one full season from that total, he would still have 36 more dingers than Barry Bonds.

And I'm convinced Griffey never juiced. Many are convinced Griffey never juiced, partly because he didn't have to. And if you look at Griffey today (because he's still playing), he doesn't look blown up like McGwire, Bonds, Sosa, or any of the other sluggers who shamed themselves during the Roids Era. Griffey looks a little fat in that classic "Dad who put on 40 pounds over the years" kind of way, but not in the "Looney Tunes, stick a finger in your mouth and blow" kind of way.

Don't buy it? Here's a photo of Griffey on an SI cover. Note the date: October 1995.

Here's Griffey last August. And read the story with that photo when you have the time.

Conversely, here's a Barry Bonds 'before and after,' photo. And there are several of these.

Bonds, of course, will be remembered as much for the steroid allegations as for being a prolific home run hitter. In a similar way, Griffey will be remember for being hurt as much as being great.

If that's not convincing enough, consider the cultural impact he had while playing IN SEATTLE.

What was the big worry of the NBA two years ago, when Oden and Durant were coming out 1 and 2 to Portland and Seattle? That they would get buried out on the West coast, right? That no one back East would ever get to see them play. Remember that?

People not only saw Griffey in Seattle, but Griffey, eventually with some help from A-Rod and Randy Johnson, made the Mariners cool.

Sweet.

Go play intramurals, brother

2010-04-19T21:47:00.005-05:00

Back in my working days, when I didn't have time to waste 20 dollars hitting the medium-speed batting cages all afternoon, I used to do interviews. Often, I learned things from these interviews. Sometimes, I'd use that knowledge to my benefit.

One talk I had with a high school basketball coach helped the fundamentals of my jump shot, even if I still can't handle the ball well enough to get an open look. Several conversations I had last summer with professional fishermen convinced me that I could catch a ton of bass despite not having fished since 8th grade. (Didn't catch anything then, either.) And a hockey coach once told me something that I think needs repeating now.

I, of course, am between jobs, (OK, between internships, jerk. PAID internships, mind you. PAID.) and I've taken the month or so before I tap the Rockies to again be a fan. I never wasn't a fan, really, but I missed a couple games a normal fan wouldn't miss because I had to work. Not only work, but actually pay attention while at work. (I know!) Even though Pitt lost, I missed almost all of last fall's Backyard Brawl. I had to turn down Steelers tickets at least once and reluctantly did the same for every chance I got to see the Pens. Until Wednesday, when Pede (Pronounced 'Pay-Day,' for our unfamiliar readers) called offering good seats at a reasonable price for Friday's Pens-Sens Game 2 at Mellon. I had the time. I figured I'd saved the money from all the tickets I'd let go before and hey, playoff hockey in one of the last games ever at Mellon Arena. The answer, with a similar enthusiasm to Hilary Duff's acceptance of Mike Comrie's proposal, was yes. The only thing missing was the outdoor nobber.

Despite that, excitement heading into the Igloo on Friday was at a Jimmy Fallon fever pitch. I'd directed us around all the traffic beforehand, and I even cracked a joke at all the chumps watching the game outside on the screen. Finally, I was on the inside, and roared as the Penguins won. I wore out the white-out T all night, with the matching towel hanging out my back pocket, complete with nacho-salsa stain. "Did you guys go to the game?" the bouncer asked at the door of Hines Ward's. "Uh huh."

Now? I'm being told to feel guilt, like I almost shouldn't have been there. And that's a load of crap. I know this because of my talk with the hockey coach some months ago.

That it was a hockey coach is mere coincidence, because the lesson is applicable to every level of every sport and every part of life. What the coach said came after his team, wholly mediocre until then, proved it could play with and beat the nation's elite. "We know we can play with the best," he said. "And now, nothing but the best will be accepted."

I believe in loyalty. I don't believe in delusion. I will follow each of my teams until I die, but I won't cheer when they lose. I haven't bought a ticket to a September Pirates game ... I don't think ever. But some people have, and they call themselves loyal. I don't. I call them idiots. I won't support anything but winning, especially when a team demonstrates that it can win.

When a sports team of any kind wins a championship, proving it to be the best among its competitors, that then becomes the standard by which the team's fans judge its success. If the Penguins don't win the Stanley Cup, or at least make the Final and play competitively, will the team's fans, or even the team itself, judge this season to be successful? My money's on No.

So when the team or one of its stars plays below expectations, what's the general reaction supposed to be? Should fans be happy and cheer and clap lackluster play? Huh uh. When you pay a hundred bucks to watch your team play well, you express your displeasure when your team plays like crap.

Eighteen seconds after the puck dropped on Friday, Marc-Andre Fleury was scored on. This after a highly inconsistent season and another soft performance in a Game 1 loss at home. Yay! High-five! The Flower's on our team! I'm sorry. That's not going to happen. Not for a Stanley Cup contender and certainly not for a goalie who's proved he can play far, far better.

So when the Flower made the next save, he got a mocking cheer, and the media and players lashed out. The Flower deserves better! Better from the fans for his performance in last year's Stanley Cup! Where's the loyalty?!

It has nothing to do with loyalty. I heard a call on the radio a few weeks back from a guy who said he was a Penguins season ticket holder. This was during the time when the Pens were struggling to 'find their game' while, at the same time, flailing for the 'on switch.' The guy said he was thinking about asking for a refund for his tickets for those abhorrant games, and that's understandable. If you go to Eat N' Park for dinner, and both the service is bad and the food is undercooked, do you leave a 20 percent tip? Do leave the restaurant saying, 'Ah, the service was pretty terrible, and the food was all but inedible. But that's OK, they'll get it right the next time.' No. You're pissed.

Now, a hard-working and personable server who gets your order right gets rewarded, and it's no different with athletes. Billy Stull got booed when he stunk. He got cheered when he didn't. It's a simple dynamic, one that a lot of athletes understand. They hate losing, they say, can't stand it. Well guess what? Fans hate losing, too, and many don't get millions of dollars as a consolation. When a fan buys tickets and helps to pay that huge contract or tuition bill and is presented with a hot, steamy pile of poop on the field of play, the fan gets pissed, and the players serving it up are treated accordingly.

The Flower? He got better treatment for last year's Stanley Cup. It was called a victory parade, and like a million freakin' people showed up. He got all kinds of better treatment then, because he was great. That's what happens when you're great. You get cheered. Why do you think Penguins fans never boo Sidney Crosby? Because he's great. All the time. Flower proved he could be in last year's playoffs. Now, nothing but that will be accepted, especially for 35 million dollars.

Why booing is such a hot-button topic around here, I don't entirely get. If you have a problem with booing, perhaps you take issue with a document called the Constitution or with a group of men we call our Founding Fathers. America was created, at the most basic of levels, because those guys booed the British government. Then they fought a war, but even that wouldn't have happened had George Washington decided to renew his season tickets. He didn't, thank God. And look how far we've come, baby.

Booing, hissing, mocking, it won't stop. It's in the fan's Bill of Rights, rights many have died to protect. Those who don't get that must not understand yearly competition. If mocking the Flower this season is wrong because of how he played last year, then why even bother playing this season? Why not just take this year off, right? Why try to win the Cup this year when we won it last year?

Nah, I don't buy it. Pro athletes aren't getting paid to win last year, and fans aren't buying tickets for last season's games. Booing or mocking has nothing to do with the past. It has everything to do with right now, which is when fans expect their teams to get their order right. If the steak comes out overcooked, sorry, but it's gettin' sent back.

Too harsh? Well, to paraphrase my good friend, Dan Hawkins:

IT'S NHL HOCKEY! IT'S THE STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS! Go play intramurals, brother. Go play intramurals.

Diary of Opening Day

2010-04-08T10:12:00.001-05:00

April 5, 2010

7:21 a.m.: I wake up, startled, by the sound of raindrops pelting on the roof. Immediately panic and rush to the window and see gray skies. Reflect on the intense and critical planning that went into the day's schedule, which is timed to the minute. Realize how rain would ruin it all, but hope the storm clears before the first match is set to the coals inside the portable grill.

(This happened once before, and the grill got rained on. It didn't say anything, but it wasn't happy. I could tell.)

7:22 a.m.: Check radar. Rain appears to be on its way out. Return to bed comforted and optimistic.

7:25 a.m.: Rain has ceased. Check radar again. It hasn't changed. Delighted, I can no longer sleep and bound down the steps as if it were Christmas morning and I am 8. It's not. It's Opening Day of baseball season, and I am 22. I'm not sure how to feel about these circumstances, but these are thoughts I repress, anyway, and I'll confront them when I'm 45, 350 pounds and unmarried.

7:33 a.m.: Go over the day's schedule while eating breakfast:

9 a.m.: Lukacs picks me up before getting Joe and Andy. I plan on bringing up Kevin Youkilis' 3 for 4 night on Sunday and reminding each that Youkilis is indeed on my fantasy team and not theirs.

9:30 a.m.: Meet the second car with our other friends at Giant Eagle and hit the road down to the park.

Absolutely no later than 10 a.m.: Get there, park, and commence tailgating activities. (Why no later than 10 when the game doesn't start until 1:35? What a ridiculous question to ask because of what happened last year. See, last year I went down with my friends from Pitt. Ah, the college days. Young and naive, we were, because we got there entirely too late, ended up getting stuck in traffic for close to an hour, couldn't find a parking spot anywhere on the North Shore and eventually performed the first-ever, street-side tailgate in the Strip District. Embarassing. But memorable.)

8:10 a.m.: Shower and dress in my 1996, nameless Pirates jersey (I never liked nameless jerseys, but I now realize that they are the single greatest investments for fans of teams that cycle through players like any team John Calipari coaches.) then wait for Lukacs to show up.

8:50 a.m.: He's here! Load the grill and cooler into the car and depart. (Lukacs is a West Virginia fan and, of course, I like Pitt. This is the first we've seen each other since Saturday night, when West Virginia lost in the Final Four to Duke. I don't bring it up. Neither does he, but we both know it's there.)

9:05 a.m.: Hitch No. 1 in the meticulously laid out plans. Lukacs stops at the bank to make a deposit. It's no big deal, really, since he picked me up 10 minutes earlier than I had anticipated. And, while he's in the bank, I hear Mobb Deep playing through the speakers and realize that line "Ain't no such things as half-way crooks" was his handy work. I suddenly have a new-found respect for Mr. Deep.

9:21 a.m.: We get Andy, and I pop the Youkilis line. He saw the stats. I'm beaming. A great day is ahead. I can feel it.

9:25 a.m.: Hitch No. 2 in the meticulously laid out plans. Joe was prepared with a case of beer, but didn't think to get ice. Worse things have happened, but that's like buying a high-def flat screen without the appropriate cables. Either ignorance or laziness is to blame, but neither should be excused. Now, instead of just stopping by the Giant Eagle before leaving, we must go IN the Giant Eagle to buy ice. (Ice?! ... Sanka from 'Cool Runnings,' thank you.)

9:30 a.m.: We pull into the Giant Eagle parking lot, and there's a big group of people all standing around a cluster of pickup trucks off to the left. They're dressed in Pirates gear. Are they ... are they tailgating at the grocery store? Did they get to the stadium, not find a parking spot and have to come back here?! I'm concerned.

9:31 a.m.: Can't locate the other car, so I call one of the friends actually in the other car, my friend Pat. (It's been interesting having a close friend with the same name, and every now and then it takes some explaining. 'No, we're both named Pat.' But it's also opened a window for some nice humor. Like the other night, for example, when we were watching the Final Four games, there was one pepperoni roll slice left and I asked, 'You want the last pepperoni roll, Patty?' He said something, and I quickly replied, 'Oh, no, I was asking myself.')

Pat answers and promptly gives an Oscar-worthy performance for best actor on a cellular device. I ask where they are, and he tells me they're at the WRONG Giant Eagle, and he says it like they actually made an honest mistake and wound up at the Giant Eagle across town. He tells me they'll be at this Giant Eagle in about 10 minutes (an accurate estimate), and just as I'm about to flip, their car pulls up behind ours. Pat gets out (not me, him) and approaches the other Pat (me) in the other car. 'Whoa. You got me,' I said. When I've been gotten, I admit it.

9:54 a.m.: The huge, freakin' Giant Eagle was out of ice, so we're still toting warm beer, and now we're stuck in traffic around the stadium. Not to mention every freakin' thing on the North Shore is under construction, and you can't drive 10 feet without cranking the brakes. So none of my North Shore shortcuts (North Shoretcuts?) are working, and we're just lurching around traffic in circles. I'm sweating now.

10:02 a.m.: By now, Joe and Andy have hopped out to go get ice, while Lukacs and I still try to find somewhere to park. Standstill traffic has blocked our way to our ideal lot, and our backup lots are all labeled "Leases Only," which doesn't make sense to me, because nobody should have a parking lease for the Pirates. But this is Opening Day, therefore all logic applied to each of the remaining 80 home games gets blasted to hell along with, presumably, the Pirates starter. It's Zach Duke today. Poor guy.

10:12 a.m.: I suggest something radical, and it pays off. I mention to Lukacs that the parking garage on the north shore appears to be traffic-free, presumably loaded with spots. Now, I've tailgated here before, several times for Pitt games, actually, and it's all right as long as you get on the top floor. We're already 12 minutes behind schedule today, so I say we stop the bleeding at hit the garage.

10:13 a.m.: Lukacs and I have this lovely exchange with the old garage attendant:

Lukacs: How are you today, sir?
OGA: Oh, not too bad, how are you guys?
Me: Good, good. Boy, the traffic out there is awful!
Lukacs: Yeah.
Me: And the construction! Just makes it 10 times worse. Everything's under construction around here.
OGA: Now if you just had a cop out there directing traffic ...
Me and Lukacs: Hahahahaha!

10:16 a.m.: Have you ever had a huge gamble pay off? It's near euphoria. We got to the top level of the garage, open to the sun, and find one other car. One. I can hear Gus Johnson ... "It's Opening Day! Ha Haaa!"

10:30 a.m.: I'm worried about the wind, worried that the lit coals are being extinguished with every strong gust. I just want the grill to be OK. I would give it a hug to nurture it and assure that it'll be OK, like the touching, Huggins-Butler hug. But I don't want to burn my face off.

11:05 a.m.: Three burgers got done before the first set of coals got dumped. Three burgers. I issue this statement:

"There were a number of factors to come into play when deciding to dump out the initial batch of coals. The first was, of course, the wind, and we were worried that the strong gusts we've been getting on top of the garage location here, despite positioning the grill in between the two cars, would be too much to maintain adequate grilling temperature. Secondly, these coals have been sitting around, idle, since last season, so that perhaps could have been a factor. And third, the high fat content of the cheap hamburgers I bought results in a larger than average fat drip onto the coals, thus extinguishing some of the heat. Now, I don't like to make excuses, so I'll take partial responsibility here. That said, we're optimistic we can get the flame going again and eventually have the grilling experience we'd hoped to have."

11:20 a.m.: A grill is an integral part of any serious sports tailgate, and it can mask a bunch of deficiencies in your operation. But it's not the only part you need to have if you want to be viewed by other tailgates as worthy. The tailgating hierarchy of supplies goes like this:

1. Beer. And there's no debating this.
2. Food of some type. A personal grill is the top option, of course, but a huge spread is also commended.
3. Games.

Now, the New York Yankees of tailgating games is and always will be cornhole (or bean-bag toss, if you're a prude.) If you have cornhole boards, you're a tailgater, even though they're almost cliche'd by now. But cornhole boards are big and can cause trouble with transportation if you don't own a pickup truck, and that's a Catch 22, because having a pickup truck is reprehensible in its own right. But what are the other options? Ladder Jacks or Ladder Golf is popular, as is the Washers tossing game. But what if you somehow combined tailgating games? Then, you'd be a tailgating innovator. A revolutionary.

Enter the game we're calling 'Poor Man's Cornhole.' It's a combination of Cornhole and Washers, with the Washers set up, but with beanbags to throw instead of washers. It's remarkable, and we're already drawing inquisitive looks from other tailgaters. One has even inquired as to what, exactly, the game is. That's where the 'Poor Man's Cornhole' title was whipped up, and it's wonderfully entertaining. I've passed on the grilling duties to the other peons at this thing so I can indulge in playing the game.

11:30 a.m.: Not only indulge in the game, but OWN THE GAME. Lukacs and I decimate our first opponents, 11-3. And I even went over the 11-point limit and got bumped back to 8. The first high-flying, chest bump happens as Joe appropriately calls our team a "buzzsaw."

11:40 a.m.: Second high-flying, chest bump!

11:47 a.m.: THIRD!

12:30 p.m.: Lukacs and I finished the day 6-1 in Poor Man's Cornhole, an unprecedented run. But now, Joe has suggested we play flip-cup (he brought a table) in the gusting wind. "An added element," he says. It's fun enough, but what I can't figure out is how nobody catches on that I cheat horribly.

A method first borrowed from Doug in college, the key to cheating at flip cup is positioning other cups or a can some 6 to 8 inches in front of the edge of the table where you are, forming a backstop. So when you flip the cup it hits that backstop and settles. Unless anybody's done it before, nobody notices, because the backstop looks like its just errant debris strewn across the table. Nope. It's cheating.

1:10 p.m.: Can anybody tell my why getting people together to clean up and leave is so difficult? Why is everyone in the world lazy? How does anything get done?

1:42 p.m.: Make it into the game despite a big hitch getting into the gate. When doling out the tickets, Pat (the other Pat) gave Lukacs the ticket-shaped receipt instead of an actual ticket, so when Lukacs got to the gate and actually looked at his ticket, he discovered it was only a receipt. Not coincidentally, Pat still had the extra ticket and, thinking it was just an extra, went to sell it off to somebody! Lukacs tracked him down, though, and got in just in time for us to settle into our standing-room-only spot in left field and alert Lastings Milledge that we support him in all his endeavors.

Nonetheless, Duke gives up two runs in the first. Opening Day, baby!

1:51 p.m.: Manny Ramirez trots out to left field, and the first group, "MAAA-NNY, MAAA-NNY," chant materializes. Later in the day, I would ask Manny what it was like to cheat for a World Series (much different than cheating at flip cup) and if he knew of a good women's fertility drug dealer in the area. (Manny was banned from baseball for 50 days for using a banned substance concealed inside a women's fertility drug.) He doesn't answer me, so he must not do business much around this area.

2:21 p.m.: Buccos are now winning thanks to the Legend, Garrett Jones, and the crowd is great, too. It's a wonderful feeling for a Pirates game, because they're usually losing and the crowd normally sucks. So, lost in all the grandeur of the afternoon is that the roasting process of my fair skin has already been activated.

I guess you could say I'm proud of my German and Irish heritage, although I identify more with Ireland than I do with Germany, probably because Ireland is generally thought to be more fun. Nonetheless, there's no worse combination of nationalities to have if you like spending time in the light. My skin is so white it's close to transparent, and I burn faster than a cigarette in a chain smoker's mouth.

Usually, I prepare with sunscreen. This time, I just didn't think of it.

3:02 p.m.: "MAAA-NNY! MAAA-NNY!"

3:08 p.m.: We befriend a group of three young kids standing around us, and I ask them if they play baseball for their school teams. They're slow to respond, and eventually say no. An innocent question from my end, but it probably humiliated these kids. Oh, well. Get used to it, fellas, because life is humbling.

3:45: Observations of your 2010 Pittsburgh Pirates so far:

- Jeff Clement will not be on this team at the start of next season. The guy's gotta be allergic to hits. Garrett Jones will eventually reclaim Clement's spot at first base to make room for Jose Tabata. Not sure what Clement will move on to, but I suggest opening, "In Clement Conditions: A Sports Bar."

- There's nobody better at shortstop than Ronny Cedeno? Bobby Crosby's not even better than this bum? (Note: Cedeno ended up having the walk-off RBI single on Wednesday, but I'm sticking to my general disdain for the man. Let's see you do it again, Ronny, huh? Let's see you do it again.)

- There isn't a sweeter player in the game than Andrew McCutchen. The guy is awesome at baseball and looks cool doing everything. By my count, Cutch hasn't over-exerted himself once to make a ridiculous play, which is the best attribute a player can have. Like, "Yeah, I'm awesome, but it ain't that hard." Like T.O. once said, "It's not if you win or lose, it's how crazy smooth you look playing the game."

- Players I want to like but I'm not yet sold on: Lastings Milledge, Ryan Doumit, Andy LaRoche.

3:58 p.m.: "MAAA-NNY! MAAA-NNY!"

4:26 p.m.: It's over! Pirates win! Pirates win! And I am ridiculously sunburned, and I'm confident that once I remove my shirt it would still look like I was wearing a shirt, only of transparently white German-Irish skin.

5:45 p.m.: Get home, realize just how bad the sunburn is. Take a cold shower and slather up with lotion.

6:30 p.m.: Settle in on the couch to watch the national championship basketball game, set to begin in a few hours.

6:45 p.m.: Fall asleep on couch.

12:04 a.m.: Wake up to static on the TV. Stumble up to bed, neck and forearms throbbing.

Guard him. Guard HIM!

2010-03-21T20:39:00.003-05:00

I gotta think I missed my chance.

I mean, what I do here is fun and all, and I've made what you might be able to call a living for the past 10 months watching sports and typing. There's no shame in that. And I won't say I missed my calling, because I don't think I have, even though there's still a chance that I could. But, at this point, I still have a pretty OK shot at having a future clackin' away on the keyboard and giggling. So, it's not a flash of regret that I'm having. It's more like an epiphany.

I may be cozy with who I am, but it's what I could have been that bugs me. Because I could have been the most feared being in collegiate athletics.

Huh? Me? Let's be kind and rewind for a sec. (It's a figure of speech, not an oversight to the extinction of VHS and the fact that no one born after 1997 will ever own a VCR. But I guess if you want to be pushy about it, we can say, 'Please use your DVD remote to skip back a few scenes.' Yeah, because that sounds great.)

Eh hem. Pretend its 1980 for a minute. Pac-Man was a video game, not a thug. The Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC) emerged as a pioneer in unwieldy acronyms. And people knew Patrick Duffy from Dallas, NOT Step By Step (... day by day).

As influential as 1980s pop culture may have been, however, 1980's biggest shockwave wasn't named Madonna, and it wasn't even when Mount St. Helen's erupted, though that was certainly a catastrophe worth noting. The change that will resonate for generations to come involved a strip of white paint laid tidily on the basketball courts of the NBA.

The history of the 3-point line actually reaches back further than T.J. Sorrentine's range (the parking lot!), but it didn't stick nationally until the NBA adopted the 3-pointer in the 1979-80 season. Sure, the ABA had it first in 1968, but the ABA was like Slamball for our parents -- awesome, great team names, not built to last.

But I'll say this much: the ABA got at least two things right. The first was the slam dunk. The second was the 3-pointer, which reopened basketball to the short, the medium-sized and the fundamentally inclined.

Therefore, any kid born after 1980 was given the option to shoot from a previously scoffed-at distance and actually get rewarded for it. Height or silky smooth moves were no longer necessary to excel in basketball, and perfecting a deadly-accurate 3-point shot then made the player with such skill a viable commodity, even a threat. As one high school coach once told me, "My plays work a lot better when the kid makes the 3 instead of misses it."

Fast-forward (or skip ahead a few scenes) to Sunday. Pitt's playing Xavier and Jordan Crawford is ripping my heart out. Yet, he's not the guy I'm keeping a weary eye on when Pitt needs a stop. The guy I don't want to even sniff the ball is not the one who dunked on LeBron James. It's Brad Redford, the 6-foot, 175-pound gunner from Frankenmuth.

It's not like I want Crawford to get the ball, either, and just score at will. But Jordan Crawford falls into the same category that LeBron James is in -- the unguardable. If a guy like that beats you, then, well, the best player won out. That's fine. You can live with that. But the one thing that socks you right in the gut is getting beat by a considerably less-talented player who can do one thing and one thing alone. That's bomb 3s, and he's been practicing since conception.

Think Syracuse fans don't still loathe Sorrentine? How about Ole' Miss fans and Bryce Drew? The single most feared and hated entity in collegiate athletics, if not all of sports, is the kid who can hit ridiculous, game-changing 3-pointers like they're layups on an 8-foot hoop. Even though he's not that good.

And you see it coming as soon as he checks in. I mean, which type of player on the court prompts you to hiss "Guard him. Guard HIM!" every time he skitters around the perimeter? Is it the DeJuan Blair type? Of course not. The Crawford type? Maybe, and he did hit a few really deep shots against Pitt, but Crawford is the player that can do anything well and doesn't have to rely on the 3. The player you fear is the player that doesn't think of passing or driving when he catches the ball. He's on the court to shoot shots that no one should ever make. And yet he does.

How? Practice. That's it. Tons and tons of practice. Does it take talent? A little. But Brad Redford didn't get a scholarship to Xavier because of his God-given ability alone. He played in the NCAA tournament because he's probably been putting up 500 shots a day since 8th grade. He mastered the 3-pointer and is reaping the rewards, just like hundreds of short, white guys have done and will continue to do.

Thing is, in the time it took me to write this, I probably could have launched 500 3s of my own down at the park. But it's too late for me now. Had I started young enough, I could have been a Redford, a Drew, a Sorrentine.

Now? Who knows ...

-- Step by Step got me thinking about Suzanne Somers. First, I wondered if her Thighmaster money has lasted this long, and I'm still not sure. Second, I remembered she hosted that show Candid Camera for a period of time alongside Peter Funt. Which also got me thinking ... If there were an NCAA tournament bracket for names that sound dirty but aren't, Funt would be at least a 2 seed.

-- A lot of people wondered why Buzz Aldrin would do Dancing With The Stars. Since Buzz and I are old friends, I dialed the operator on my rotary phone and asked for Buzz, so I could ask him why he did it. Know what he told me? "To finally make a name for myself," he said, forgetting that Neil Amstrong was a contestant on season one.

Has there ever been a better player than Detlef Schrempf?

2010-03-16T22:01:00.007-05:00

It's called 'synesthesia.'

Normally, the human being's five senses don't socialize. Sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing -- they might work in the same building, but each sense has its own floor and its own elevator, and its workers are trained exclusively in the business of the sense they work for. The fingers can't hear. The eyes don't smell. The tongue is blind.

But every once in a Prince Fielder diet, a rogue manager rises to power before springing on the building that he (or she, I guess) earned a dual degree and wants to start integrating. Then BOOM. Inter-floor office parties. Mingling. Eventually, the borders that once existed between the five senses are demolished in favor of an open floor plan and shared responsibilities. And just like that, the ears are hounding IT to get on the tongue's e-mail list, and the nostrils have the nerve to eat lunch in the fingers' big conference room (Asshole nostrils).

Soon, you taste what you hear. You see what you feel. It's called 'synesthesia,' and I have it.

Let me explain ...

See, I see an NCAA tournament bracket, and I hear Rod Stewart. Not 'hear' in the sense that Rod Stewart's in my house, nagging me to see what else is on TV, and I'm starting to get irritated so I say, "OK, I heard you, Rod." Because that's not true. Rod Stewart is nowhere near my house, which I guess is fine. I mean 'hear' in the sense that I'm reminded of a lyric of his, a line that you probably didn't even know was Rod Stewart's until you googled it 10 minutes ago.

It's from a song called, "Ooh La La." (Classic Rod.) And the line goes, "I wish that I knew what I know now ... when I was younger."

I stare at brackets, and I hear this ... kind of. More like I hear the Weird Al parody. Because along with my 'synesthesia,' I must have some form of dyslexia. I don't wish I knew what I know now when I was younger, I wish I knew what I knew when I was younger now, ya know?

Typically, the 22-year olds of the world don't reflect on the breadth of knowledge they had when they were 16. Actually, I knew a ton when I was 16, just most of it was wrong. But it's what was so right that I need to recapture. And I mean need.

As a sports guy who likes to brag but doesn't have much else to brag about, it's disheartening when you suck at the thing that's supposed to be your thing. You smell/hear me? Like, what if Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner planned horrible weddings? Had she tripped in front of that dumpster then, Matthew McConaughey probably would have just watched it happen. "A few more weddings saved," he might have said.

Now imagine you've neatly dug your niche among friends by choosing to work in sports media. To most non-media civilians, which includes the bulk of your friends, the whole "sportswriter" persona implies a few things. 'Fat slob' is one. 'Insider' is the other, and that's how sportswriters get their kicks.

Knowledge is power, according to Gekko, and it's how sports media folk stroke their bludgeoned-into-submission egos. Beating a competitor to a story is great, and wowing your friends by telling them something they didn't know is like drugs. It's Jessica Simpson to John Mayer. It's magic to Hugh Jackman in The Prestige. Remember? "It was the looks on their faces!" he says.

Well, the look on my face is bewilderment, now, anytime I stare down an NCAA tournament bracket. Not because I have no clue how to pick the right teams, even though I don't, but because I don't know how I once did. But I did. When I was 16. I was climbing toward the height of my idiot-hood, and I won my dad's office bracket poll for $250 large. How?

I remember the teams. My picks were flawless from the Final Four on in the 2004 tournament. No. 3 Georgia Tech (Bynum, Jack, Schenscher!) over No. 2 Oklahoma State (Lucas, Joey Graham, NOT Steven Graham); No. 2 UConn (Mek, Gordon) over No. 1 Duke (Shelden 'Catfish' Williams and probably a bunch of white guys).

"Last time I saw a mouth that big, it had a hook in it!"

Tech over Okie State by two. Then ... Huskies over Dukies by one! Followed by a comfy UConn cruise over the Yellow Jackets, and no one ever saw Luke Schenscher again. But I picked it, and 250 bones were soon wadded up in my baggy jeans pocket. Off to Best Buy, I was.

Every bracket since has failed. I've come close a few times, I think, but I haven't won since that wondrous 2004. Oh, what a year. I've thought several times about not even doing a bracket and "just enjoying" the tournament. But that's impossible, because your friends have questions. They ask, "Who's in your bracket?" and "Who did you pick?!"

Six years ago, I had the answer. And yet, I'm still searching today ...

-- Losing your ability to make bracket picks actually can be kind of like losing a sense. You're not exactly sure when or how it happened, it just sort of happened over a period of time. Then, one day, out of the blue, a whole floor of your building was barren. Just packed up and left.

Not me. I know exactly when everything I knew about brackets shattered like the Jerome Lane backboard.

Go ahead and watch that. I'll wait.

It was 2005, and boy was I hot. I was Brandon Lang in Two for the Money. I picked winners, baby, and I was about to topple a giant.

Illinois, led by Dee Brown, Deron Williams and Luther "Gettin' gettin' some" Head, had nearly finished the entire regular season undefeated and was chosen by many to win a national title. Who would possibly pick against them?

Me, and in my best Teddy KGB, it should hayve peid me off. I didn't have Illinois coming out of the Midwest and challenging North Carolina for the national title. No, sir. The national champion, by technical knockout ... Arizona.

The No. 3 seed in the Midwest, Arizona, with the worst of all the Stoudemires (Salim), Hassan Adams and Channing Frye, all of whom were still under the tutelage of Robert Luther 'Lute' Olson, was my pick to win the national championship. They would upset the Illini in the Elite 8 and carry me on from idiot-hood to prophet-hood as they shocked everyone (But me, of course) with their victory. I'd walk around with a perpetual wry smile and have eternal bragging rights. And it almost happened. It should have happened.

I watched in my living room as the dominoes began to fall. Arizona led 75-60 over Illinois with four minutes left to play. "I picked it," I said. "Yes, you did," my dad followed.

Then, as if I'm watching through somebody else's eyes, I see Illinois close the game on a 20-4 run, force overtime, and win by one, 90-89. It was like watching the Scottie Reynolds shot over the course of 20 minutes -- a huge, but gradual, disaster. If a lightweight, glider airplane crashed and burned, it would probably be similar to Arizona in the Elite 8 against Illinois in 2005. In the process, I had gone from idiot to genius to idiot again in about a half hour.

The whole next week at school, as North Carolina would eventually beat Illinois for the championship and some coward would win the bracket, I shuffled around slowly, shaking my head and mumbling jibberish. People still talk about that Arizona pick and what might have been. Me? I'm just glad to have taken that chance by making that pick, because I know things might never be the same.

-- You know, if you think about it, it's astonishing that Jimmy Johnson made it this long before appearing in any male enhancement commercial.

Think about this. Jimmy. Johnson. Jimmy Johnson. He's perfect!

The legendary football coach with just the right name asking you to "Go long with Extenze," then tossing a football up into the air and offering, with a wink, "I do."

Bravo, Extenze. Bravo.

You ambassador of Quan

2010-03-08T20:50:00.002-05:00

Before we start, let's make one thing clear ... OK, two things.

The first? There's no way -- absolutely no way -- Lastings Milledge isn't devastated with what's happening to his town. I mean, put yourself in his shiny gold spikes and say there's a city or a village out there that includes your full last name. And names like Johnson or Smith are no good for this. If you search your last name on Facebook and it comes back with more than two pages worth of profiles, your name doesn't count.

But with a name as obscure as Milledge, you can't convince me Lastings wouldn't be a bit protective of Milledgeville, Ga. I would be. If I were Milledge, I'd visit my village. Maybe Lastings has. Perhaps he's even considered running for a Milledgeville public office, maybe even mayor! Picture it: Lastings Milledge, Mayor of Milledgeville. If I ever met him for business, I would think he was a direct descendant of the Milledgeville founders. In my eyes, he'd be Milledgeville royalty.

And he might be. ... Probably not, but, hey, Lastings and Milledgville, in my eyes, will forever share a bond far stronger than an ash-wood bat. A bond that's now come under the pressure of a CC fastball meeting a Louisville Slugger -- a wimpy, maple Louisville Slugger, no less.

Professional athletes who share a town should look out for each other, because Lord knows its tough making boatloads of money playing sports. So, leading such difficult and harrowing lives in the same city, you'd think Pittsburgh's pro sports stars would have each other's backs. And most of them do. Remember the newspaper photo of Casey Hampton cheering a Penguins goal? How 'bout the Pens helping the Buccos sell some tickets by swinging the Stanley Cup through to a Sunday afternoon matinee'? The camaraderie, for the most part, seems to be there.

Roethlisberger. What is he thinking. Not only is sloshing his own name through the money-heavy silt of Lake Oconee, but he's bringing Lastings down with him. If I were him, I'd be ripping out my dreadlocks over this scandal. "How could this have happened?" I would ask, clearly upset. "How could this happen in my town?"

The Pirates need Lastings. Pittsburgh ... needs Lastings. Lastings ... doesn't need this.

The second? More of a question than anything ...

Remember Wally Pipp? Of course you don't, because you weren't alive to remember Wally Pipp. You've heard of him, though. Wally was the Yankees first baseman that got benched on June 2, 1925, just so Miller Huggins could play manager and jumble the lineup. Who started that day at first base? Who started the next 2,130 games at first base for the Yankees? Uh huh. Lou Gehrig. Lou freakin' Gehrig.

Now, Wally Pipp fell no victim to scandal. Greater things have crashed the careers of professional athletes. Fact is, before that day in early June in 1925, Lou Gehrig was not the starting first baseman for the New York Yankees. Lou Gehrig, at one time, was a backup.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you ... Dennis Dixon.

OK. Moving on ...

There will never, ever in the future of any awards show, banquet or gala event, be an acceptance speech as glorious as the 1996 Cuba Gooding Jr. Oscar acceptance speech. For a few minutes, Cuba actually became Rod Tidwell. It was clear that he wasn't prepared to win an Oscar, and he freaked. And it was great. Raw emotion, especially from somebody with the profile of a movie star, is a beautiful thing. To see a person with an agent, a publicist and a tightly controlled image drop all of it and just be a person, it's unique. And that's what Cuba's thank-you speech was, because Cuba was cool in movies. He was Tre Styles. He was Rod Tidwell, and he was the guy you'd let frantically thank as many people he could before being yanked off stage.

Problem is, it's like Cuba's speech gave everyone after him to win an Oscar a free pass to say entirely too much on stage. Now you get unprepared people up there at the microphone, clutching the fake Oscar statue that they'll have to surrender as soon as they step off camera like its an infant child, thanking people who don't need thanked and saying things that don't need said.

And I get it. It's a huge accomplishment, and by all means should everyone enjoy it. Hey, I want to enjoy it with you. I mean, Hurt Locker? I was as pumped that it won Best Picture as the other two actors in it were. (Don't know who, exactly, they were, though.)

But there's a point where happiness and jubilation are taken too far, and it's almost like you can see that sand-timer running out on the Oscar-winner babbling on about how great everyone is. It's like watching a quarterback under center who is completely unaware that the play clock is down to 5, and it's painful to watch.

"Boy, he's been talking an awful long while. I haven't even heard anything about a wife or any parents, yet. How many thanks does he have left? ... Oh, my God. He's gonna run outta time, and he doesn't know it! He's ... he's gonna get the music! Wrap it up, Jim! WRAP IT UP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!"

Then you hear it. The first, soft piano-key is struck. An Oscar speech is dead as soon as that first note of the wrap-up music is played, and the Oscar winner goes from honored to disgraced. Sure, you still won it, I guess. But your scored your first touchdown and botched the celebration dance. And you got penalized.

Plus, these are typically the people winning the Oscars nobody really cares about or remembers, anyway, so it's like watching the lifelong nerd finally earning a spot at the cool kids table, only to bring up Warcraft on the first freakin' day.

I think I just heard Keyshawn on NFL Live. Come on, man. Act like you've been there, people.

By the way, who is Oscar? Is it Sigourney Weaver's baby son from Ghostbusters? Is that him? Is he Oscar?

Better yet, is this?

A loser's manifesto

2010-02-27T20:44:00.003-05:00

I'm writing this because I've heard it eases the pain.

You know, pick out what's making you feel like crap, write it down and put it on your blog that only you and your friends read, then you won't feel like poop anymore? Isn't that how it works?

Supposedly. That's what they tell you, because they always tell you what you want to hear. And you want to believe that there is an immediate remedy for the soul's equivalent of a torn ACL, without the 10 to 12 months of rehab. You want the emotional Tylenol, because feeling like crap sucks.

The best thing to do, of course, would be to get to the root of the problem and eliminate it. But when the source of problem is Sidney Crosby, Scottie Reynolds or Mardy friggin' Gilyard, what do you do? They do what they do and you can't do anything about it. So you'll try anything.

But this doesn't work. Catharsis is the emotional equivalent to General Tso's, because the feeling you're trying to chase always comes back quicker than expected. Writing is a quick fix. It's not a cure-all for disappointment. It's emotional crack.

The top story on ESPN.com keeps fooling me. Every time I refresh the page, the headline "Crosby's OT goal ..." catches my eye, and I get all excited. Crosby scores in overtime? The Penguins must have won! The Peng -- hey ... WAIT A MINUTE.

It's not often your favorite athlete beats your team, but it happens, I guess, because it happened yesterday in the Olympics. No matter how many times I'll watch that Gold medal game over and over again throughout the years, it'll never turn out differently. The U.S. doesn't win. Scottie Reynolds' runner won't rattle out. Dion Lewis still scores with too much time left.

So this is how you deal with disappointment ...

First, you have to realize who you interact with. You deal with fans. The athletes that have so much affect on your psyche don't know or care, and even if they did, they're still wildly more successful than you. They have that to fall back on. Fans don't. Nothing pleases a fan more than seeing the other team's fans and athletes crushed.

Plus, the players seldom provide immediate, visible satisfaction. Fans do. I didn't watch the ice when Zach Parise scored with 24 seconds left. I looked in the stands. I wanted to see the Gold medal snatched from every Canadian in the seats. I yearned to see dreams obliterated. By my team.

But much like Lady Gaga, that goes both ways. Walking out of Heinz Field on that snowy afternoon in December, I still hear Cincinnati fans* doing some dumb cheer, while the Pitt guys filed quietly to the car. As I walked, some Cincinnati fan girl wearing Ugg boots in front of me yapped on her cell phone, "Ow my Gawwwd, did you ceee thaaat!" I don't think I've ever been more upset with a complete stranger, except when that guy with Villanova shirt showed up at the Hofbrauhaus that night.

To steal their glory, you have to overcome your bitterness. And you have this capability. I didn't snatch the phone from Cincy Ugg Boot Girl and smash it on the pavement, even though that is very much what I wanted to do. To take the defeat out of defeat, repeat after me: "I. Don't. Care."

Deep down, everyone wants to be a part of something that matters, be it political, professional, social or any other word that ends in "al." Sports especially. (Sportal? Athletical?) Why else would people spend an obscene amount of money to sit in the far, upper corner of the Carrier Dome to watch Cuse-Nova from 100 yards away? They wanted to be a part of the big game with the huge crowd, because being able to say, "I was there," regardless of where, exactly, you were, matters.

Why does it matter? Simple: envy. You want to be the envy of your friends. Don't lie to yourself, you do. This is why Snooki got no sympathy when she pouted about not being the center of attention. A lot of people want to be the center of attention, but only a select few are. The rest of us have accepted that and have adjusted accordingly. But when the big game comes rollin' through town or your team is involved, we all want in. Think about it. How many times have you told a friend or a family member what you were doing or where you were when the Steelers won the Super Bowl? Uh huh.

Anytime we get a chance to flash the envy card, we flash it like a Girls Gone Wild camera, and we all want to be the fan with the most beads. But the bead throwers, like another team's fans, have to cough 'em up. Nothing would stun a drunk co-ed on Spring Break like taking a good, long look at the twins and going, "Eh." Therefore, the same reaction diffuses a gloating jerk. There are no words in sports watching more powerful than, "I. Don't. Care."

But I do care. So I wrote this. Oh, hold on, my Chinese food's here.

- Just watched Sean Lee run a 4.73 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine. If I haven't told you, I took Sean Lee down in high school. Swear to God. It was on a kickoff return. I looked up and he's charging at me full 4.73 speed. I can't remember exactly what was going through my head, but it was probably something like, 'Uh oh.'

But I met him head on, then, with a quick and agile shift, I threw him to the side, using that combine speed against him. (That's football savvy, right there). He hits the turf, and who cares what happened with the kick return, I took Sean Lee down! A teammate reminded me of this as we jogged off to the sideline. "That was Lee!" he said. "I know!"

- Oh ... I forgot. The asterisk, up there. OK, so, Cincinnati fans. For a program that's only been somewhat good for, like, three years, there sure are an awful lot of Bearcats supporters. Where did these people come from, and how did they invent so many stupid chants so quickly? You can't tell me more than 10,000 showed up to see a Cincinnati football game in the Conference USA days.

Either way, Cincinnati is a classic example of the basketball school that got good in football for a little bit with a decent coach. And that happens, maybe even because of a few good players, too, over a stretch of years. But Mardy Gilyard is not Oscar Robertson. Cincy fans might reminisce about the Brian Kelly days like they do about the Bob Huggins days, but Cincinnati's most significant contribution to sporting history (The Big O) did not tote a football, and that will always be.

I mean, trends don't lie. How's the state of the Kansas football program right now? Kentucky? Bottom line is, a Cincinnati will never be able to keep a great football coach and build a storied program, because it's not a football school. It's never been a football school, therefore making it very unlikely to develop a big-time football program. I don't care if you win a BCS bowl or boast a Heisman Trophy finalist (Lookin' at you, Tim Couch.) A school where basketball has always been king won't chase that stigma with a few top 10 seasons.

Plus ... Nippert Stadium? Gimme a break, yo.

The Blame Games

2010-02-21T22:51:00.006-05:00

All of a sudden, I hate myself. And it's all Canada's fault.

Well, I don't hate me, really. I like me just fine. Always have. It's the me I would want me to be if I weren't me, the me I've been mistaken for several times in dimly lit bars, the me whose Canadian I've mastered in case I'd ever want to take a playful impersonation a little too far.

Sidney Crosby. I hate him.

Well, not really. I don't really hate him, per se. Just, for the first time since The Lottery my heart doesn't flutter when I see or hear about Crosby. My eyes don't gleam when I watch him skate. I see him, my brow furrows, my nose crinkles and I go, "Hmm." He's on TV, he's doing interviews, and I say, "Oh, gimme a break with this."

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Flyers fan. You won't hear me cackling out CROS-BY SUCKS! anytime he touches the puck, touches a stick or touches the ice. Just, I can't root for him. And not rooting for him is rooting against him. And rooting against Sidney Crosby is rooting against everything I stand for. It's rooting against me.

Canada. (Eyes narrow) The only country marginal enough to cause such discord.

The thought that Canada is better than the United States at anything except hockey is appalling. (Maple syrup and moose also qualified but didn't get the required 75 percent vote.) But Canada did invent hockey. Canadian players are, by and large, better at hockey than United States players, and, by all means, Canada should beat the United States at hockey in the Olympics, anywhere.

But it's Canada. And we're the United States of America. Therefore, we win. We always win. Well, not always. But most of the time. I mean, why do you think no Canadian NHL team has won the Stanley Cup since 1993? Because Americans just do things better. Call it a bully complex. I'll call it national pride.

And that national pride will not allow me to admit or respect Canada's general superiority with the puck. That national pride wants to gluttonously and indulgently watch my country own another in what it does best. Because no country, for old men or for young men, beats America.

Crosby, obviously, feels otherwise, and seeing him out there playing his hardest against the team I'm rooting for ... well, it's weird. Against the United States in hockey in these Olympics, I want to see Canada fail as bad as Crosby wants it to succeed. Much like upper Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, this is uncharted ... territory.

Everyone has a favorite player, and that player's performance, typically, has more of a direct correlation on your livelihood than any other entity in sports, perhaps in life. When Crosby does well, the Penguins do well. When the Penguins do well, I am happy. If I were to graph this phenomenon, I'd have a more perfectly inclined slope than the one the Price is Right yodeler climbs. And usually I'm one measly dollar from going off the edge.

Now, the line is broken and there are random points all over the graph. Crosby's not on my team, and I don't know how to feel. I've been conditioned to believe that Crosby will always succeed. But I also know that about the United States. Something has to give.

So I ditch Crosby for Rafalksi, Fleury for Malone. Blood runs thicker than water, and country comes before team.

What worries me now is how things will be once these Olympic Games are over. If everything goes how I want it to go, Crosby and Canada will lose to the United States in the gold medal game. Canada will tear itself to shreds in a Molson-induced rage and the Canadian team, Crosby included, will never be the same. Then, Sid will lace 'em up and go out and lead the Penguins to another Stanley Cup, once again parade down the boulevard and declare the Pens as hockey's next dynasty.

Yeah, not gonna happen.

If the same soldiers fought in the Revolutionary War, then in the Civil War, then in World War I, how would that go? Same side, opposite sides, same side again. Sorry about all those hard feelings in between, but it was nothing personal? The metaphor is a bit grandiose, mind you, and it's not war, of course. It's just hockey. But the point is the same.

Will I eventually feel the same about Sid? Will things ever go back to normal? Probably. But there's a chance they won't. In that case, I know who, or what, to blame.

Blame Canada.

- One thing's for sure, if Russia wins? I will be steamed. If there's one player I am not at all divided about, it's Alexander Ovechkin. It's a bit mouthy, but 'Ovechkin' is the new 'Newman' from Seinfeld. It is.

- More on Bar and Brooklyn. Another factor I wanted to address is each pair's potential for celebrity couple nicknames.

The celeb couple nickname is generated when the celeb couple has grown far too big for either one of its parts, i.e. "Spidey," "Brangelina," what have you. All things considered, the celeb couple nickname is usually the kiss of death for that particular couple. When the relationship blows up to proportions larger than either of its parts can manage, it's really only a matter of time before TMZ reports a separation or, at least, that things are getting rocky. It's the same principal that doomed Dr. Otto Octavius and his fusion reaction in Spider Man 2.

Though I've thoroughly made clear my support for Leo and Bar over Roddick and Brooklyn, Leo and Bar have, undeniably, better possibilities for a celeb couple nickname. For instance: "Bar Leo." It sounds like it could be a bar, right? Sounds like a place you might want to check out sometime. And it might be, because Bar Leo is an Italian restaurant in Scotland.

Another is "Leonardo and Refaeli," which, despite being too long, conjures thoughts of the Ninja Turtles, of swords and sai, of Casey Jones beating Raf in cricket, of all sports. Even if you don't understand cricket, you have to appreciate the creativity of that scene. And you respect the Ninja Turtles, because the alternative doesn't end well.

Conversely, what nickname do Roddick and Brooklyn have? "BRoddick?" "BrAndy?" Both of those are questionable and dumb.

- Also very, very questionable? The Katz Cam on ESPN. If you've seen this particular type of footage on a college basketball highlight, then you know how peculiar and frightening it is. But the Katz Cam is very elusive. Katz Cam footage only seems to surface about as frequently as a hostage video, because that's what it looks like.

See, it's actually ESPN's Andy Katz (Love him, by the way) taping an interview with a particular college hoops player with a hand-held camcorder, typically in the bowels of an arena. The two Katz Cam videos I've seen are shot about six inches from the player's face, set against cold, white or gray concrete. If you saw them without the audio, you'd think the player was being held for a ransom.

- While we're on jumpy footage, why are we seeing Tim Tebow doing throwing drills? Oh, wow, he changed his throwing motion. This is news? You mean, the one thing every scout, analyst, anchor, blogger, columnist and fan blasted him for, the one thing that Tebow didn't do better than God, he's trying to change it? You're telling me he's trying to get better?!? No, no I'm not buying this. I need to see evidence of this shot by Napoleon Dynamite's Uncle Rico.

Also lost in the NFL draft hubbub are the similarities between Tebow and Danny Wuerfful. Florida Gators. National champions. Heisman Trophy winners. Devout Christians.

Weurfful started 10 games over four teams in six years in the NFL.

- Hey, Pizza Hut. Wake up and smell the garlic sauce, huh? Any pizza for $10 is the deal you're pitching? Eh hem, in my best Bob Eucker, "Juuuuuuust a bit outsiiiide!"

Seriously, the commercials with the college kids clamoring over a $10 pizza are serious? Seriously? I should believe that a bad, 27-year old actor pretending to be a poor student turns down money from his mother because he can get a whole pizza for the incredibly not-low price of 10 dollars?

A $10 pizza is no deal, especially to a college kid. The doors to Antoon's are not still open today if they were selling pizzas for $9.80. If Howie Mandel told me the banker offered $10 pizzas for life for me to walk away, I'd look right up at the banker, grab my crotch, yell, 'Eat this for life!' and slam the case on the deal button. No deal, sir. No deal at all.

The Bar and the Borough

2010-02-18T00:30:00.006-05:00

This is not a question of mere looks or attraction as much as it is about jealousy and hate.

It's not as much a choice between swimsuit models as it is a disdain for Lacoste.

It's a conversation Ryan and I started. A conversation that needs finished.

But it starts with a question.

Bar ... or Brooklyn?

Bar Refaeli is the Israeli swimsuit model, the grizzled vet with a mean streak. Brooklyn Decker is the young, American hot-shot, the "it" girl, so to speak.

(I'd call her the Golden Girl of modeling, but I want nothing to do with upsetting Betty White or Bea Arthur, God rest her soul. Now, if it were men we were talking about here, and that's fine, there's no reason we can't have a healthy discussion on male models, but if it were the male version of Brooklyn Decker we were talking about, I would use the term 'Golden Boy.' But it's certainly not a unisex term. Thanks, Midge.)

Now, ideally, you'd like to have both Brooklyn and Bar at a bar in Brooklyn. But no Brooklyn bar has Brooklyn or Bar, so we have to choose between Bar and Brooklyn.

Similar debates have raged among men for decades, perhaps even centuries, though I can't confirm the latter. It was Ginger or Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island in the 60s, and maybe even Betty and Bea sparked a heater amongst geriatrics that once divided most of Florida and left Denny's in its wake.

The Brooklyn and Bar war won't be settled through shuffleboard or even over an early bird special. In fact, it might not even be as much between the two models as it is between their significant others.

This is how men think (when thought is absolutely necessary). You never determine your preference between famous women based solely on their appearance, personality, etc. In fact, many times, the deciding factor on whether or not you say, "OK. I like her," or "Ehh, no," isn't something about her. It's everything about her preference in men and relationship status.

Inevitably, if the attractive, famous woman in question isn't single, then she might as well be dead (No offense to Bea). She's even more dead if she has a child. Case-in-point: Jessica Alba. Once a front-running contender among the three Jessicas, Alba now has kid with Cash Warren, a "film producer" who went to Yale. Act like that doesn't piss you off.

But in the case of Bar and Brooklyn, each is occupied. And as hard as I tried to eliminate the occupants from my feelings in this debate, Ryan was right. It's impossible. We don't live in a vacuum. We don't deal in absolutes. Swimsuit models are not single.

Enter Andy Roddick.

Andy Roddick, the bright, white Lacoste-wearing tennis pro is married to Brooklyn Decker, and he's the reason Bar wins.

I don't know Andy Roddick, and I don't care to know him. He could be a great guy, but that doesn't matter to me. What matters is that he's made a boatload of money serving hard and losing Grand Slams.

When you think of Andy Roddick, what comes to mind? Maybe that he's the best American male tennis player, but that's not saying a whole lot when the second-best is John Isner. Sure, Roddick's overall record is good, but he's 1 for 36 in Grand Slams, the lone win being the 2003 U.S. Open, when meth-huffin' Andre Agassi still held a racket.

Anybody can ravage the cupcakes, but greatness in sports is earned by being the best in the biggest events. They say big-time players make big-time plays in big games, and as horrible as that cliche' is, it's absolutely true. Roddick did that once, seven years ago. He's made four Grand Slam finals since then, and Roger Federer has owned him in each one. Federer is the great one. Roddick is the one who peaked way, way early.

So, you can't fully respect the swimsuit model when you don't totally respect her husband. Plus, Roddick is 27. Decker is 22. What that tells me is that my chances of marrying a swimsuit model, even though we're the SAME AGE, is about one in a million.

Brooklyn's the sophomore you've liked since 7th grade, and Roddick is her jerk senior boyfriend. Only he's the Golden Boy quarterback (See? See how that works?) with too much confidence for a guy who hasn't won a championship since Pee-Wee.

Now, Bar Refaeli is dating the Great Leonardo DiCaprio, and we've loved Leo since he stuck it to high society and nailed Kate Winslet in the back of a car on the Titanic. But whether he's Jack Dawson, Frank Abagnale Jr., Romeo, Arnie Grape or Billy Costigan, Leo movies are awesome. And his name is the first Leonardo to appear on the Google search options, before Da Vinci and Leonardo the Ninja Turtle. That's huge.

But! ... but! ... Leo hasn't even won an Oscar! At least Roddick's won a Grand Slam! This argument is flawed!

No. No it's not. It's not. You see, acting is like a team sport, whereas tennis is individual. Actors in movies are like players on teams. Being in a movie that wins the Oscar for Best Picture is like being on a championship team. Winning a Best Actor Oscar is like winning an MVP -- it's nice, but you want the championship.

To date, Leo's been on two championship teams, one in 1996 (Titanic) and one in 2006 (The Departed), proving longevity and consistency in his performances. And the Titanic won the most Academy Awards in history. So, on that team in that season, Leo was the quarterback when the Titanic went 19-0 and won the Super Bowl. I'd compare Leo to the quarterback of an NFL team that actually went 19-0 and won the Super Bowl, but that hasn't happened yet to the best of my knowledge.

Of course, Leo is 35 and Bar is only 24, but both of them being older than me makes me feel a little better about it. Plus, more importantly, Leo and Bar are NOT married (yet). This means, for now, that they're not pretending you can be a famous couple and live normally. That's impossible. The over-under on celebrity marriages, I believe, is 3.5 years. Bar and Leo aren't pretending like they can both be famous and "spend the rest of their lives together."

Roddick and Brooklyn are. Can they make it? Maybe, but the odds are slim, a lot like Roddick beating Federer and winning another Grand Slam. Meanwhile, Leo just keeps bringing home titles, and he picked up one for his girlfriend along the way.

Bar def. Brooklyn, because Leo def. Roddick, 6-2, 6-7 (7), 6-1.

Plus, you can't argue against The Departed. You can't.

ARREST THIS MAN!!!

2010-02-16T12:54:00.008-05:00

For my readers who are only casual cycling fans, Floyd Landis, the Marion Jones of cycling, if Marion Jones was a nerdy lookin' white guy, was issued a warrant for his arrest for his connection to a case of hacking into a French doping lab.

I know. Shook me pretty hard, too. Such a tough break for a stand-up guy who's always played by the rules and done everything the right way. What is it that Floyd used to say? "You can take my urine, but not my bike?" Something like that?

Floyd, of course, won the 2006 Tour de France with three times too much testosterone in his post-race pee sample and was stripped of the title. He said he was innocent then (Claiming, I believe, that he'd eaten a lot of asparagus that week), and now he's denying the arrest warrant allegations.

First, doping. Now, computer hacking. And if you think Floyd Landis with a computer is anything other than Anthony Michael Hall in Weird Science, look at his Twitter:

Free Floyd!

Well, Floyd hasn't actually been arrested, and he won't be anytime soon. And no, it's not because of his keen escapability on two wheels.

The warrant out for Floyd's arrest is only applicable on French soil, which I would assume tastes a little like pastry chocolate. So unless Floyd hydroplanes across the Atlantic Ocean clear into France or, better yet, tries the back door and takes the scenic route across the Pacific and through Asia and Europe (With a pit-stop in Fiji!), he's still at large.

I vote that someone tricks him into visiting France, because it seems like Floyd could be easily duped. Picture it: Floyd Landis vigorously pedaling through the streets of Paris, leading a pack of tiny French cop cars and cycles with their sirens waling the signature "Neeee-noooo-neeee-noooo" of European emergency vehicles (Why do they sound like that?!). It'd be like O.J., only slower and nerdier.

OK, we're in pursuit ... Floyd's sticking his left arm out now. Looks like he's gonna give give someone a high five. Oh, no, that's how they signal, isn't it? OK, I guess he's going to turn left. Everybody prepare to turn lef --- OH MY GOD HE WENT RIGHT. HE WENT RIGHT.

Who knows if they'd ever catch him? Surely not if he reaches the sloping hills of the countryside, because Wikipedia tells me Floyd is "extremely good on the descent," or "extremely good at coasting down hills."

Well, come to think, the drugs probably didn't help Floyd that much ...

- The other reason I'd love to watch the Floyd Landis 10-speed chase is the thought of authorities knocking on Lance Armstrong's door, and Lance peeking out like Jack Bauer ...

Lance: "How did you find me?"
Authorities: We need your help.
Lance: I'm retired.
Authorities: It's Floyd. He got to the French countryside. Nobody can catch him. He's just ... too good on the descent.

That's when Lance has the "I know what I have to do" moment, most likely triggered by a water-splashing on the face and a long, hard look in the mirror.

The door opens, and Lance emerges in a skin-tight, Livestrong cycling shirt ...

"I'm gonna need a case of FRS Antioxidant Health Energy Drink ..."

- All right. I'll say it. I respect Scott Hamilton. Actually, I don't see how you can't. He's short. He's bald. His voice is unusually high-pitched and he's a former figure skater turned figure skating announcer. And hearing him on NBC announcing the Olympics, it's as if he's like, "Yeah, I'm all of those things. Get over it. That triple-axle could have been smoother." I'm hooked. I love the guy.

- And, actually, I can watch figure skating and appreciate what they're doing. It takes I don't know how much skill, talent and effort to perform an Olympic-caliber figure skating routine. (I say 'I don't know how much' because I really don't know. I don't have that much skill, I'm not that talented and I've never put that much effort toward anything.)

Where I sour a little on figure skating is with the whole "show" idea and the skaters that take it too far. If I can see your outfit from space, I don't like you as a competitor. If you appear pouty or at all temperamental, I'm rooting for you to wipe out worse than Dan Jansen.

I'm rooting for the business-like figure skater, the skater who just goes out and matter-of-factly gets it done. The blue-collar type. (Not the blue sequin-collar type.) The skater who just rips off salchows like it's nothing, then waits stone-faced in front of the camera when the Gold medal scores coming rollin' in. That's my figure skater.

- Betcha didn't know that's how you spelled 'salchow,' huh?