Cole Slaw Blog

Your cash is good at the bar

2008-02-25T03:42:00.005-05:00

Cole Slaw Blog comes to an end with this post. Thanks to everyone who read, linked, commented and otherwise supported the project.

There are no major life changes prompting this. Neither of us is moving or getting married or having a kid (that we know of). Neither of us is taking the 20th Century Limited to Chicago with Eva Marie Saint, especially because she's 83 now and was a bucket of trouble in the first place. We didn't even make a decision to retire and focus on condiments. We just decided a few months ago that we'd put it away before it before it gets stale -- spoiled slaw is a botulism risk and nobody wants that.

We're no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that one cole slaw blog doesn't amount to a head of cabbage in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that. Now, now ... here's looking at you, kids.

-- CrimeNotes and Flop

Presidents day

2008-02-19T13:02:00.003-05:00

In the United States, we’ve somehow decided that only presidents are worthy of a place of honor on the currency. Even bad, war-loving presidents are on the money. Now that we as a nation seem to have a bit of a public-relations problem, maybe it's time to rethink this.

Our decision-making on this issue -- and it’s ours, as Congress controls this stuff -- has been nothing but lamebrained. The combination of institutional inertia, having other priorities, and a lack of critical thinking has made us a nation that appears to venerate authority and the occasional mythological figure.

For example, we honor on the utterly ubiquitous $20 bill, Andrew Jackson, a man who, until about 2003 or so, was the front-runner in the “Worst President Ever” horse-race. He enjoyed killing Indians and forcibly removing them from land white Americans wanted for its gold. He also campaigned against those silly, foppish Eastern Elites, thus paving the way for a broad-base of voters who make their decisions based on “common sense” which is just another way of saying “whatever pretty much everyone else thinks is cool.” So George W. Bush is kind of Andy Jackson's fault, but that's for another time.

The next denomination up is Ulysses S. Grant, who, like Jackson, was a better military officer than a president. He presided over a bunch of scandals and disasters on Wall Street, and generally seemed to be an anti-semite. He did nothing truly positive of note, and yet there he is on the $50 bill. Nice.

The $100 and $10 get non-presidents, and deserving ones. The single, fiver and even the $2 bill all get presidents who appear previously on coinage, and they deserve their twin-billing. No one disputes the worthiness of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson for the honor of appearing on American currency, and you won't hear that argument from me, even if I'd like to see some space cleared up for worthy candidates.

And don't get me started on the whole dollar coin mess. First we solved a problem that no one had -- pockets not jingly enough with change, billfolds stuffed too fat with singles. The result was a handsome, attractive failure. A gold-colored dollar that, despite an advertising blitz encouraging Americans to use the new currency (Americans, do you enjoy goods and services? Tired of digging clams all day to barter? Use money!)

Either because the first one-dollar coin in about 20 years was such a unique sight, or because Americans actually thought the dollar was made out of gold, no one spent the suckers (although I distinctly remember being amused by plunking down four of them for a beer in a dive bar once in 2000). America's first attempt to honor a non-white, non-male, actual person was a failure.

Naturally, the minority woman was blamed. The solution: more white dudes. Yes, now every single freaking president will be on a similarly shaped coin. On the back will be an image of another fictional female, the Statue of Liberty, along with a “$1” mark so the illiterate masses would no longer be confused by the words “One” and “Dollar.”

It’s as if no American has ever made any significan contributions to the humanities, the arts, or science. I realize that if Chaz Darwin were a Yank, there’d be no way that GOP congressmen (and the adorably contrarian Blue Dogs!) would allow him to appear on good old American coinage. But in Britain, he gets the £10 note. Which, thanks in part to the doings of our current president (coming to the dollar coin in 2017!) is worth about the same as a $20 bill. On which we honor ... Andrew Jackson. Sigh. I guess in a world where Ronald Reagan's name graces an airport, George W. Bush's mug might as well smirk back at you from the heads side.

If only the United States had produced some, you know, good scientists. Or artists. Or writers. Or musicians. Or great people of any sort besides Warren G. Harding, Chester A. Arthur and Rutherford B. Hayes. Oh, would that it were.

But alas, Franklin Pierce’s contributions to the United States and the lives of every American must clearly outweigh those of any writer. What can Walt Whitman’s mere words do against the Kansas-Nebraska Act?

Sure, Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, but William Henry Harrison’s administration, which was about as long as his inaugural address, clearly had more of an impact on the world.

And let’s not even imagine the “controversy” that would erupt when someone decides that Martin Luther King might someday deserve to join the pantheon of faces on American currency. Sure he kind of saved us from ourselves, but if you think Republicans would let him on the $50 or something without getting Ronald Reagan onto something, then you’re not watching what I’m watching.

And even if these arguments don't sway you, there's this: There's going to be two Grover Cleveland coins.

I realize there are more pressing issues, and there’s even more pressing issues on which our national policy is even more dunderheaded. (Airline security, for example, seems like it’s run by the kids from the slow math group in my fourth-grade class, but with more flailing and spazzing out.) But hey, it’s Presidents Day. If there’s a better time to advocate for restoring dignity and honor to those presidents worthy to be on the money, I can’t think of it.

Cole Slaw Bible study: The bad twin

2008-02-17T03:10:00.000-05:00

Happy Sunday, brothers and sisters.

I'm at an age when friends have started having babies. Several of the kids are cute, even. Acknowledging that makes me weak, I know, but I've always loved dogs, so it's not that far of a stretch. Babies are like dogs with higher yield potential and less long-term loyalty: compare a twelve-year-old dog to a twelve-year-old kid, and it's clear who loves you more. There are trade-offs in life.

My point is this: dogs are cute and hairy but babies are cute and not hairy. I would not like to be around a hairy baby, but Rebekah didn't have that choice. She had twin babies, and Esau exited first. He "came out red, all over like an hairy garment." Yikes! But Esau also sounds like a little baby Ewok. Cute!

You'd think that given what we've learned from the Bible so far, Ewok would get hammered one night and burn all his body hair in an Everclear accident, and then get nursed back to health by banging his eight underage sisters. This is not the case! I'm 30 chapters into Genesis, and Ewok is the first character who's not a complete dick, including God.

Ewok's problem is his asshole brother, Jacob, and in the Bible's backward logic, I think it's Jacob who's the hero.

Ewok is a stand-up guy. He's his father's favorite. He hunts and provides food for the whole family, doesn't have drunk sex fiascoes, and commits no incest. Meanwhile, Jacob is his mother's favorite and doesn't do a thing. He sits in a goddamn tent, and is "a plain man." When he talks to his mom, he says, "Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man." Swift observation, Abercrombie. Somehow, Abercrombie's bragging about lack of body hair persuades his mother to go in on a swindle wherein Abercrombie covers himself in goat furs in order to trick Dad into thinking that he's Ewok. Hence, Dad gives Abercrombie a special blessing instead of Ewok, which sends Abercrombie off on a binge of the Bible's two favorite pastimes: farming and incest-based polygamy. Abercrombie leaves for a neighboring tribe. Once there, Abercrombie first marries his cousin, and then he marries her sister, and then he bangs several of their maids. Along the way, he fathers an entire minion.

Meanwhile, Abercrombie hoards his father-in-law's livestock -- sheep and cattle and whatnot. His brothers-in-law are angry that their first cousin is banging their sisters and impregnating the entire support staff and making off with all the goats and cattle and whatnot, so a rebellion happens, Abercrombie and company are evicted, and his in-laws' lives go back to normal. Abercrombie's justification seems to be that God wants him to steal all the livestock, which is the kind of thinking that got us into the whole Iraq mess in the first place.

Abercrombie, his multiple wives and concubines, his several dozen children and his fleet of livestock are cavorting away from his in-laws when Abercrombie hears an erroneous rumor that Ewok has raised an army against him. Abercrombie decides to bribe Ewok by giving him animals. But instead of kicking his ass for dressing up in goat furs and stealing their dad's magic blessing, Ewok hugs his brother. All is forgiven! Ewok is a good dude, a guy who's probably been happy just to hunt and hang out with his family, and it turns out that all he wanted was to see his dick brother again.

You'd think that this would be the end of the story. You'd be wrong. Abercrombie's kids turn out to be violent assholes (shocking, I know) and what happens next is a Last House on the Left-style revenge porn centering on rape, trickery and sore penises. And that, my brothers and sisters, will be the topic of our next session together.

Paradise Hotel has to feel the ridge

2008-02-16T12:46:00.006-05:00

When reality TV was young and uncorrupted, Fox aired an ingenious show called Paradise Hotel. It was the genre at its peak, back before VH1 turned reality TV into contests over whether C.C. Deville would bang the white methadone addict or the black methadone addict and every other show involved retards seeking home improvement.

Paradise Hotel made it up as it went along, in an earnest, dramatic, straightforward way. Its characters were attractive alcoholics who wept and brawled. Salon's Heather Havrilesky made a study out of it. Here, she summarizes a typical Paradise Hotel moment:

Remember, kids, there's no prize, at least not one that they've announced. Amy is ripping Keith a new asshole simply because this is paradise, and she's staying at at the most exclusive hotel in the world, and never, not in a million years, did she imagine that Zack would be cast out of paradise ... forever.

But then, Amy is concerned only with the here and now, and remains unaware of the show's obvious mind-blowing cultural significance and the stigma it carries. Keith, on the other hand, seems to sense just how doomed the inhabitants of paradise are. Unfortunately, he only manages to blurt out that they're acting like a bunch of 2-year-olds before he settles into a dumbfounded silence.

The original Paradise Hotel turned on the drama that inhered in a man called Dave, who Ms. Havrilesky describes as "a moderately intelligent, mildly unattractive man, [cast] into the pits of moron hell." While the other characters passed out drunk, screamed and wept and hooked up in shoddily built cabanas, Dave quietly plotted their undoing. Pasty, slightly chunky, hatchet-faced Dave was the Guy Fawkes of Paradise Hotel. His ultimate downfall was the greatest plot line in the history of reality TV.

Paradise Hotel is back! And in an extraordinary development, it seems to equal the original.

This is due in part to the casting of Ryan, who's been categorized as "the surfer" despite being from New Jersey. Ryan is just 25 but due to his badly sun-damages skin, he looks at least 10 years older. He's dumber than a standard poodle and looks and acts like he's going through heroin withdrawal. This is attractive to the women of Paradise Hotel.

On the late-night TV-MA version that airs on Fox Reality, things turn blue. Ryan ferries Chelsea into the bungalow he ostensibly shares with Lauren, and we see a naked Ryan with his privates blurred. An obscured camera angle follows and the dialog summarizes a handjob gone wrong.

Ryan: Feel the ridge?
Chelsea: Yes.
Ryan: It gets better as it gets harder.
Chelsea: Yes, okay.
Ryan: No, you need to feel it as it gets harder. ... No, you didn't get it, you didn't feel the ridge. You have to feel the ridge.
Chelsea: ... Yes I did. It's ... nice.

She walks out on the handjob, and later Ryan finds himself on a date with Tanya. Tanya reminds you of a girl who cried a lot in high school, and not the kind of crying that comes because she's sweet and insecure and maltreated, but the kind of crying that comes because the back-up cornerback wouldn't hook up with her despite her new nosejob and the fact that her dad just bought her an Audi. She's not particularly nice, not particularly pretty, and has a sense of entitlement that runs deep.

Ryan thinks that they have a lot in common, which sounds about right. "Tanya's a cool girl. She's got the party thing going on. A lot of fun." Tanya says, "I'm like, I sometimes make out with my friends and people, but me, I like really don't need alcohol to make out with people." Through his glassy-eyed, heroin-withdrawal morass, Ryan observes, "Tanya's been mentioning how she loves to make out, hook up and stuff. I'm definitely into that kind of thing."

What helps put this show over the top is the editing and production values. It's portrayed as a serious morality play, a story where values and integrity are at stake. Ridges are felt and drunken fights begin and everyone has the most intense night of their lives. It's good to be back in Paradise.

Indy films

2008-02-15T19:12:00.003-05:00

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was the first moderately grown-up movie I saw in theaters, and even though it's everyone else's least-favorite installment, it's the one I like most: the antic Shanghai sequence, the heart-yanking ritual, chilled monkey brains, the bugs, the chase on the mine carts, and the denouement on the rope bridge. It has the most bang for your buck, a dark sense of humor and the action sequences are tense and original.

Like good and decent people everywhere, I've been excited for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, even though the title sounds like a He-Man adventure. I feel a set up for disappointment. The three most recent Star Wars movies were epic failures. They undercut the affection I used to have for the original series. George Lucas has lost his way and while Steven Spielberg has gotten better with age, he's no longer good at fun.

The new Indiana Jones trailer is on YouTube.

I read last month's Vanity Fair article about the production.* The link has spoilers, probably more than you want. When I finished reading, I was not pleased. I'd like to hope that the story comes together and what we're about to have is a return to glory, but like other returns to glory, outlook not so good. Watch the trailer closely and you'll see a quick shot that reveals the name of a city in the American southwest. You can draw your own inferences without knowing much. I want the best, but I'm skeptical. I'll be happy to be wrong.

*I've never subscribed to Vanity Fair or Rolling Stone, but I receive both magazines in the mail. Not sure why. They embody everything I detest. I guess they need to inflate subscription numbers for ad sales and I fit into a key demographic.

<3

2008-02-15T01:57:00.002-05:00

Every day, but most especially on Valentine's Day, I love the anonymous people who read this site, as well as our many googlers looking for cole slaw recipes and the sex-fetish guidance erroneously implied by this site's vulgar metaphors.

Love.

Permanent smile

2008-02-10T04:38:00.000-05:00

Editor's note: I'd normally delete this post, except that it's emblematic of a new trend: Come home late drunk, donate to the Obama campaign, and spend two hours combing YouTube and C-SPAN for Obama speeches. I stayed up until 6 a.m. last night doing this stuff. It beats buying a bunch of Whitesnake on iTunes.

Every time I watch him I can't get the grin off my face, but it makes me so happy that I don't even care.

My fundraising appeal

2008-02-09T09:59:00.000-05:00

Dear Friend,

One of the things I'm most proud of about our journey is not the amount of money I've spent, but the things I've spent it on.

Together, we have been on an unprecedented pace to break cigarette-smoking precedents, which in some bodegas is shattering price records at more than $8 a pack. I have not been drinking enough lately, but I hope that changes. We must take back the neighborhood one bar at a time. And just this past Thursday, I made another visit to the Strand Annex and purchased four new books.

The old adage rings true: If CrimeNotes can't drink it, smoke it or read it, he doesn't care. Yet we face new challenges in the weeks and months ahead. Never before has there been a PlayStation 3, with all of the dangers and opportunities that it entails, specifically including Grand Theft Auto IV. Never before has there been a clothing purchase that accounted for appearance and comfort, not merely necessity. And never before has there been serious consideration of purchasing Guitar Hero III in order to entertain visitors.

Never before has tradition combined with progress so seamlessly to build change.

So many people are ready to join, and your first donation of 2008 could be what helps me take the next step. My movement cannot continue without your generosity. Please consider attending the following events. I am counting on you to expand my hope.

Cigarettes with CrimeNotes at Waspwood Manor
Date: Sunday, February 17
Time: 3 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Location: Waspwood Manor - The CrimeNotes Residence
New York, NY
Contribution: $500 per person
RSVP: Space is limited. Cannot guarantee spots after February 17.

CrimeNotes Live! Evening with CrimeNotes
Date: Wednesday, February 21
Time: 11 p.m. - 1 a.m.
Location: East Village, tbd
New York, NY
Ticket Levels: General Admission - $200 (limited availability), Preferred Seating - $400
Host Committee - Raise or Contribute $5,000

Drinking and Shouting with CrimeNotes at Waspwood Manor
Date: Saturday, February 23
Time: 8:00 p.m. - 3 a.m.
Location: Waspwood Manor - The CrimeNotes Residence
New York, NY
Contribution: $6,000 -- recreation funds only
RSVP: Space is VERY LIMITED. We cannot guarantee spots after March 15.
Cereal may be served.

Surrogate Fundraising Events

Coffee and Conversation with Sasquatch
Date: Friday, Feb. 29
Time: Noon - 2 p.m.
Location: Throatchop Alley
Between Castrato St. and Avenue Soreballz
Washington, D.C.
Contribution: You will do exactly as you are told.

Various Things I Do By Supper: Selected Stories and Anecdotes from Flop
Date: Saturday, February 16
Time: Noon - 5 a.m.
Location: Bungalow 8
515 W. 27th St.
New York, NY
Contribution: $10 per person; Vice-Chair - $108; *Chair - $12,000
*Recreation fund only. Includes CrimeNotes Live! event with CrimeNotes on Wednesday, February 21.

I always was the sharpest pencil in the drawer

2008-02-07T20:28:00.000-05:00

In a recent dream, I found myself in my old elementary school, completing a crossword on a single sheet of paper. It was photocopied, not mimeographed, so you could tell it was kind of special. I was late, and an annoying girl I never really cared for had gotten there early, and had been at it a while.

I like crosswords, and I'm pretty good at them, so I dived right in. I don't remember a lot of the answers, but I was happy to share clues. I remember entering one of the across answers, the clue to which must have been the name of Hungary in its native language, because I filled in "MAGYARORSZAG" with no small amount of satisfaction. The really strange bit was, instead of my usual implement, a Pilot roller pen, I was using a colored pencil.

It was a pale peach color. Possibly the ill-advised "flesh" color, although I'm not sure of the brand. All I know is that it wasn't a Berol Prismacolor, which we all know was the Caddy of colored pencils back in school. And it was dull, I was just smearing letters on the page.

I went over to the sharpener mounted on the wall by the coatroom and had a flood of nostalgia. "No matter how much money I donate to this school," I announced as I came back to my seat, admiring the perfect, oddly carved-looking point on my peachy pale pencil.

"No matter how much money I give, no matter how nice the new facilities, the new gym, all the books, everything. No matter what other accoutrements we have, I'm not giving a cent for new pencil sharpener."

Someone must have looked at me funny, because I continued:

"Do you see those things? They were built to last. They were built during the war. Materials were scarce, and things had to last. Not like now, where you're supposed to use stuff for a while, and they buy some more."

No one seemed to share my enthusiasm, so I got back to work. It was around this time that annoying girl announced "Done!"

A couple others seemed nearly there as well. I bent back to my task, about two-thirds of the way through the puzzle. It slowly began to dawn upon me that this was actually a competition. And I wasn't going to win.

"Sixty seconds," my old teacher announced.

I stared at the clues, Everything swam. I put my perfectly sharpened pencil to the page, but nothing happened.

"Time's up."

I crumpled my paper in mock angst, pretending so I could cover how pissed I really was. How could I lose to these people? I was in a higher math group for Christ's sake. And now, as an adult, I was going to have to correct my sheet (in royal blue colored pencil)? Oh, this sucked. This sucked big time. And the only recognizeable person in this dream was one of the most annoying people in my grade school. Where was the girl I had the crush on? She was in my math group, and if she beat me in a crossword puzzle contest, I would have been embarrassed, but at least she was someone I respected. And thought about like, all the time.

Sigh.

And I don't know what I was thinking: Those pencil sharpeners were the worst. The teachers had to bring in electric ones.

Post-Super Tuesday hangover cure

2008-02-06T19:46:00.000-05:00

Got buried in the middle of a liveblog packed with Huckabee-friendly Lawrence Welk singers. Thought it deserved a moment in the spotlight.

Sonnet commemorating a parade in Lower Manhattan, 5 Feb. 2008

2008-02-06T02:16:00.000-05:00

Fat-fuck fans in sweatshirts
asking for directions
in accents that make one's ear hurt
from New Jersey inflections.
The shame and horror of New York
is rotten, pockmarked sports teams
and puke-breath fans who get uncorked
whenever they're succeeding.
Mannings, like Sparty's Plaxico
are bastards since the nineties,
whereas Tom Brady's Orange Bowl
win shall be remembered fondly.
Down the street limp obese churls
past trashcans spilled by barfing girls.

Super Tuesday sexy-assed liveblogging, part deux

2008-02-05T19:09:00.001-05:00

In honor of Mike Huckabee, winner of the West Virginia convention and the day's first victor:

(Reprised for those who missed it in the short-lived pre-party.) 7:10 p.m.

It's a delight watching Pat Buchanan praise the bi-racial coalition behind Barack Obama's win in Georgia. 7:12 p.m.

Don't count your chickens, but if these numbers hold true shop's going to close around 10 p.m. and I'm going to get drunk on a Tuesday. 7:34 p.m.

2004 subtext, redux. On election day 2004, the exit polls were indicating a Kerry landslide, including wins in states like North Carolina and Virginia. Before polls closed, coverage heavily hinted at Kerry upsets in the South. Right now they're pushing similar themes in Massachusetts and New Jersey. They've also been hinting that women are not aligning as strongly behind Clinton as expected. 7:48 p.m.

Republican nervous breakdown. For entertainment reasons, the more Huckabee wins and the longer he runs, the better. Even better, it makes his party look crazy, and maintains M___ R_____'s suffering. Mike Huckabee is my favorite Republican in a long time. 8:26 p.m.

Mike Huckabee wins Arkansas. Huckabee fans celebrate through song.

"I guarantee that Mike Huckabee is sitting back tonight with the popcorn popper, frying up some squirrel." (Joe Scarborough) "And the squirrel pizza arrives at what point?" (Olbermann). 8:43 p.m.

Bill Richardson on MSNBC, sporting thick goatee, looking like affable party pirate. 8:51 p.m.

ALABAMA FOR HUCKABEE. His supporters celebrate with additional song and dance.

New York, Massachusetts for Hillary Clinton; Delaware for Barack. I would like to add that having lived in New York for six years, every time I go to the precinct it's a genuine pleasure and Tom Tancredo's worst nightmare. 9:04 p.m.

BREAKING: Terrell Pryor to Ohio State! Fine by me. I've been endorsing Steve Threet. 9:25 p.m.

Steve Threet, likely starting quarterback for Michigan,
breathes a sigh of relief.

This arose during Flop's liveblog session this morning, but how fantastic is it that the Republican candidates are sparring over the degree of respect due to Bob Dole? It would be like the 2016 primaries turning into a spat over whether candidate Sherrod Brown unwittingly dissed John Kerry's 2004 campaign and candidate Jim Webb is all, "Back off." Another reason why it's more fun to follow the Republican primaries. 9:41 p.m.

Pick Flick. The following video just showed up in my inbox. Not sure if this is making the rounds yet or if it's only new to me, but let me give a direct order: You must watch, and you can thank me later.

Breaking character: I prefer to keep the liveblog light in tone, and my affection for Huckabee is 95 percent joking, but I like and value the fact that he's successful despite the violent opposition from his party's gatekeepers. There was an ugly discussion on last Sunday's "Meet the Press" when Mary Matalin violently argued that Huckabee needed to drop out and let the race narrow to McCain and Romney. Her contempt was enormous. Democrats have this problem to a much smaller degree -- the establishment is behind Hillary but you can practically see Howard Dean bite his tongue -- but the Republican leadership seems viscerally uncomfortable with Huckabee and wants to stage manage him out of the election. The better he does, the worse they look, and I like that from many perspectives. 10:21 p.m.

Chit-chat potpourri for the comments:

Item! Is Terry McAuliffe the number-one most annoying Democrat?
Item! Is it scarier to speculate that Mitt Romney knows he's full of shit but says it anyway, or to think that he actually believes himself?
Item! Would you eat fried squirrel or possum? I believe I would.
Item! With Terrell Pryor going to Ohio State, are more Michigan fans finally going to turn pissy on Rich Rodriguez, even if it's for a dumb reason?

Salt Lake Olympics. Among M___ R_____'s bad selling points, my favorite is his job at the Salt Lake Olympics, which strikes me as the adult version of being in charge of the prom committee.

And for what it's worth, in high school, I was one of the people in charge of organizing prom. I wrote the checks and whatnot, and we had a very fine prom. A very fine prom. 10:47 p.m.

Hillary's acceptance/concession/stasis speech. She's often a very strong and interesting speaker. As much as I rag on her, there are plenty of times when I listen to her and am surprised all over again by how good she can be. This seemed to me like one of her weaker speeches. Very platitude-heavy and passionless. I also don't like that her theme was focused on the lines of what she can do to help, rarely about shared action or responsibility -- but I think that's me being spoiled by Obama. As a matter of pure style, though, her delivery seemed stiff and halting and her remarks utterly unmemorable. 11:02 p.m.

Still, let's give Hillary her due for the night:

Georgia to Huckabee! This can only mean one thing:

Delegate count. NBC estimates that Obama currently has 594 delegates on the night to Clinton's 564. 11:31 p.m.

McCain delivers a "victory" speech. Somewhat oddly, he begins by declaring himself the Republican frontrunner. 11:40 p.m.

OMG fucking sweet Barack is on! I think this is the first time I've seen one of his victory/concession speeches in real time. Heart is racing ... I have the giggles ... stay cool, man, stay cool ...

It started off routine, but when he broke into the discussion about the election being different "because of you," he took off. Also, for my taste, he can never emphasize enough that the war "never should have been authorized." That always will be my applause line.

I also thought the section of his speech dressing down Hillary was extremely effective without being too harsh or personal. But I have strong bias.

And that line, "We are the ones we've been waiting for" -- sheer heaven.

And WHOAH after being down in Missouri by about 15 percent for most of the night, he's now down by less than one percent. 12:04 a.m.

Barack now up 3,000 votes in Missouri with 97 percent of the votes in. 12:06 p.m.

M___ R_____ might drop out. MSNBC reports that the campaign will have "serious discussions" tomorrow and has canceled campaign stops late in the week. 12:31 p.m.

OBAMA DECLARED THE WINNER IN MISSOURI. While MSNBC interviews my beloved Claire McCaskill, no less. Obama won tonight. 12:41 p.m.

Super Tuesday Liveblog: Magnum Flopus Part I

2008-02-05T08:43:00.000-05:00

A super Tuesday requires a super liveblog, does it not? Follow along with liveblog-style coverage of a Tuesday so super, they should have called it Über Tuesday.

8:28 a.m. Time to vote! Democracy is totally on the march. Despite having registered some time ago, thanks to a lissome, auburn-haired young Obama volunteer, the board of elections did not have my information. If I were a minority in Indiana or Georgia, I'd most likely be hosed, but the Empire State, despite its shortcomings, does not see fit to disenfranchise. So I (carefully) cast my provisional. No problem. Despite his predilection for hiring college-aged slackers who probably got drunk (or hopped up on goofballs) and threw out my registration forms, I voted for Barack Obama. If Hillary wins her home state, I'll still be pitching a perfect no-hitter in presidential elections.

8:34 a.m. There is a problem. It's not with me. An angry middle-aged urbanite with a jaunty cap screws up his ballot by mis-manipulating the giant Handle of Democracy on the ancient, clanking machinery New York uses to record its citizens' votes. I feel like Jim Kelly in the SportsCenter ad when he's watching Adam Vinatieri repeatedly set off a metal detector. I love that giant handle. I like to imagine I'm in a massive Zeppelin of righteousness, unleashing my high-explosive ballot upon George W. Bush's misbegotten presidency. Or something. But this time, my justice was meted out in ink form. As the poll clerk records my ballot in the log for the provisionals, I notice I'm the second name listed. The first: My roommate, who apparently got a bum machine, as his reason was listed as "machine broken." U!S!A! U!S!A!

9:16 a.m. Nothing's happening yet. I mean, it is early in the morning. But I thought I'd add a photo. Because, um, I can. This image symbolizes Tuesday's role as the second day of the week, as well as the two principal candidates on each ballot of the two major parties. Also, the duality of man.

Photo from holeymoon's photostream on Flickr.

9:19 a.m. While I was uploading the photo, CNN showed that commercial where Clay Aiken rings some dude's doorbell to ask him if he's heard about "the fiber" yet. So I switched it to NBC, which is going to be showing lingerie. Let's see: Annoying commercials on CNN or pretty ladies wearing clothes meant to be removed from them. I think I'll start my day with the flismy nightwear, and ease in to my Super Tuesday coverage, lest I wind up shooting out the TV screen by the dozenth showing of that commercial. I will consider posting a photo of that, but it's unlikely. Future photos will be more likely to illuminate the text by exploring the themes of Superness, 2s, and days.

9:25 a.m. No one asked, but it always bothers me when people use the term "political junkie." I have an interest in politics, but that's only because I have specific, well-developed ideas about governance. I don't consider myself a political junkie, and I don't even consider "politics" by themselves an interest. When I hear people call themselves that, or saying they really enjoy the campaign season or whatever, I'm always suspicious. Especially when they don't seem to have much familiarity with or interest in policy. I wonder: Are these the kind of people who used to like to catch bugs, put them in a jar and shake it to make them fight?

9:29 a.m. If you read the preceding and wondered if it was my oblique way of expressing my general blanket distaste for pretty much all cable TV talking heads and newspaper campaign reporters, you could be right.

9:48 a.m. Some facts about ÜberDienstag, as the German media are no doubt calling it.

Elections are being held in 24 states! That's 23.9 Canadian provinces, 12.9 British Counties, 25.9 Swiss cantons and 2,553.73 Japanese prefectures!)
On Democratic ballots the frontrunners are Barack Obama, who is not Muslim, and Hillary Clinton, who does not keep her husband's ballsac in a safe-deposit box, despite what you may have heard on CNN.
For Republicans, Maverick Senator John McCain has a lead on Proven Businessmann Mitt Romney, upon whose shoulders Boeing jets made for short- and medium-haul flying have been posited to be able to land.
For our overseas friends: This is just a sort of pre-election, to determine who will stand for the real elections in November. But most of you know this thanks to your often-superior educational systems and media.
The states voting today are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas ... oh, fuck it. Here's a map from wikipedia.

Blue: Democratic election only. Red: Republican election only. Purple: Both parties. Not hard.

10:27 a.m. I'm back. I ran out to get some seltzer and an egg-and-cheese sandwich. I was tempted to get a beer, but that could be frowned upon. Nevertheless, I made plans with a friend of mine to watch returns and play Tiger Woods later tonight. He's a Giants fan and always manages to beat me in Tiger Woods, no matter how well or how poorly I play. (The opposite holds true when he and I play NCAA football.) I'm looking at a whupping, but hopefully it won't be as bad as the one Rudy Giuliani absorbed. Speaking of that: My favorite part was that the more he campaigned in a state, the less popular he got. That makes me fly.

10:40 a.m. Apparently, I wasn't the only one to have troubles voting. CSB correspondent Fiddles Hallihan reports his polling place was also in a state of chaos resulting in a 30-minute wait to vote. I should have noted earlier, that I was like, one of the few people voting at my polling place, and that the only delays were due to me not being listed in the Mighty Book of Registrants.

10:54 a.m. In lieu of anything substantive, more art.

From the stream of brodiemanlsu, whom we congratulate on his national title if his user name means what I think it means. Brodieman, we welcome your advice on beating those clowns, because the secret has sure escaped us lately.

11:05 a.m. I got distracted thinking about the Detroit Tigers and how most of their offseason moves have been terrible. For me, I mean. If you're a Tigers fan, they're really, really good ones.

11:16 a.m. According to CNN.com, John McCain said "as the nominee of my party, I can and will carry the city of New York as well as the state of New York, because we know how to appeal to independents," he said." Um, good luck with that. If there's one state with a dearth of independents, it's New York, where most voters have to choose a party, if only to vote in primaries. Also: Dude, no. It's not happening. McCain also apparently said that he would "take the battle to the enemy." Naturally, Rudy Giuliani and Joe Lieberman were at his side. Something tells me his campaign is going to have some rather warlike themes ...

11:22 a.m. Yeah, I know, I know. McCain's a Republican. Posturing and sowing fear is how they tend to do, isn't it?

11:28 a.m. Just how badly would Hillary's campaign have to implode for McCain to take either the city or the state? In case no one noticed, people love her here. And in New York City, most people don't care for Republican presidential candidates. I imagine it would take some sort of massive scandal that happened so late in the campaign as to preclude, like, replacing her. Though he's not as bad as some Republicans, the thought of a McCain landslide gives me fucking cramps.

Craps. From the Flickr photostream of evilgreg3000.

11:38 a.m. Let's see what Fox News has to say. I heard they hired Karl Rove recently.

11:45 a.m. This is boring, although apparently the south is in for some terrifying weather, at least if the animated graphics and skinny blonde are to be believed. "I can't imagine being in a tornado watch, or a tornado warning and trying to go out and vote." I've never imagined it before myself. So I guess I can't, either.

11:50 a.m. Sean Hannity's giant, smug head has just appeared. He's infuriating just to look at. Alan Colmes is permitted to chime in. I'm always surprised when Hannity doesn't take a telestrator and write "FAG" or something with an arrow pointing to him. Seriously, the dynamic in the studio is like something out of high school, with a bunch of suckups trying to get in with the cool kid by making fun of the designated target. It's a miracle Alan Colmes doesn't weep himself to sleep every night on a huge pile of cash. Incidentally, Hannity doesn't expect a winner on the Democratic side.

11:59 a.m. This is my last entry of the morning ...

12:01 p.m. ... because it's afternoon now.

12:04 p.m. McCain is blustering at Mitt Romney for daring to say something bad about Bob Dole because Bob Dole was an "American Hero." Look, this is true. Dole served honorably, and was a badass. The sections of Richard Ben Cramer's "What It Takes" that dealt with Dole were great, and made me have far more respect for the guy than I probably would have based on his Congressional career. But declaring someone off-limits because they saw combat, or were wounded in combat is just a non-starter. As convenient as it would make life for McCain, whom I fear is going to cheapen his service over the next nine months, this just can't be an acceptable rule of discourse. And I say this knowing full well that declaring veterans untouchable would benefit the Democrats far more than it would benefit Republicans.

12:19 p.m. Everything I've read today suggests there will be a lot of late breaking votes. Polls are somewhat all over the place. And when it's all over, the large number of proportionally determined delegates means that probably neither Hillary nor Obama will be in the catbird seat or destined for the dustbin of history. Which is ... fine, I guess. I don't think a brokered convention, as much as it makes the the soft and tender bits of the "political junkie" set throb, is a good outcome. In New Hampshire, the late breakers put Hillary over the top. But now it's possible that

12:25 p.m. MSNBC is showing a sign that says "Polling Place" in seven different languages, including Spanish, the defacto second language of Los Estados. I hope lots of people who watch Lou Dobbs were watching that. Hell, I hope he was watching it -- I bet that burned the Dobbster up good.

12:31 p.m. DEAR. LORD. From an ad just now: "As a prisoner of war, John McCain was inspired by Ronald Reagan." The ad goes on to play McCain's voice saying: "I enlisted as a footsoldier in the Reagan Revolution." The narrator comes back to intone: "The leadership and experience to call for the surge strategy in Iraq that is working." The screen flashes the words "True Conservative" followed by "Commander in Chief." The subtext is more than just a little terrifying. Even more frightening is that the appeal might work. I really don't like the implication that we're just a militaristic cult. I hate it even more than the idea that we're all easily gulled by appeals to fear. But, uh, yeah, I would like to say something else here, but there's not much to say. Criminy.

12:39 p.m. OK, I've chilled now. I have to say, after all the havoc they've gleefully wreaked on the country, I do enjoy that Republicans now have to choose between two candidates they don't like. Democrats, who have hemmed and hawed and generally been more complicit than they should have been in the looting of America, at least have a choice between two strong candidates most of them like. Of course, if the Democrats win, they'll inherit a mess, for which they'll get the blame.

12:41 p.m. Yeah, I guess I'm still kind of cynical. It's going to be a long, ugly campaign.

From the stream of Billy V.

12:48 p.m. I mentioned Richard Ben Cramer earlier. I should note briefly that his portrait of Joe DiMaggio was one of the best biographies I've ever read, and I didn't really even have much, if any, interest in the guy until I read the The Hero's Life. It's far from the usual hagiography of sports figures. What it Takes was an opus, several hundred pages of stories woven together, sometimes not all that smoothly. In The Hero's Life, Cramer's usual rat-a-tat style is turned down to soft pops. What stands out is DiMaggio's deep, deep insecurity. It drove almost everything he did, from his seriously dysfunctional interpersonal relationships, (including marriages), to his business dealings to his incredible drive to excel. Cramer did his homework, and he still manages to support a sad, yet almost sympathetic, character.

1:01 p.m. Is it clear that I'm getting a bit discouraged by the prospects for the general election yet? Whatever. Open the floodgates. At some point, we'll discover a sense of national shame, I just know it. It's down there somewhere. Maybe along with plans for reinvesting in rail and eating less red meat.

1:23 p.m. Odds on a Mardi Gras joke referencing Hillary Clinton and her ta-tas on a late-night talk show tonight: Leno: 3-1, Stewart: 4-1, Letterman 12-1, Larry King: 999-1. Jimmy Kimmel: OFF, but only because I think he sucks dong. By which I mean, of course, the Vietnamese currency.

1:41 p.m. CNN is reporting on something about Al Qaida. The video they used: the one with the guys in ninja suits on the monkey bars that we've been seeing for seven fucking years. Just stop it. Especially when the issue is torture. Besides, I know you totally want it to be scary, and it's just not. It looks like terrorist recess.

1:50 p.m. I think when some of the people on TV talk about a brokered convention, you can see them trying to nonchalantly position an elbow or a couch cushion in front of them. Just saying.

1:57 p.m. Seriously, McCain is setting himself up for Jim Webb to go all Lloyd Bentsen on his ass re: Ronald Reagan. What did McCain do during the Reagan administration, other than endorse checks from Chaz Keating? And Mitt Romney was living as an au pair in Bruges at the time, I believe.

2:02 p.m. Who are likely vice-presidential picks for these guys, anyway? You think McCain's going to have Dick Cheney head up his search committee? Does he pick someone who appeals more to the "True Conservative" base and gets that fat fuck Limbaugh off his back? Or does he pick someone maverickier, someone more warlike and, say, Liebermannish? (I can see pundits swooning now.) Who would Obama or Hillary pick? And, who would be the most disastrous pick?

2:11 p.m. OK, that's it for me now. Real life calls. Looking forward to lively discussion in the comments. See you back here as the returns roll in. Encouraging news: Apparently, there's been a shitload of turnout. If I wanted to be like the man who will no longer be president a year from now, I would point out that maybe something good will happen as a result of the unmitigated disaster that has been and will continue to be his legacy. Huzzah, turnout. Huzzah, democracy, Huzzah Super Mardi Gras Tuesday.

From Blonde Librarian's stream.

Stupid Mannings

2008-02-04T00:05:00.000-05:00

All dynasties are terrible, but some dynasties are more terrible than others.

Cole Slaw Bible study, lesson 2: Are you ready for the Lot, girls?

2008-02-03T17:41:00.000-05:00

Happy Sunday, my brothers and sisters.

It's upsetting when your entire town gets destroyed, but probably feels worse when your mom becomes a pillar of salt solely because she cranes her neck while fleeing destruction.*

This still doesn't excuse the Lot Girls' behavior.

Lot, the saltwife's husband, also is in bad shape. Understandably disturbed by the destruction of his town and his wife's abrupt change in mineral composition, Lot refuses to resettle in a city called Zoar. Instead, he takes his two daughters into the mountains -- presumably the Ozarks -- and the three live together in a cave. Very Mosquito Coast, but with a twist.

Brothers and sisters, last week we first learned about the dangers of mixing wine, sleep and adult children. Drinking and indiscretion prompted Noah to exile Ham, the peeping-tom son who looked at Noah's private parts after Noah passed out drunk.

Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising that humanity's early tribes made a lot of missteps with alcohol. My freshman year of college included mistakes that I haven't experienced before or since. Maybe one way to interpret the Book of Genesis is to think of it as a world populated entirely by college freshmen who are new to alcohol, where people learn from their drinking errors and move on to live somewhat responsible lives.** Genesis is the Bible's cautionary tale we all hear in orientation, about the young midget who died of alcohol poisoning because he drank a bottle of tequila during Sig Ep rush, so neither should you.

Lot's two daughters worry that their dad is old. They face a shortage of eligible bachelors,*** since they live in a cave, not a city like Zoar.

Big Sister concocts a scheme to get Lot drunk on wine, at which point she and Little Sister "will lie with him, that we may preserve the seed of our father."

I don't follow the logic. Their father's "seed" has been preserved through them. I'm not sure why that's inadequate. It's possible that they were nearing menopause and this was the last chance, but if that's the case, Zoar couldn't have been that far -- surely Zoar's bachelors were preferable. Or maybe 1/2 of their father's seed wasn't enough, and they needed offspring that was 3/4 seed. Whatever -- the Lot Girls didn't weigh alternatives.

Their emotionally troubled plan gained momentum. Accordingly, "they made their father drink wine that night," and Big Sister goes in to "lay with her father."

Lot apparently is blind drunk because "he perceived not when she lay down, nor when she arose."

Imagine how horrible it would be if the blameless old widower woke from a sweet little dream and saw his oldest daughter riding cowgirl.

The next day, crazy Big Sister demands more, and tells Little Sister that it's her turn. That night, they get dad all fucked up on alcohol again; Little Sister "lay with him," and again, Lot is too hammered to know what happened.

Punchline: "Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father."

OH MY G_D NO

Shocking material. Earlier, Ham's life was torn apart because he happened to walk into a tent where drunk Noah was passed out naked. Lot's two amorous daughters don't face consequences like that, even though they forced their dad to get blind drunk, secretly lady-raped him, and bore his children.

Lot must have been senile, if not catatonic. I find it frankly unbelievable that a man -- even a very old man -- could inseminate grown women in the natural way without waking up, even if drunk, and particularly on consecutive nights.

Seems to me that if God destroyed Sodom and Gommorah because of decadent citizenry, the Lot Girls were in for at least a little suffering. Ham's twittering, childish penis fixation has nothing on these bitches, and he was forced into exile. The Lot Girls don't face any consequences, not even mosquito bites, stubbed toes or a minor plague like cold or acne.

I tried to find a positive message from the ugly incident, something about female empowerment or inverting conventional incest narratives. It didn't work.****

The moral of Genesis: If your dad is passed out drunk, you can't look at him if he's naked, but you can make him involuntarily penetrate you.

MP3: All the Wine, by The National

*One thing you notice about the Bible: God operates like a high-school substitute teacher, the kind that was over-obsessed with respect issues and demanded full compliance at all times, regardless of how arbitrary the activity. "Now we'll go around the room and everyone will say their mother's maiden name." "Why would we do that?" "[CrimeNotes], go stand in the hallway." That's God's leadership style. I don't even want to engage the circumcision mess that arises a few chapters earlier. This is another one of those incidents I am vaguely aware of in my secular life, but a chapter makes it clear that many adult men experienced extreme penis misery***** for no clear reason. It was the Great Foreskin Massacre of 3000 B.C.E.

**Dear believers: Is the rest of the Bible about the consequences of drinking?

*** The daughters had husbands before they fled to the cave. Lot tried to get the husbands to leave town with him, but the husbands thought that Lot was crazy so they laughed at him and hence were destroyed by the Lord.

****Not unlike Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden. It's a nasty, awful book and McEwan's great writing didn't redeem it. It's probably the Lot Girls' favorite.

*****So far, the book is about murder, genitals, agriculture and inebriation, roughly in that order. This isn't a bad thing, but it's not what I expected.

Last year's Superbowl

2008-02-03T17:35:00.001-05:00

I don't remember it, but apparently I provided live updates during a viewing party in which interest in the Puppy Bowl won out over horrible football.

This explains the bonanza of hits we've been getting today for blogging about the puppy bowl.

Lost Season 4, Episode 1

2008-02-01T00:16:00.000-05:00

My key questions and observations from the season premiere.

We now know that only six people were taken off the island. Jack, Kate and Hurley have been identified. Who are the other three?
Hurley's interrogator was unfamiliar with Ana-Lucia's fate. Abbadon, the alleged Oceanic lawyer who visits Hurley at the mental institution, also asked about people left on the island. Apparently the full story of what happened on the island isn't public. The "Oceanic Six" apparently presented themselves as the crash's sole survivors.
Harold Perrineau, who plays Michael, was listed in the opening credits but didn't appear on the show. I guess Michael makes a comeback this season. A fair guess might be that he's now affiliated with the people on the boat.
I've replayed several times the sequence when Hurley looks into Jacob's cabin. There seems to be a consensus online that Christian Shephard is the figure in the rocking chair, although I can't make that out. Also remember that in "Through the Looking Glass," Jack talks about his father in the present tense, as though he's still alive.
Whoever's face jumped out at Hurley, it wasn't Locke's -- in slow-motion replay, the guy appears to have thick, dark hair.
Notice that before he sees Charlie, Hurley was painting a man standing outside of an igloo? Is there a reason that looked familiar? Lostpedia isn't helping on this one.
When Jack and Hurley play Horse, they stop playing after the letter "o." H is the eighth letter in the alphabet and O is the fifteenth. They stopped at 815.
Unrelated to this episode, but here's a very well done YouTube clip that edits the crash of Flight 815 from multiple angles. Once in awhile YouTube makes itself useful.

A brief thought on Lost

2008-01-31T08:09:00.000-05:00

This post is spoiler-protected, for those who haven't quite caught up. To read the parts with spoilers, just highlight the blank space in the middle of the post.

While it remains amazing to me how one network TV show can cover so many themes while also remaining a kickass piece of serial, televised entertainment, I am not here to write the ur-post on Lost. It's not time.

I just finished watching Season 3 in about a week's time. I need to do laundry, I need to make food for myself. I need to sleep more. But it was totally and utterly worth it. I would watch several episodes before bedtime, then just lie in bed, thrumming and trying not to untangle the plot threads so my mind could rest. I dreamed about Lost, and not for the first time. I've followed all these characters and come to know them well and find myself throwing out five or six at a time when the inevitable "Who is your favorite" discussions come up. For the record: Jack, Sayid, Hurley, Kate, and Locke. In no particular order.

But one moment, one scene stands out for me above the rest. I can't stop thinking about when Jack has his flash-forward in the Season 3 finale "Through the Looking Glass" and is clearly a mess. The flash-forward has a couple of scenes, but one is clearly the best. There's a shot of his apartment, food and alcohol bottles carelessly in the sink, a sheaf of papers on the floor, atlases open, maps of the Pacific all around, and Jack's just in the middle of it. He calls someone, clearly a friend, and you know it's Kate, but you don't know if she'll show. She arrives to meet him, under the flight path at LAX, and she's just ... luminous. And Jack explains to her, how he's been flying every week, crossing the Pacific and hoping to crash on the island again. He's out and he can't get ever back in the womb. He's more lost than ever. It's heartbreaking.

It's perfect.

I can't get that scene out of my head right now, and I don't want to either. This show is rewarding beyond any of the reasonable expectations I had when I got into it on the recommendation of a couple friends this summer. One of them was Crimenotes, who loaned me his DVDs of Season 1 and Season 2. The lovely and vivacious Megan loaned me Season 3. I've got to go out and get them for myself, however, as something tells me they're going to want them back after watching tonight's premiere.

Because I'm tough

2008-01-30T19:06:00.000-05:00

It didn't matter that I woke up this morning shaking, feverish, my joints sore, that the room was spinning when I was in bed and that I felt sick when I walked down into the subway station.

By noon lesions appeared on my body, blood drained from my orifices, I lost vision in one eye, my hearing was gone, your mother sucks cocks in hell, a parakeet hatched from my stomach, my knees had chicken pox, I could no longer walk in a straight line, I convulsed every 15 minutes, I gnashed my teeth and bit the recess lady's breast, my teeth fell out, my urine glowed (fluorescent orange), my fins were rotting, I hallucinated that "Flop" shot me in No Country For Old Men, and I needed hip replacement surgery.

Baby doesn't take sick days.

A liveblog in brief

2008-01-29T21:46:00.000-05:00

Real life has intervened in numerous ways, so I'll be brief:

9:47 p.m. McCain is not like George W. Bush, except in the way that both are reckless dumbasses when it comes to foreign relations, and both think that feeding more people into the Iraq corpse-chipper is a swell idea. So for those of you who get the vapors at all of Hillary's Clintonian exceesses, man up and face the fact that she'd at least be better than McCain on Iraq.

9:51 p.m. Also, on the economy. Jesus, I find a lot of Clinton-era economic policies annoying, but they're better than the Republican ethos of the past three decades, even if too close to them for my comfort. But seeing as McCain is an admitted lightweight on these issues, it seems safe to assume he'll mostly go for Republican Party orthodoxy, if only to fund his adopted pet war.

9:54 p.m. No, I'm not in a particularly good mood that he won, either, so get off my back.

Liveblog? Mmmmmaybe

2008-01-29T09:12:00.000-05:00

Not to engage in some shameless coquetry here, but there may or may not be a liveblog later for this, the most Mittmentous of GOP primaries.

Register your outrage in the comments.

Cole Slaw Bible study: Take off your clothes

2008-01-27T13:34:00.001-05:00

Happy Sunday, my brothers and sisters.

A few posts back I mentioned that I'm trying to read only old books this year. I became an atheist in third grade, so I've never read the Bible. I bought a paperback copy of the King James Bible, deciding that I would occasionally read key portions in the year ahead. It seemed like it might make for interesting reading.

Brothers and sisters, my margin notes include observations like, "God is not an animal rights activist" and "farming is god's punishment."

What I want to preach about today is being naked. It came as a surprise to learn that the Bible is confused about nudity. The big episode is well known, even to a heathen like me: Adam and Eve were happy being naked until they ate forbidden fruit, at which point being naked was horrible. God's punishment: clothes. Basically, clothes are punishment for being stupid and greedy, which is self-explanatory to anybody who's walked past Bergdorf-Goodman or seen an episode of Sex and the City.

So I think to myself, "Huh. According to the Bible's logic, I guess that means if you like being naked, you're a better person and not messed up by fruit-eating." Someone else must have thought of this I'm sure, and at some point after Martin Luther, I bet a sect had Naked Church, where you're not supposed to wear clothes and just be naked. Because, basically, if you're okay walking around naked, that means you follow the rules and aren't a rebel.

Later on, there's a bizarre passage that throws my logic into doubt. Noah (of flood fame) plants a vineyard. According to the Bible, he then gets drunk and passes out naked in his tent. (I swear to G_d, brothers and sisters; turn to Genesis, Book 9 in your Bible.) Now there's drunk naked Noah lying around in his tent, passed out. The details about the party aren't included, but it probably was a rager, which makes me think that the Bible approves of getting plastered and silly.

Noah's got a son named Ham. He appears to be an asshole. Ham sees "the nakedness" of Noah, and immediately goes and tells his two brothers about it. The two brothers go to cover up naked Noah, and, according to the Bible, "their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness."

When Noah wakes up from his drunken stupor, he's pissed that Ham looked at his junk, and he curses him. Ham gets in trouble and is exiled, and the other two brothers are in good shape because they didn't look at their naked dad.

This Jerry Springer scenario raises all kinds of questions. Obviously, it's implied that Ham looked at Noah's dick and told his brothers about it, and that this was a major problem for everybody. And when Noah woke up with a hangover, one of the brothers was like, "Dad, Ham just looked at your dick when you were passed out," and Noah was like, "Whaaaat? I'm kicking him out of the trailer park."

What's the message from all of this? One is that you shouldn't take advantage of drunk people by looking at their privates. In this lesson, the Girls Gone Wild are Noah and dudes are Ham. Another is that you shouldn't look at your dad naked -- again, a good Jerry Springer lesson. Third is that if you repeat stories about things that people do while they're drunk, you're an asshole -- a good lesson that most of us figure out when we're teenagers. Fourth is that apparently you're not supposed to be naked (or at least notice that other people are naked) which seems to me hard to reconcile with the early incident with Adam and Eve, where feeling bad about not wearing clothes was punishment. Seems to me that if you're into nudity, you should be square with God, as long as you don't run around telling your brothers about other people's junk.

In its dumb way, even Oliver! matters

2008-01-22T19:40:00.000-05:00

A few years ago I accepted an invitation to somebody's Oscar party. There aren't many things that suck more than watching a major event with people who are enthusiastic when you yourself don't care. (This is a problem every March -- at packed bars, I think, "Basketball is a jumpy, squeaky-shoe sport," and pretend to be enthusiastic.) It's like attending a concert and hating the music and so you never get in on the fun. I made up an excuse and left the party.

Still, there's something nice about the Academy Awards and their nominees. You get nominations for good people with no shot of winning (the David Lynches and Robert Altmans) and harmless celebrity claptrap. Mostly, the awards work as good, superficial snapshots for posterity. It's always a little annoying when smart people write about these awards seriously and handicap prospects as deserving or neglected.

Very good movies stand the test of time regardless. They don't need awards. There are no asterisks next to Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman or Citizen Kane because they passed award-free. Good is always good.

The Academy Awards do something different. Like the Grammys and the fiction Pulitzer, they're bad at recognizing difficult and original work. They catalog and honor very formal, upper-middle-brow movies. This is valuable. Without it, some of these movies would (or will) have been forgotten. Excellent movies can lose but survive: Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, or E.T. (re-watching it as an adult is a great experience).

Others are watched only because they won these awards. They may not be great movies, but they're good to have around, like a blurry family photo where somebody's only halfway in the shot. Midnight Cowboy has its melodrama and over-the-top visions of hedonism and scary big cities -- perfect for 1969. Kramer vs. Kramer works as snapshot into late-70s confusion over family roles before feminism became a dirty word; Forrest Gump is an effective fairy tale about baby boom nostalgia and Clintonian optimism; American Beauty -- that was your Clintonian moral confusion and ennui. Dances With Wolves and Driving Miss Daisy -- they've aged horribly, but are ripe with naive, condescending, multicultural sensitivity, which was the vogue when they were released. (America wasn't ready for Do the Right Thing, but white directors administering loving lectures about minority groups, that was easy to digest. This was also a theme in Out of Africa.) Going further back, we get The Lost Weekend's bizarre, borderline-trippy take on the menaces of overdrinking, and the sunny, cheerful American man dancing through post-war France in An American in Paris. I don't think these movies hold up, but they're valuable as cultural touchstones. Without the awards, I probably wouldn't have seen them.

Then you get something like Oliver! My mom likes movie musicals, and I remember Oliver! as one of the first movies we rented after buying a VCR. I think it's regarded as one of the worst movies ever to win a Best Picture Award. Who cares? People would watch 2001 anyway, and it's odd to watch Oliver! and think about how, in 1968, while the country was stabbed with race riots, assassinations, and Vietnam, the Academy favored a musical with cute British orphans singing and dancing about gruel. The stark, marijuana-friendly 2001 wasn't even a nominee.

Apparently, these dumb orphans hated gruel.

Even when the "right" movies win, they're formal, conventional products, executed extremely well. I'm thinking of Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, All the King's Men, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Apartment, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Amadeus, Schindler's List, and possibly The Departed (which I like today, but give it 10 years). Each is excellent but basically safe. Only The Godfather Part II, with its parallel-flashback plot and extensive subtitles, and Annie Hall's camera-addressing, time-hopping narrative, are structurally unusual. Pulp Fiction and Inland Empire never had a prayer.

I like the catalog of movies produced by these awards, but there's no good in taking a rooting interest. While I'm extremely enthusiastic about There Will Be Blood, it is odd and divisive. People will watch it for years regardless; like Citizen Kane or 2001, its worth is beyond awards. Like the best winners, No Country For Old Men is entertaining, highly formal and well executed. It will hold up over time. Still, without having seen Juno, I like the idea that forty years from now a college student will find it on TCM and think about how people were so naive in 2007, when in the middle of a war and economic distress, a little movie about teenagers was considered the standard-bearer. There's nothing bad about that.

Waste

2008-01-22T19:32:00.000-05:00

A couple years ago a friend and I were talking about Zadie Smith, and how happy it is to love the work of an artist that's approximately your own age. It's nice to think that I'll grow older getting to read her new novels, and that when she's writing about being 50 or 60, I'll (hopefully) be there to compare.

There aren't many others who've made me feel the same way: Paul Thomas Anderson (he's 36 but close enough), Craig Finn (obviously), Ryan Gosling in Half-Nelson (I'm not being a copycat, I swear).

I didn't like Brokeback Mountain, but when I watched it I felt like the same might be true about Heath Ledger. I'm not a fan, I couldn't tell you a thing about his divorce, I've never seen 10 Things I Hate About You, and I'm emotionally unaffected, except to the extent that it's frustrating to see someone that good bite it on purpose when people with a fraction of his talent carry on for years. We're stuck with more no-talent hacks instead of people like Heath Ledger. Imagine what a dumber world it would be if Brando offed himself at 28 or Nicholson did the same after Five Easy Pieces.

I've got no sympathy. My reaction is selfish. That's a compliment.

Perhaps not a suicide, in which case I'm an asshole for jumping the gun, as usual. It's an unhappy loss either way.

The Three Musketeers

2008-01-21T13:36:00.001-05:00

The first thing that jumps out about The Three Musketeers is how fun and sunny it is. I guess I start most classic books with the prejudice that I'm in for a serious undertaking. Why I picked The Three Musketeers I don't really know, except that it was just published in an attractive new edition translated by Richard Pevear (more on him in a second) and that never having read anything by Alexandre Dumas, I might as well roll the dice.

Then it starts and immediately I was immersed, as entertained by the book as any escapist bestseller or beach read. This is a book about young men who fight, gamble and chase skirts (long frilly skirts with lace and jewels, but skirts). Basically, a young man who hasn't hit twenty leaves the provinces for Paris, hoping for military fame. He falls in with the Three Musketeers, who are in their late 20s and early 30s. Originally the musketeers and D'Artagnan plan to kill each other, until the musketeers are impressed by his bravado and decide to adopt him as a protege.

Then it's 600 pages of dueling, chasing and scheming. There are villains and royals and young men who can't decide whether they want to pork the pretty, innocent servant or the polished, beautiful royal. Villains get stabbed, good guys spend time in jail, butlers save the day and everyone celebrates by getting drunk and rebelling against authority.

It's been a long time since I've read a book that has so much pure fun. The translator, Richard Pevear, turns out one great edition after another. I thought I didn't like Russian literature until I read a translation of The Brothers Karamazov that he and his wife published. They could make a cereal box label seem dramatic and exciting.

I decided that in 2008 I'm only going to read books that were written before I was born. I read too much middle-of-the-road junk. Books by new young writers that receive strong reviews but are usually just pleasant or minor. Plus, I have a whole shelf of books with titles like America Betrayed! Bush, Cheney, Iraq, Evangelical Christians and the Beshitting of the Constitution. (I made that up, but the real titles are pretty close.) It seemed time to pursue some new interests.

Whenever someone tells me that I need to read Harry Potter, I tell them that I'm sure he's fine but that I don't want to invest myself in thousands of pages when there are a lot of great books I haven't read. Maybe this should apply to new books by David Mitchell and Richard Ford too. At least in 2008.

I haven't read any Harry Potter, but I'm pretty sure that The Three Musketeers is more fun.

Flop's guide to retirement investing

2008-01-20T16:07:00.002-05:00

I am not a certified financial anything. Follow my advice at your own risk and peril.

Like many of you, I see in the daily heavings of the stock market a coming storm. The credit crisis is much more than subprime mortgages not performing. It could be really bad.

I was thinking about this today as I mulled changing the mix in my 401(k) account. Right now, my retirement nest egg largely lives in an S&P 500 index fund. This is because it spreads the risk across companies -- good ones -- that are meant to stand the test of time. I also do this because very little of my investment dollars go to paying a fund manager who's probably just going to do shit like short Apple and keep tons of cash on hand in a bull market. A monkey can administer an index fund; bananas and monkey pellets are cheaper than martinis and BMWs.

I considered lessening my exposure to a possible Black ___day-style crash. Then I had a realization. I'm saving for retirement, not that pleasant feeling four times a year when I open my mail and gaze upon a sum of money I would best characterize as "a shitload." If the stock market is still in the shitter 30 years from now, I'll have other issues. And will probably be looking to take an immediate long position in Mossbergs and buckshot, to keep those fucking mole people off my stash.

Cole Slaw Blog Personal Finance Adviser Flop does not and has not owned any of the securities or commodities mentioned in this article, except for the time when he made a simple, honest mistake between put and call options on the Brazilian Mercantile and Futures Exchange, resulting in sanctions from Mercosul, dozens of frantic calls to zoos, comedy troupes and soup kitchens, and a public-nuisance lawsuit filed by Washtenaw County.

No, seriously. Stick It is actually kind of good

2008-01-18T13:10:00.000-05:00

Here's why the utterly unnoticed and easily mockable movie Stick It is actually much, much better than you think. Not, uh, that you asked.

It's not the story of a plucky underdog finally learning what's within herself and putting it all together for a Climactic Final Competition against the Hated Foe, which she wins, landing herself on a cereal box at the start of Happily Ever After. Even if you could be excused for thinking that. There is a final meet scene, but it's not what you think.

It's more like a Bad News Bears for gymnastics, but make no mistake: these are good athletes.

Haley is a rebellious teenaged tomboy and former elite gymnast who gets arrested for trashing a development on her BMX with her two guy pals. The judge gives her a choice between returning to gymnastics or being incarcerated. She chooses juvie. The judge sends her to gymnastics. There's a reason Haley doesn't want to get back in the gym -- she wigged out and left the U.S. team at the world championships, costing her teammates the gold. She doesn't like gymnastics, gymnasts don't like her. Conflict!

There's a not-very-interesting get-to-know you part of the film with Jeff Bridges as the coach with the mildly sullied reputation and Haley as the rebelliously talented brat. There's some nods to Haley's divorced parents, and a lot of visually excellent exposition about just how grueling a sport gymnastics is. Also, this is where I should note that Missy Peregrym, who plays Haley, is an utter babe. I would be lying if I said that seeing her bouncing around in a sports bra was not what got me into the movie.

But Stick It has more heart than abs, and it doesn't stay predictable. There's a scene in which Haley gets her overcautious coach to do a trick on a trampoline, which is clearly going to show what he's gained from having this rebellious young girl around to teach him the way and show him he's still got it, right? Yeah, good luck with that.

Haley discovers soon that she's regained her enthusiasm for a sport that demands, essentially, the entire lives of its participants. At a meet, Haley's guy pals show up, to the amazement of her fellow elite gymnasts. "You know boys?" one says. "Yeah, they're called friends," Haley replies.

All elite gymnasts live like this. They train six hours a day so they can please others -- parents, judges, coaches. Haley's real rebellion is that she dares to ask if maybe they should be doing it for themselves. And this is what the movie is about. Reclaiming a sport the participants obviously love -- they would have to -- from all these so-called adults.

The movie is far from perfect. It's got plenty of flaws, plenty of needless asides and just some off moments. It's clearly aimed at the kids. But it's engaging, watchable and a hell of a lot better than you'd think or expect. Especially considering the crap that usually passes for sports movies these days.

If I were a real movie reviewer, this is where I'd wrap everything up nice and neat by saying how Stick It gets deductions, but you don't always need to score a perfect 10 to get the gold.

Let my people go

2008-01-17T20:05:00.000-05:00

My values and lifestyle choice are under assault. The key bigot is Kay S. Hymowitz, whose hate speech was recently exposed in a Wall Street Journal blog post called Single Young Male is Urged to Grow Up. As summarized in the Journal post:

People shouldn't dignify the videogame-playing and hard partying of some 20-something [sic] males as a phase of self-discovery, says Kay S. Hymowitz in the conservative City Journal. She suggests the so-called Young Single Male grow up before he wrecks society (article not yet available online).

Dignify? We should be glorified.

It is not a phase of self-discovery. It is the discovery. Has Ms. Hymowitz ever walked home through Tompkins Square Park at sunrise with a cigarette dangling in her mouth, sunny-side-up detritus on the corner of her lips, serenaded by the birds as she plays an impromptu game of tag with a homeless junkie? No? Her life has no meaning.

Ms. Hymowitz will never know the pleasure of slaughtering a Templar knight during a hard-fought battle in Assassins' Creed. She will never relate to the highs and lows we feel upon throwing a pick in NCAA 2008, only to recover a fumble and watch a fat defensive lineman spin his way into the end zone.

Such joys are not self-discovery; they are reasons to live.

Men are increasingly delaying marriage to their late 20s and beyond. As seen in movies such as the "40-Year-Old Virgin" or "Knocked Up," they fill their prolonged bachelorhood by watching gross-out videos on the Internet, playing videogames and flitting from one half-serious girlfriend to another.

Ms. Hymowitz's knowledge of my people is based solely on the work of arch-conservative comic Judd Apatow, whose pro-life propaganda flick Knocked Up turned the clock back to 1972. She sleepwalks through history, unaware that all across America, cakes are being given to grateful pedestrians, cookies are being drop-kicked into thoroughfares and Nerf missiles are hurtling into nuts. Her ignorance is further shown by limiting her critique to "gross-out videos" and "half-serious girlfriend[s]," when for many of my people (not necessarily me) the truth is closer to rampant internet pornography and consequence-free sex.

Ms. Hymowitz is equal parts ignorant and jealous.

Unlike bachelors past, Young Single Males no longer bother posing as sophisticates.

Utterly incorrect.

Instead, they indulge in scatological jokes and chugging contests.

This is not exclusive of sophistication.

Partly this is a backlash against feminism, says Ms. Hymowitz.

If that's the case, and I don't think it is, then feminism is the best thing that ever happened to my people: "Women now have the franchise and a right to choose. Our revenge shall be beer and video games."

More fundamentally, pop culture has given the seal of approval to the long-running discomfort men have felt for the responsibilities of family life. Articles in Playboy were describing marriage as an encumbrance long before modern feminism arrived.

Stupid old scold.

The downside to this attitude shows up in novels like Nick Hornby's "About a Boy" and Benjamin Kunkel's "Indecision." In these stories, the protagonists' serial indulgence of easy pleasures leaves them isolated from others, with few aspirations.

No, "About a Boy" is about how Hugh Grant helped a kid become famous for singing a Roberta Flack cover, and "Indecision" is about how young authors shouldn't be too precious. As to aspirations, Mario Manningham once won a Heisman in NCAA '07 while under my tutelage. And that's just one thing that comes to mind.

For Ms. Hymowitz, who has written extensively and sometimes critically about how the family has changed over the past 30 years, young men especially "need a culture that can help them define worthy aspirations," says Ms. Hymowitz. "Adults don't emerge. They're made."

Unfortunately, adults are in fact made, and the calendar is the culprit.

Ms. Hymowitz's disgraceful, bigoted assault cannot stand. She appears to favor a world free of birth control, where young man accidentally impregnate their girlfriends and spend the rest of their lives in quiet servitude to an accidental child, dominated by regret, emotional repression and fear. Or, as I prefer to call think of it, my hometown.

Nevada courts agree: Voting should not be made harder

2008-01-17T15:06:00.000-05:00

The lawsuit filed by the Nevada teachers' union to prevent people working on Saturday from caucusing at seven spots set up on the strip got thrown out today. It means that the idea of using the law to erect obstacles to legitimate voters took a hit. Anyone who gives a shit about democracy or the legitimate consent of the governed or voter participation should be happy.

This is a good thing, even if you support Hillary Clinton.

This leaves me wondering if the polling place to be set up at the New York New York casino will feature the massive, clanking, medieval Machinery of Democracy that we use here in the Empire State. That place thought of everything.

Another great thing about Lost

2008-01-17T12:59:00.000-05:00

Your head spins as you try to follow a million threads at once. Faith and fear, hope and despair, salvation and ruin. There's just so much going on. You know you're going to have to come back over this again and again and again and you can't wait.

And this shit is, technically, filed under the same heading as Two and a Half Men? Other people, lots of them, some probably even Ron Paul voters, or "independents" who think John McCain's a real maverick, they watch this. And they like it. And they probably get more of it than I give them credit for.

We can't impeach the two biggest crooks who ever ran this country because of all the mental barriers we've erected for ourselves (with help). But the mere fact that this show still exists, is still viable, means that we're not done yet. Not completely.

It's morning in America, and I'm sitting on my couch with the shades drawn, watching one more episode before I turn in.

Numismatics corner!

2008-01-16T12:32:00.000-05:00

I was recently discussing the trend in the United States to name our most visible assets for presidents and only presidents. I assume part of it comes from the Great Reagan Renaming of the late 1990s. But the stupidity has only grown.

Basically, every new aircraft carrier is going to be named for a president. Including the new U.S.S Gerald R. Ford class of supercarriers. (Incidentally, I know of no capital warships named for former Ohio State players). Although I think I foresee a problem when the George H.W. Bush and the George W. Bush get their orders crossed and make a Three Stooges-style entrance at the Straits of Gibraltar.

We've long been remiss in honoring great Americans on our currency, leaving it to a couple great presidents, a few horrible ones, Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin. And, of course, Sacagawea.

But she's getting hustled out the door, apparently in the belief that the reason no one wants to carry around pockets full of jingling dollars is because they don't have former presidents on them. And oh, are the new dollar coins are going to show presidents. All of them, in fact. Including, yes, two separate coins for each Grover Cleveland administration.

So we'll be honoring Rutherford B. Hayes, Andrew Johnson, Millard Fillmore and William Howard Taft, in the same way we honor Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and the like. But other Americans can go suck a lemon. Would it kill us to put Martin Luther King on the currency? And not as a sop to multiculturalism or Black History Month. Dude pretty much changed the course of American history, and for the better. While Benji Harrison rocked the tariffs pretty hard, I don't think that quite compares.

But I'll let this issue drop for now. We're an increasingly unthinking, people. So I suppose its only fair that we make no distinctions other than that leader = good. I do have one other minor objection, and it's a question of taste. This requires visuals.

The new Rich Rodriguez problem is not minor

2008-01-16T01:33:00.000-05:00

Caveats, unknowability, et cetera, but anyone with a loose familiarity of scandalous downfalls over the past 30 years knows that the story usually begins with something like this:

The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette reported Tuesday that Rodriguez might have “destroyed all or most of the paperwork files relating to every player on the current Mountaineer roster and virtually all of the activities conducted by the programs over the past seven years.”

It's an easy invitation for imaginations to run wild. The Duke lacrosse episode was a lesson on being cautious about accepting an entirely plausible, common-sense conclusion about people doing bad things.

Still, this has the whiff.

JJ Prescott, an assistant professor at the U-M Law School specializing in employment law, said “the key question is likely to be who owned the files — Rodriguez or the university?”

“Rodriguez is free to destroy his own property,” Prescott wrote in an e-mail. “But, if the university owned the files, then Rodriguez might face criminal liability for destruction of property, possibly even if he mistakenly believed the files were his to (destroy).”

I've had e-mails with friends today who've argued that they're skeptical of news coming out of West Virginia because fans there are so angry. This is backward. There's nothing more destructive than a swarm of motivated, pissed-off individuals. They will fight as long as they have ammunition. This is good ammunition.

Circumspice, bitches!

2008-01-15T11:26:00.001-05:00

Si quaeris liveblogam amoenam ...

We'd be remiss if we didn't liveblog the hot, hot primary election action coming out of our (in my case, adopted) home state, Michigan.

Starting this afternoon, we'll bring you occasional updates, but when the returns start coming fast and furious, we'll be there as only Cole Slaw Blog can. Cole Slaw Blog: Your 2008 Election headquarters for silliness and nonsense. (By which we mean intentional silliness and nonsense, not crap like an expose on cafeteria food from The Politico, Washington's answer to The Beverly Blaze.)

I'll start with a somewhat timely anecdote. When I lived in Michigan in 2000, I voted for John McCain in the Republican primary. I thought reasonably nice things of McCain back then, and I thought horrible, horrible things about George W. Bush. Although never in my wildest dreams did I expect this kind of disaster, I knew enough to know I really, really didn't want him. And so I made sure to go out and vote for McCain to fuck over Bush. And it worked ... until the South Carolina firewall.

So that was nice for a while. If I still lived in Michigan, I think I'd consider doing what a lot of Democrats are doing, and voting for Mitt Romney. Or maybe I'd tell them I was trying to ratfuck Republican primaries with my vote long before it was cool, and back when internet video was just buffering ... buffering .... buffering ...

OK, on with the updates:

11:38 a.m. Early news out of the Wolverine State indicates moderate to light voting. Seeing as this is essentially a GOP-only contest (as far as delegates are concerned), that's not too surprising. Are you like me? Did you think the coolest part of the Michigan Democrats for Romney video was Brandent Englemon jacking up some poor macroeconomics major from Vanderbilt?

11:58 a.m. This has nothing directly to do with Michigan, but CNN is doing a piece on how Mitt Romney may be too perfect looking for the presidency. This is vapid, even by CNN's standards.

12:20 p.m. Feel the excitement! The Grand Rapids Press, located in the heart of Michigan Republicandom is informing its website readers of the following up-to-the-minute news: A local chain of grocery stores has scored well on recent sanitation inspections; a local snowboard park has a history that includes one of the sport's titans; a credit union was recently robbed for the second time in a short span; Business leaders will be attending a policy conference in Grand Rapids this fall.

1:04 p.m. Just saw this now on TPM. Apparently, Mitt's goose is as yet uncooked. Poll numbers are showing signs of Romnmentum. As George Costanza once said "I think I felt it move!"

1:06 p.m. CNN is interviewing some smirking Republican who's complaining about illegal immigrants hurting his business, and for whom the candidates aren't socially conservative enough, even in the economic blast zone that is southeast Michigan. In the background: A Manchester United flag. Figures. I wonder if it makes him uncomfortable that Cristiano Ronaldo is so very, very pretty and prancy. And frequently appears in tabloids wearing naught but junk-hugging Speedos. Or maybe he doesn't give a shit, because this appeared to have taken place in some classroom somewhere. Maybe at the Lynn Rivers Democrat School for Forced Gay Marriage.

1:25 p.m. There's not a lot happening in the Michigan primary. I'm going to watch the $10 DVD of The Princess Bride I bought late last year.

5:10 p.m. That totally ruled. I was done with it a while ago, but I did some other stuff, and to be honest, there's not much action until the polls close.

5:11 p.m. Fuck that shit, there's always something happening in The Situation Room! And so it is. The Wolfster lets us know that Barack Obama is black. And Hillary Clinton is personally offended that people thought she noticed. Or something. I just got back from New York Burger Company and am not really paying attention.

5:27 p.m. Ever wonder why Michigan State Police cars still have those old-timey "gumball" lights on top when every other force has gone to massive racks of strobes? And what's with that ineffective-looking clear sign on the hood?

Wikipedia:

Both the rotating overhead light and the shark fin have traditionally been synonymous with the MSP. The shark fin was used for a side stop, which was employed when a Trooper was stopping another vehicle. The Trooper would pull along the driver's side of the vehicle he wished to stop and would activate the shark fin's light, alerting the other driver that he was to pull over. ... The rotating red light has been used by the MSP since 1960 and the current style red overhead light has been in use by the agency since 1979. The bright red-pink hue of the light is striking and it makes the patrol car recognizable as a Michigan State Police car from several miles away. The red overhead lights on some MSP cars are 20-25 years old.

There you have it. Meanwhile, Blitzer's talking about issues with the Canadian border -- maybe he's trying to carve out his own niche as the Lou Dobbs of the north. What better night on which to do it than Michigan Primary night? I bet this is of great importance to Michigan republicans.

5:28 p.m. Do you think there's a small subset of right-wing blogs obsessed that Canadian immigrants are going to take over our country (assuming the Muslims and Mexicans don't get there first)? I mean, there's NHL teams in two dozen U.S. cities, OMG they're going to take it over!

5:29 p.m. I'm done now. Wolf is interviewing Glenn Beck with a straight face. George Bush "has betrayed conservatives every step of the way." Uh huh. CNN should hire us and fire Glenn Beck -- Americans would wind up more knowledgeable about mammal taxonomy, Cormac McCarthy and state police forces, while also being less racist and self-centered. Meanwhile, he could be the really annoying guy you tune out down at the office.

5:32 p.m. Holy shit, we're talkin' health care, because Beck just had surgery. CNN's chryon: "Why Health Care Matters: Glenn's life-threatening surgery."

Sounds about right. After all, to repurpose a frequent point of crunk raconteur, "conservative" is just another term for someone who can't imagine a world more than six feet from his or her own billfold.

Apparently, Beck had a rough ordeal at his (presumably) privately run hospital, where they just tried to get him out the door and didn't have enough compassion. He has concluded that the government is not the answer, because the hospitals would be like the DMW. The upshot: Rudy Giuliani will solve this by unleashing the private sector. Blitzer wanly mentions that HMOs might be part of the problem, but Beck is two steps ahead of him, demonizing Canada and England. It's like watching a fish try to race a snail across a parking lot.

None of what I just wrote is anything but a straight, vanilla summary of the conversation. This is truly dada. Future generations will be horrified.

5:41 p.m. Uh, just to cleanse the palate. Michigan's state quarter is rather handsome, and of all the states resorting to using their outline on the coin, Michigan has one of the better excuses -- few states have a more distinctive shape. The design was cleanly executed, with a nice use of texture to highlight the state itself. I would rank this among the better, but probably not the best, designs. I'll spare you the details.

5:49 p.m. Mich-mentum! Voter turnout is low, low, low, although absentee ballots should help make up for this. The Free Press blames snow and the lack of a real Democratic race. I'm not buying the first one -- this is Michigan. If people are letting snow keep them home, I'm going to be embarrassed for my adopted home state. Although I wouldn't piss on one of these Republican candidates if they were on fire, so I can't imagine getting out of the house to go cast my vote for one of these hucksters. This sums it up for me:

“It’s probably going to be something like a school board election,” said Inez Brown, clerk in heavily Democratic Flint. Brown said the equipment in Flint’s 61 precincts has worked properly and voters seem to understand that the not all the candidates are on the Democratic ballot.

But the difference is, I wouldn't trust any of these clowns to appropriate pencils and paste. I hope the light turnout helps provide a sort of reverse boost to the Democrats for Mitt.

6:05 p.m. Don't forget Huckabmentum! Blitzer tells us that Huckabee "suggests he'll be a winner tonight so long as he defies expectations in Michigan." From the campaign's press staff to Blitzer's mouth. They don't pay him the big bucks for nothing, folks.

6:07 p.m. Apparently 20 percent of Romney voters chose him because of the reason "say what he believes." I am going to go ahead and guess that these people have images of a mesomorphic cartoon hoplite on many of their personal property. Just a hunch.

6:14 p.m. Here's a photo of the Sleeping Bear Dunes. They're up here (I'm pointing to the outside edge of my left pinky, near the tip).

From blue_eyed_demon1963's photostream at Flickr.

6:3o p.m. Voters! Study up! You only have two and a half more hours to set your hand in favor of your chosen candidate. Paw Paw resident Lorraine deBaptiste has been working on it diligently since speaking to a Kalamazoo Gazette reporter earlier today.

KALAMAZOO -- Lorraine deBaptiste said she was "very impressed" by John McCain's appearance here Monday during a campaign rally at Kalamazoo Christian High School.

But the Paw Paw resident still doesn't know how she's going to vote today.

"I liked what he said about securing the borders and supporting our soldiers," deBaptiste said. "But there's also things I like about Romney and Huckabee. I need to do a lot more research."

Best of luck, Lorraine! Did you know? Paw Paw is just a couple miles east of Teapot Dome, Michigan.

6:43 p.m. I used to think Jack Cafferty was a grumpy old, id-centric crank. But he's clearly smarter than most of the people who draw paychecks for appearing on CNN. Man, I have better things to be doing now, right?

7:15 p.m. Apparently, I did. I started a batch of vegetable soup. It's easy. Take some vegetables, put them in a pot with some stock (I used chicken; vegetable would work too). When they're tender, I'm going to put them in the food processor and slash the fuck out of about half the veg. Then I'll add it back, thickening the soup. Let's see fucking Dana Bash do that.

7:22 p.m. Chris Matthews is live from Las Vegas. Idle thought: I wonder how much he's spent at the Rhino already. Also, I'm getting a vision ... interns pooling credit cards ... bouncers ... a cab ... sunrise over the Strip. OK, where was I? Oh yes. More chatter about the Nevada caucuses. What about Michigan, clowns? Cole Slaw Blog is your home for primary coverage, even if these guys aren't.

7:45 p.m. I reserve the right to watch some of the Democratic debate, assuming I don't just fall asleep from all the Republimentum! It's amazing to me what a smorgasbord of dopes they have out. But wouldn't it be perfect for someone of real substance like Edwards or Obama to win, only to spend his time in office cleaning up after Bush and getting blamed when all that administrations time bombs go off.

7:48 p.m. Dear God! It's Pat Buchanan, squinting in the light after a production assistant wheeled him out from his dusty closet.

8:04 p.m. It's clear that I've gotten started too early. Like in Go when Simon got drunk and passed out before he and his friends even left for Las Vegas. Polls don't close for about an hour. I guess I just got caught up in all the excitement of a non-essential primary.

8:53 p.m. Excitement builds as it's almost time to show the exit polls. I'd guess that Mitt and McCain do well, Huckabee rides a wave of Huckabmentum to third, and Rudy Giuliani gets his nuts hammered (again) by totally sane person Ron Paul. I may have been peeking on super-secret websites, however.

9 p.m. It's Romney. Oh, the Mittmentum. Polls in all but the farthest reaches of the Upper Peninsula are closed and NBC's gone ahead and declared the state for Romney, the son of a former governor. Three states, three winners for the Republicans.It's possible that there will be an actual, constested convention. But probably not.

9:02 p.m. Two young campaign workers can be seen on CNN, jumping up and down gleefully at Mittquarters. How such a hunk of Vitalis and starch can get anyone, let alone 20-something women, so excited is beyond me. But hey, what the fuck do I know about loving Republicans?

9:05 p.m. Debate time. Hillary just said "son of a mill worker." I know who that is! As much as I like Edwards, I have to say, I am as aware of his father's field of employment as I am of Jerome Bettis' hometown (it's Detroit, by the way.) She and Obama are being made to play nice here at the start of the debate.

9:11 p.m. Just wanted to mention that Rudy Giuliani is still working the Florida angle. I was going to post something else, but I just looked at the clock, and thought of him.

9:13 p.m. Russert is going to call Hillary Clinton on the Robert Johnson thing. I guess this isn't like when he asks people if he can print what they just told him. She won't toss him over the side though.

9:16 p.m. Edwards gets asked the white male question, to laughter. He says it's a credit to his party and to America. I'll buy the first part, if only because the Republican debates look like the Men's Grille at your friendly local (restricted) country club.

9:22 p.m. I think what I like about Edwards is that he understands what it's like to be getting the short end of things in 21st century America. This isn't to say that Clinton and Obama were born with silver spoons in their mouths, but his compassion really seems to drive him. You can't help but find it admirable. If he doesn't wind up President, I feel like he'll keep doing good things. This post is really lame and dull because I'm suddenly falling asleep, but yeah, I like Edwards.

9:33 p.m. Wow. Brian Williams quite jovially repeats the hateful "Secret Muslim Man" slur against Obama. A proud moment for journalism. Obama is handling it with dignity and grace, which will totally serve him well in the general, just ask John Kerry. I would have liked to see him point out that not only is being a Muslim perfectly legal, but there's not one candidate in the election who would think there was anything wrong with it. Except maybe Mike Huckabee, who would like to see the Constitution changed to meet "God's standards."

I'm sure he'll be called to account for his desire to see a theocratic United States.

9:40 p.m. Dear sweet lord, even my rage at the whole "Are you now or are have you ever been a dirty, no-good Muslim?" question can't fuel me much longer. So ... very ... sleepy.

9:48 p.m. Let's see what the backslappers over at Fox News have to say about this. Upon flipping the channel, they seem to be lathered up over some slight to Gen. Petraeus. Brit Hume is fluttering his jowls and muttering about Hillary's performance among black voters. Some blonde chick with pearls is talking about how correct John McCain was on his "one-issue" candidacy. (Note: He was right about the surge AND the Iraq War. So true.) Some other white guy is chortling about McCain's vibrant sense of humor. Dear God, what a frightening room. I'd rather be dumped into a pit full of scorpions.

9:59 p.m. Edwards' question is better than most I've seen asked at debates. It's pointed and designed to get a response. I would guess his background gives him an advantage here. Aaaaand, apparently, Hillary doesn't have to answer it. Dan Burton just threw a pumpkin at his TV.

10:06 p.m. Hey, look at that. Made it past 10. I'm like, barely sentient right now. Which I suppose makes me rather representative of the American electorate. I do, however, like that Hillary is willing to point out that there are serious, fundamental differences between the Republicans and Democrats on the issue of Iraq. It makes me think that she'll deliver a payload of hellfire to the Republicans the second she's sworn in. I like Obama better, but if he's elected, I fully expect a period during which I'll cringe at his attempts to forge bipartisan consensun.

10:12 p.m. About time to bring it home. Lessons learned tonight: Michigan state troopers roll old-timey, Mitt Romney is a winner, Obama will be discrediting many, many slurs that shouldn't even be slurs for a long time, nonstop coverage of nonstories is draining and irritating, Atrios can still find people who think getting slaughtered again by Ron Paul is great news for Giuliani, the lure of sleep is strong, even at 10 p.m.

10:27 p.m. The Dreaded Yucca Mountain Question. My solution: We should bundle the waste canisters, secure them, and put their disposal out to bid so private companies can compete on the open market to profit from taking it on. The power of the market will ensure that the waste doesn't wind up anywhere it can cause havoc. Or at least nowhere that we'll have to hear people squawk about it.

OK, that's it for me tonight.

Flight of the Batsman

2008-01-14T22:05:00.000-05:00

I had an increasingly odd dream, or series of dreams, last night. First, I was flying back from the West Coast, and somehow had a connection for my flight in Petoskey, Michigan. It was, obviously, not a real connection but one of those ones where you fly into and out of a small airport between two hubs, like when Continental wants to send you to Rochester or something between Newark and Cleveland.

Anyway, I spent too much time fucking around and enjoying the scenery, so we taxied off without my bags and I had to ask the captain (it was a small plane; with an interior that resembled a moderately luxurious van) to turn around so we could get them. Then he let me sit in the middle seat of the second row so I could see out the window. The plane was so slow and underpowered, we had to bank, gently, to avoid trees on takeoff, then, we skirted them as we slowly climbed out along the Lake Superior shoreline. (In my dream, Petoskey was in the U.P.)

We were going so slow, the windows were open, and then I realized there was no roof or structure around the plane. I realized this when CrimeNotes lit a cigarette. I also realized we were going really slow when I saw him on the ground, smoking with other people. I remember wondering: How is he going to get back onto the plane?

At this point, I realized, I was just flying on my own, in close formation with the pilot and a few others. I found myself ahead of him, then behind him at different points. The foliage along the Lake Superior shoreline was spectacular in the early fall; from above, all the Michiganders enjoying some sort of festival below formed a scene right out of a Pieter Bruegel painting.

Then we slowly pootled out of Michigan airspace and into a massive, labyrinthine marketplace, with some vaguely middle eastern feel to it. After struggling with some control issues and bouncing off the ceilings and walls, I finally was back walking again.

I went into a store that sold all sorts of exotic sports equipment, and bought a cricket bat. Then we were playing cricket, and I was running between the wickets, which were ludicrously close together. I smashed a boundary off someone, and gleefully called "I'm at eight not out!" as I ballsily scampered for one more run.

Then I woke up, and you know how you sometimes have a random name or word stuck in your head upon waking? Mine was Sachin Tendulkar.

From faisal_c's stream on Flickr.

Drama in my pants

2008-01-14T19:39:00.000-05:00

Two of my favorite pairs of work pants have sizable holes in their front-left pockets.

Front-left pocket is for keys and cigarettes. Front-right pocket is for wallet.

While dressing this morning (one leg at a time, just like the rest of you fuckers) I inspected the hole in the front-left pocket. It seemed small enough to contain my keys.

As I walked to the office this morning, I felt warm metal scrape down my leg. My heart skipped a beat.

I was walking over subway grating.

The keys made a soft landing, settling between the cuff of my pants and my left shoe. I paused and carefully picked out my keys. They didn't fall through the grating, thank balls. My spare set of keys is with a high school friend who lives in California. If I lost my keys, I probably would have been so frustrated by the prospect of dealing with a locksmith that I would have abandoned my current apartment, found a new one by Friday (probably on the same block) and started over from scratch.

The sidewalk wasn't crowded, but it was crowded enough for fellow pedestrians to notice the tall handsome man bend over and produce keys from his shoe.

From now on, when I wear the pants with the holes in the pockets, the keys need to be carried on the right, not the left.

Dramatic re-creation.

Bush Lite: When all else fails, disfranchise your rival's supporters

2008-01-12T16:48:00.000-05:00

Because a casino workers' union endorsed Barack Obama, Clinton surrogates have now sued in the state of Nevada to shut down caucus sites originally designated to allow casino employees working on the caucus date (a Saturday!) to participate.

This plan had long been in place. Only when the union endorsed Obama did the Clinton surrogates decide to litigate. The contention seems to be that it is unfair to cluster caucuses near employee workplaces. By this rationale, it is unfair that Manhattan has more voting booths per square mile than Joshua Tree National Park. I recently had an employer that closed on voting days -- this too would be unlawful under the Clintons' lawsuit.

The Nevada Democratic Party and the relevant unions are understandably displeased:

The state party quickly dismissed the lawsuit. Going back to last spring, every presidential campaign was involved in setting up the unusual casino caucus sites while state party officials and the Democratic National Committee ironed out the details. "This is a fair, legal and proper way to choose delegates under established law and legal precedent that has been reviewed by attorneys....The time for comment or complaint has passed," the party said in a statement.

The union was more blunt, contending the arguments are only a political effort to muddy the waters in case Clinton loses. "It's strange [the suit] is coming after our endorsement," said D. Taylor, the secretary-treasurer of the local labor group, told the Washington Post in an interview last night after an Obama rally in his union hall.

They have studied Karl Rove very well.

Clinton race-baiting, Part 2 of _

2008-01-12T00:20:00.000-05:00

"If you have a social need, you're with Hillary," the aide said. "If you want Obama to be your imaginary hip black friend and you're young and you have no social needs, then he's cool."

It really is masterful -- if disgusting -- politics. Even if this turns out to be a misunderstanding or overheated rhetoric among informal advisers, they still polarize the campaigns and make Obama a niche candidate. Obama becomes the definitive "black candidate" of a black constituency, no matter how hard he tries to be the candidate who's moved beyond race. Certain white voters will perceive him differently, and the Clintons maintain plausible deniability. Maybe it bodes well for her performance in a general election. That it risks starting a war within the Democratic Party is secondary -- all that's ever matter is their own survival.

In light of Bill's exploitation of Ricky Ray Rector,* none of this should be surprising.

*Rector, a black man with an IQ of 70, shot a police officer and then attempted to kill himself. He believed that prison guards were throwing chickens and alligators into his jail cell, imitated an ape, and on the night of his execution asked a prison guard for a slice of pecan pie before bed, not realizing that he was about to be killed. Before his death, he also stated an intention to vote Bill Clinton for president. In 2002, the Supreme Court ruled that executing the retarded is unconstitutional. For Clinton, it was all an opportunity to prove death penalty bona fides.

The Clintons' Rovean smear tactics

2008-01-10T20:56:00.001-05:00

Let's pretend that legitimate attacks on the party's anointed frontrunner are steeped in misogyny instead of the harsh criticisms levied against any standardbearer. Once she's off limits, engage in race-baiting.

I can't stand them.

Flop's guide to the New York Primary

2008-01-09T09:21:00.000-05:00

Chapter 1: Registration

If you haven't registered or filled out a change-of-address form, you're going to need to do this. I started off by downloading the form from the New York state website. But then I saw people in the subway registering people. So I filled out the form and she gave me two Obama stickers.

The deadline's on Friday, so I suggest you get on this. If you happen to find a cute, earnest college student type with red hair and brown eyes to mail your forms for you, then you can consider it kind of a bonus.

Next week: Choosing a candidate.

MmmBarack, bop ba doo bop, bidee bob ba doo bop, bop ba doo I don't like Sen. Clinton very much.

2008-01-08T19:04:00.000-05:00

This site will live-blog the New Hampshire primaries for at least some part of this evening. I know this interests no one but me, my co-blogger and one of our readers, but really, when has this site ever cared about pleasing you? Not since Tits Week!

I spent much of today feeling grateful for Howard Dean's old campaign and thinking about why Bill Clinton is a blight. Maybe you'll have that to anticipate, as well.

Stay tuned!

7:31 p.m.: When Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert share camera time with Chris Matthews, I imagine they think the same things I do when I'm having a conversation with "Flop." Something like, "How did I end up in the company of this excitable, rambling madman, and what can I do to extract myself?"

7:42 p.m.: Exclusive scoop! Commenter Oops Pow Surprise has reported in the comments (on this site!) that Hillary Clinton currently is behind by 70 percent. For its part, MSNBC just spent several minutes talking about crying, when crying is appropriate, etc.

7:52 p.m.: I've revised the headline per dmbmeg's suggestion. This is an interactive process tonight, you see. Speak up and let your voice be heard.

7:59 p.m.: MSNBC promises exit poll results at the top of the hour. I'd love to put this liveblog to a rest by about 9 or 9:30. I bought a PS3 over the weekend and would like to turn my attention to Assassin's Creed.

8:01 p.m.: Oh, yikes. Too close to call between Clinton and Obama. That is not what I expected or wanted. Uh ... huh.

8:10 p.m.: Not wanting to repeat my experience in 2004, when it took me months to get behind John Kerry, I've been very careful this year not to get too passionate about one candidate. I'll support any of the Democrats, and I logically know this, but after Obama won on Thursday my passions went up and I looked forward to the Clintons disappearing as soon as possible. I'm not excited about the possibility or reorienting.

8:13 p.m.: MSNBC calls the Republican race for McCain. I've spent most of the primary season steeling myself for a Clinton-Romney election, but an Obama-McCain or Obama-Huckabee election seems like a much more grown-up process.

8:23 p.m.: The MSNBC panel is agreeing that the primary season has been "perfect" for Rudy Giuliani. He is presently running a distant fourth in New Hampshire and lost badly in Iowa. The mind reels.

8:34 p.m.: In news that actually matters, I am not happy with Rich Rodriguez's effort to chase Ryan Mallet out of town and to essentially predict Mario Manningham's departure when retention appears to be an open question. I like my coaches to shut the fuck up in public, please. I'm trying to be positive and keep an open mind, I swear, but he isn't making it easy.

8:44 p.m.: Nothing happening, so I will briefly pimp a blog I like that I don't see cited many other places. Any time I miss the Midwest, it's a good antidote.

8:54 p.m.: Outside of the Bush family, no one in American politics is more insufferable than Mitt Romney.

8:55 p.m.: I have a sickening case of Clinton fatigue already. The whole thing is like a nightmare on re-run. That idiot Ann Lewis is back, speaking for the campaign on MSNBC. In her Iowa speech, the camera showed Madeline Albright, Wes Clark and Bill Clinton in the background, and I had this sick flopping feeling in my gut. All that's missing was Janet Reno and Dick Morris and some wretched betrayal of Lani Guinier. I keep trying to persuade myself that I can support her. It does not feel good at all.

9:11 p.m.: This is going to be my last evening of live-blogging. Right now, I feel a lot like this:

Thankfully, John McCain is giving a dull, hackish, standard Republican acceptance speech, because otherwise I'd be having an imaginary three-way negotiation between myself, Hillary Clinton and the devil about whether I could vote Republican instead of Clinton.

9:26 p.m.: The MSNBC people disapprove of McCain's speech. It was dull, but the cackling and hooting is a little much. I guess it was the reverse Dean Scream.

9:33 p.m.: Clinton is going to win tonight, and goddammit fuckitall motherfuck, and this is what I get for thinking voters in this country would do the right thing for once. Shit.

10:33 p.m.: NBC New Hampshire for Clinton. Brian Williams calls Sen. Clinton "the new comeback kid." Vomit.

It's on to Assassin's Creed. Good night.

11:20 p.m.: “I listened to you,” said Mrs. Clinton. “And in the process I found my own voice.”

As always with the Clintons, it comes back to narcissism and condescension. I cannot fathom why people support her.

"There Will Be Blood"

2008-01-07T21:24:00.000-05:00

I saw There Will Be Blood over the weekend. It's the finest movie I know since The Thin Red Line was released in 1998. There are a small number of great books where the key issues are never settled and the motivations are unclear. This movie is like that; I can't think of any others. I've read reviews where the interpretations share nothing in common. I did not see the story of a born lunatic, but of a shrewd businessman who channels all of his emotion into control and mastery of land. When he tries to simulate a family, the efforts are wrecked by causes he can't control. From that point forward, he must control everything and trust no one. It's about displacing emotions into real property. In suffering for his repression, Daniel Plainview is more like Newland Archer than Bill the Butcher. Newland Archer spent the rest of his life quietly miserable, but Plainview wants revenge against the world.

There are many other ways to view all of this, and none of us has definitive evidence. This movie is full of mysteries. Are Paul and Eli the same person? Was H.W. really just a prop? What was Daniel thinking during his first physical confrontation with Eli? I have opinions about the closing sequence and why people say the things they do, but getting into detail would deprive you of the experience. In much of this movie, I think that when people say extreme things they mean the opposite.

After more than an hour of bleak sandy landscape there is a sequence in green groves and farmlands, and it feels like a tease and reminder, that outside of the bleak landscape and monstrous actions there is a calmer, cooler world. I can't think of any other movie where set design, lighting and scoring are so forceful but never distracting. You feel the sand, heat and darkness, and when it moves to a few brief scenes of foliage and water, there is a great sense of relief. Paul Thomas Anderson uses light and color in a mimetic way, the way a great novelist uses words. That's not unique, but I've never seen it done so well. When it ended, I wondered if this is what it was like to read the modernists when they first published or see the impressionists when they first painted -- to walk away from a work and feel like you've seen a comfortable form of expression turned inside out.

Success!

2008-01-04T13:35:00.000-05:00

When Barack Obama won Iowa last night, it was the first time that a presidential candidate I've supported won an election. In 2000, it was McCain and Bradley in the primaries and Gore in the general; then Dean/Kerry in '04. In '96 it was Bob Dole -- I don't remember who I liked in the primaries. Recalling my mindset from that time, it was Steve Forbes, probably.

Michigan won a game that truly mattered for the first time in years. I've had games where nightmares about a loss woke me up in the middle of the night, but this week I had two mornings where I woke up before 8 a.m. due to good dreams about the team.

Today the cold air smells a little cleaner, the cigarettes taste a little tastier, my shoulders feel a little lighter and my messed-up hair looks a little perkier. The world feels right and joyous. I wonder if this is how normal people feel every day.

I kan haz kawkus LOLzy? Another liveblogging experience

2008-01-03T20:55:00.000-05:00

Why, hello friends.

There's an informal tradition on this site that political spectacles get a special live-blogging treatment. This tries all of our patience, true, but what else is new?

Tonight:

I'm going to be flipping between MSNBC's maniacal belching and the maniacal belching of the Fox team announcing the Orange Bowl. At around 9 p.m., Chris Matthews joined Keith Olberman on a set that resembles nothing less than a day-glo blue electronic cathedral. I'm not much into aesthetics myself, so upon regarding something and thinking, "My, that's hideous," perhaps it's a sign that something is going wrong.

Matthews already has declared Obama a "man of the third world" and a Kenyan, then said that if Obama wins Iowa it will be as big as Ronald Reagan beating Jimmy Carter in 1980. Not quite, but the man just gets so excitable that he loses control of the syllables that spill out of that Stay-Puft little head.

9:06 p.m.: MSNBC has called the Republican race for Huckabee. I've got a little fondness for him, but we're not here to talk about that kind of stuff tonight.

9:07 p.m.: Oh, hi, friends. Dinner has just been delivered, from a nice little restaurant called Odessa on Avenue A. I shall be dining on the Odessa Dinner Combination, a nice little platter that includes a stuffed cabbage, kielbasa and pierogies. It promises to be delicious. Won't you join me? Pour yourself a nice cup of cocoa, snuggle up by the hearth, and let's enjoy a cold winter's night of caucusing, Orange Bowl and fellowship.

9:13 p.m.: The lovely and very bright panel on MSNBC are ringing the death bells of Mitt Romney's campaign (this would please me enormously) and predicting a McCain-Huckabee contest. Wouldn't that be nice?

9:16 p.m.: In news that actually matters, I'm learning that Kansas is beating Virginia Tech 10-0 early in the second quarter. This would be another nice surprise after the West Virginia win yesterday and the Michigan win on Tuesday, right? I've really enjoyed Todd Reesing this fall, and the portly visage of his large-pored coach, and would be pretty delighted to see a Kansas upset. And you know, I really dislike most Cinderellas in college football -- Cinderella is a euphemism for unexposed, Colt Brennan. Kansas, on the other hand, has often played very good football. This would be a nice win.

9:21 p.m.: Chris fuckin' Matthews is preoccupied with establishing a narrative that we'll have a presidential race between a Kenyan and an evangelical preacher.

9:25 p.m.: Goodness, friends! MSNBC has called the caucus for Iowa. That could bring this experience to a quick conclusion. Cue Chris Matthews: "This is Lexington and Concord. ... a guy named Barack Hussein Obama ... grew up in Indonesia ... on a victory projectile to win the Democratic nomination." Matthews also went on at great length about Nancy Pelosi's challenges as Senate majority leader.

9:29 p.m.: Chris Matthews has identified this evening as a triumph for blacks and a setback for women. Mr. Matthews shall not be invited to dine at my hearth and sip the house cocoa.

9:31 p.m.: Kansas 17, Virginia Tech 0. I just invented a cheer: "Hook 'em, 'hawks!"

9:39 p.m.: Sad news: VaTech just scored, friends. 17-7 with 1:24 left in the half. I caught the tail end of the drive. If Fox's announcers are to be credited, Virginia Tech has just found success with the run, and should continue to run.

9:42 p.m.: Serious Interval. I really despise when political journalists go out to the countryside and marvel at that thoughtfulness of the yeomen who participate in the political process. This is wrong for two reasons. First reason: No shit there are people not living in metropolises who know things and give a damn. Second reason: I'm sure plenty of those people are petty, vengeful, ignorant pricks, too. Just because they went to public school doesn't make them marvels.

9:54 p.m.: Chris Matthews to Obama campaign manager: "What is your candidate's appeal to younger women as opposed to older women?"

9:57 p.m.: Oh, gracious, friends. I'm sad to report that the halftime show of the Orange Bowl features ZZ Top playing "Sharp Dressed Man" while a squadron of girls in shiny silver dresses shake their booties on the field. It's like an early Puffy video for the trailer park set. (I can say this because I am both an Eastern elite and a member of the trailer park set.)

10:04 p.m.: I will vote Duncan Hunter for president if he promises that Fox will never have another BCS contract.

10:17 p.m.: Odd. Fox announcers just reported that Kansas was concerned about in-game rain because Todd Reesing's hands "are not real big." Huh.

10:21 p.m.: I know what Barack Obama, John Edwards and Mike Huckabee are not: vacant-eyed robot Stepford candidates who have lived depraved existences dedicated to the accumulation of power. There are many reasons not to like them, but it might be nice to wake up one morning in 2009 with a president who has lived a normal life and done many normal things, whether or not we personally can identify with those things.

10:26 p.m.: How is your cocoa? Tasty? Yum.

More high horse, friends! I have learned to live with the possibility of a second Clinton presidency. Flanked by Bill, Madeline Albright, Tom Vilsack and Wes Clark, she gave a great little concession speech focused more on the Democratic Party than her own candidacy. I really liked it. It was a little pep rally for a Democratic victory in November. But you watch that crew and hope that their time has passed. They've been visionless leaders, and if they're slightly less responsible than their rival dynasty for the past 20 years of untrammeled greed, dishonesty and bloodlust, they carry a significant share of the responsibility, regardless of party affiliation. Obama, Edwards and Huckabee are all game-changers. Hillary Clinton is part of the problem. I would love for that era to pass.

Now is the time on Cole Slaw when we dance.

1o:38 p.m.: Oh, hoot! Chuck Norris is standin' next to Huckabee for his victory speech. The MILFy lady must be Chuck's wife. Striking! Nice 'lil speech by Huckabee, who could occasionally be mistaken for a progressive until you recall that he venerates the fetus and thinks Darwin is hooey.

According to imdb, Mr. Norris's trademark is that he's a good guy to the bone "despite having harmful martial arts skills." He would prefers to fight only when other solutions are not feasible. Chuck Norris is 5'10 and 67 years old. He was born in Ryan, Oklahoma. His fetching wife is named Gena O'Kelley. They have two children.

10:52 p.m.: Oh spit. Back in the world that matters, Virginia Tech has had a little comeback, and the game is 17-14 late in the 3d quarter. Hook 'em, 'hawks!

Also, someone needs to take care of that "crunchy chewy cheesy melty" couple in the Taco Bell ads. Like, In Cold Blood, No Country for Old Men kind of care. Bitch needs to control her appetites and the husband needs to stop being enabling her retarded, unhealthy whims. Paging Messrs. Chigurh and Hickock. Apologies if I offend delicate sensibilities on our cozy night together.

10:59 p.m.: It's late, I want to clean my bathroom before I go to bed, and the Orange Bowl is now much more interesting than the caucuses. It's what we should have been watching all along.

Good night, and I herein state my official endorsement for the next president of the United States, Barack Obama.

New Year's Resolutions: 2008

2008-01-03T11:51:00.001-05:00

This year, I resolve to ...

Stop taking first dates to Pax, visibly sighing when they order the specialty soup, then coming home and watching old episodes of Charles in Charge, hoping that Nicole Eggert or Josie Davis will be wearing something that shows her navel.

Stop choosing the "Bill Me Later" option when buying tickets on Continental.com, then hiding in my bedroom when angry pilots come knock on my door, demanding that I pay up, because "Larry don't like deadbeats."

Just write a check for $100 to my high school's general fund and be done with it this time, rather than insisting on a breakdown based on departments and teachers I liked and disliked, even if the Classics department said it was no big deal that they were stuck with Domino while Modern Languages got Sugar in the Raw.

Take the steps, unless the floor I'm going to is really high. In which case, I can take the elevator, but I have to walk in place the whole time.

Start every day with 25 pushups, 25 situps and and an apple. Pears would also do.

Not start smoking, like I have for each of the past 30-some years.

Finally submit that draft proposal of a new MTA Subway map, renaming each line for a prominent figure in New York City and State history, to Albany. The 4-5-6 will be the George, James and DeWitt Clinton lines; the 1-2-3 can be the Mario, Andrew and Chris Cuomo lines. Moynihan gets the A train. Mets fans will come to know and love that the Gouverneur Morris is the only way to get to Citifield.

Finally read all the books on my shelves I haven't yet. Including: The Oresteia, The Sun Also Rises, 1991 Cleveland Indians media guide.

Stop hiding alarm clocks set to 5:37 a.m. in various corners of CrimeNotes' apartment every time I visit.

Masturbate less furtively. Even if my girlfriend is trying to sleep next to me. It's a doberman, let it have its ears.

Finally start using that Nordic Track.

Gameday photos

2008-01-02T21:05:00.000-05:00

It's pretty much impossible to get a decent game photo from the stands, especially if you're more interested in watching the game than photographing it. Here are a few from the Cap One Bowl. I'll leave it to others to discuss the game itself. It was the first time I've cried in public since my age was in low single digits.

Warmups! I'm happy to have a photo with Hart and Henne in one shot, even if it's not great. Astute observers will note Fred Jackson on the far right. At this point I turned to my friend and said, "I don't care that we're going to lose. I'm really glad I came."

Gators and Wolverines line up. My perception of SEC fans is a pack of screaming Jim Beam-fueled rednecks sodomizing deep-fried turkeys in front of their RVs. I found the Florida fans civil, well mannered and friendly before and after the game. In the hotel, in restaurants and at the game, I heard nothing but good wishes and congratulations. Strangely, about 10 minutes before kick-off a middle-aged in full Buckeyes regalia took a seat next to us. I wondered what it would be like to get ejected from a game for fighting (they sell beer at the Citrus Bowl, and I took advantage) but he cheered loudly for the Wolverines. At halftime I shared my hopes to see Ohio State crush LSU. In our row, their was love among the Big 10.

Halftime! The other side of his sign read, "Win one 4 Lloyd."

We sat right behind the band. I love watching games with the band.

The game was over. Lighting was terrible by then, so sadly this was the best shot of the field that I managed to get. Long, Hart and Henne are on the podium at this point.

Florida fans left quickly. After the loss to Ohio State in November, I stood in the rain after most Michigan fans left. I watched the Buckeyes run to the sliver of OSU fans in a mostly empty Michigan Stadium and watched their post-game celebrations through Carmen Ohio. As miserable and lonely as that felt, I felt its opposite as Henne took his final (healthy!) knee, the band began playing, and a contingent of the team ran to our corner of the field to celebrate.

I've never seen a Michigan crowd so involved in a game, from kickoff through conclusion. At the Rose Bowl, at Ohio State games: the intensity of the Michigan fans on Tuesday was unprecedented in my experience. It was like being in a students' section for the entire game. Everyone stood, and everyone screamed. Once the post-game ceremonies wrapped, the chants carried down to the men's room, and for a bizarre ten-second interval, there was a sort of tunnel of fans lined up waiting their turn and cheering on everyone walking out.

"What a happy day you've given me to remember the rest of my life."

2008-01-02T13:22:00.000-05:00

Now, for a cheer, they are here triumphant ...

After Michigan had done it, after the seniors had finally won a bowl game, after they'd beaten the defending national champions on what might as well have been their own field, the players went to Lloyd Carr, and lifted him up on their shoulders. It was long overdue.

How perfect was that? Seeing Lloyd, beaming, hoisted into the air. And because he's Lloyd, after a few seconds, he started banging on their shoulder pads, telling them to let him down because he had to go shake the opposing coach's hand.

Urban Meyer, defeated in a bowl game for the first time at Florida clasped Lloyd's hand and then listened to what the now-retired coach had to say.

"Someday you're going to retire and your guys are going to play as hard as my guys played," Carr told him.

Maybe. It's hard to imagine players who love their coach more than Michigan's do Lloyd. As Shawn Crable, who could have been buried for some technically dunderheaded plays that may have cost Michigan important games at Ohio State last year and against Appalachian State this year said:

"He made me into a man ... I was 18 when I came here. I had just turned 18 and I thought I knew everything. He was more than just a coach. He understood was coaching was, but he also understood what turning out men took. I know a lot more. I can handle myself in different situations."He took a lot of boys who thought they were men and turned them into real men."

And that he did so with compassion, dignity, and yes, even that oft-misused term, class, is why even those who never played a down for the man love him so. Under his leadership, Michigan has been as close to the ideal of collegiate athletics as you can get while still kicking ass at the highest level of the game. We love that. We really, really do, and not everyone gets it.

It's easy to think that Michigan is some weird little arrogant enclave, cut off from the rest of the college football world by spread offenses, multimillion-dollar coaches and a new brand of focused, NFL-style coaches. If you thought that, and you're not a Michigan fan, then you can be forgiven. Because it can certainly look that way at times if you don't slow down to take a longer look.

What makes Michigan special, what makes me proud to be represented by Lloyd Carr, Shawn Crable, Mike Hart, Chad Henne and others, is that Michigan seems to be one of the few remaining fanbases that realizes college football is just that. It's college football.

Although it's easy to forget, what with a national worldview formed by ESPN chatters, blogospheric one-upsmanship and columnists who parachute into our world to provide a Brooksian take before returning to their nests lined with old clippings of articles about Bill Parcells. But this is an amateur sport, played by mostly teenagers, for the enjoyment of students, alums and fans. Winning is NOT everything. Although playing hard to do just that most certainly is.

In the NFL, coaches call time outs a fraction of a second before the ball is snapped for a winning field goal. In the NFL, coaches cut nonperformers in a heartbeat. In the NFL, winning really is everything, and those who can't win are shown the door. Because lovable losers just don't exist at that level, and seats will get empty fast. At any given time in the pros, there's a handful of teams who are just cycling coaches in and out the door until they get a spark. My own pro team did that for a while, and it really, really sucks ass. If the Browns hadn't broken out the way they did this, year, the media and fans would have been clamoring for Romeo Crennel's handsomely mustachioed head on a platter (presumably surrounded by a stadium-mustard reduction). There's a few college programs that do that, too, and some of their fans even seem to revel in it. Maybe purgatory can be a blast, but that sounds like hell to me.

I don't want my university's team to be like a pro team. It's tough to talk about ideals and stuff like that without wandering over on to the preachy side of things, but, yes, I really do want Michigan to represent ideals like sportsmanship, fair play, hard work, education and, yes, seriously good football. Considering them the equal of any other team in one's fan portfolio is missing the point.

Pro teams are assemblages of people who came to their team for a reason beyond their control. They were either drafted, and had no say in it, or the whims of the market brought them there.

Michigan's football players came there of their own free will. They looked at the other possibilities and made a decision, just like all the rest of us who went to school there. Sure, when I sent in my housing deposit, I wasn't thinking of my NFL draft prospects, but I was thinking about my future just the same. I came to Ann Arbor, I looked around and said: Yes, this could be home.

And so did everyone on that roster. It's fundamentally different from the pros, where there's a payroll to be met, seats to fill, scoreboard graphics to design, beer prices to set, T-shirt guns to buy, naming rights to be sold and all that other nonsense.

College football really is different. No matter how much ESPN, the BCS, Fox Sports and a good deal of fans are dragging the game toward the other trappings of professionaldom. Just win, baby is not the lowest common denominator. At least, not at Michigan.

Lloyd Carr got that, and then some. And that, more than the Big Ten titles, national championship and sustained success, is why he will be missed.

* * *

"So gentlemen, what a happy day you have given me to remember the rest of my life.” -- Lloyd Carr, concluding the final postgame speech of his career after Michigan beat Florida 41-35 in the Capital One Bowl, Jan. 1, 2008.

Us too, Lloyd. Us too.

From all of us here at Cole Slaw Blog ...

2007-12-31T16:52:00.001-05:00

This is going to be the first New Year's Eve I've spent not putting up with CrimeNotes' nonsense since 2002. A list of previous Auld Lang Synes can be found here.

'Notes has made a pilgrimage to Orlando, to watch Michigan's bowl game. I will be holding it down in New York, with an indefinite band of crazies that includes our princessy pal, Meg. Based on previous New Years' the personnel involved (which could include my cousin), our antics may include a panoply of activities, almost all of which are likely to result in injuries to eyes, ears and even noses. Meg bought a quartet of champagne flutes today. I'm guessing at least one of them, and possibly up to three, don't live to see Jan. 2.

I also have no idea what I'm doing for dinner, who's coming over, if we'll wind up at some dive bar or on a roof, lowering cake and crumpets to grateful revelers. What I am sure of is that we'll all shoot each other with dart guns, drink some really good Champagne, and trust in our ability to have a great time. There might even be a Queen, but don't count on it. Danielle may have us all believing in the divine right.

Pervliness is next to godliness, peasants.

Oh, and I'll report back about it sometime in 2008. Warmest wishes for a Smashtastic New Year to you and yours, from all of us here at Cole Slaw Blog.

Sayonara, 2007

2007-12-31T16:10:00.000-05:00

You started with a shitty Rose Bowl loss. Which, as bowl games go, is better than a lot of bowl game wins. But still.

You ended with the Browns completing their best season since I was in high school doing what they do best: kicking me in the kidneys.

In between: The Cavs' amazing and somewhat surprising run, including a game that I still can't talk about without having my neurons short out. The Indians' amazing and actually not all that surprising run, which I still can't talk about without feeling pangs of regret: I honestly thought that team was going to win the World Series. I've never thought that about a Cleveland team before.

Oh, and this Michigan season.

What to say? I think I've never been more and less proud of my university than I have at various times this year. We all knew Mike Hart was the kind of player we'd all want to be if we had the talent and the drive for it. This year, he just kept reminding us again and again.

And then there was that fucking Purdue game. I know, of all the games to hate from this year, it seems our biggest blowout is a dumb one to pick, but I'll always remember watching it, from California, where a bunch of us had gathered for a classmate's wedding.

We all went together to watch Michigan, which kicked off at 9 a.m. We were sitting -- outside -- on a shaded patio, watching Michigan play Purdue on TV. The sun was burning off the cloud cover, I had a bloody mary in front of me, and good friends all around. Occasionally, I would turn around to marvel at the bizarre landscape of palm trees, parking lots and distant mountains. I had my university on TV and good friends all around. At a TV in front of us, a fat Ohio State fan in sweatpants sat smoking and yelling at the TV immediately above his head, which he had turned up to maximum volume.

After one of the typically incredible runs Mike Hart will always be known for, a friend said: "I could watch him run all day."

I agreed, and then my brain flooded with endorphins as I considered doing just that. Shortly after, I looked up at the TV. Hart was hopping and limping. He was done, and he hasn't been himself since. And now, after one more game, he'll be gone for good. And Michigan football will go to a whole new place.

After the Purude, we drove around Los Angeles, to see the sights. We paused on Mulholland to view the valley, left clear from the previous night's rains. We marveled at the eternally pleasant weather, and mansions clinging to hills. We drove through Hollywood and went to the beach. I silently compared the landscape and architecture against my Midwestern and East Coast understandings of these things.

Occasionally someone made a comment that indicated they were thinking about what it would be like to live there. I know I was. It's tempting. The weather's great all the time. Stuff is just there for the taking. But there's drawbacks -- you have to drive everywhere, sometimes long distances, because nothing is close. There's traffic, but you just have to put up with it. But there's beaches and sunsets and sometimes just incredible natural beauty. If you're far enough out in the hills, the sun sets all pink and purple and the wind smells like sage and mesquite. It's what everyone dreams of.

But I'm not sure it's what I dream of. I want the snow and the slush and the pride that comes from doing things the right way, and wishing for not warmth and sunsets, but Mike Hart, running all day.

NFL broadcast decisions are occasionally sub-optimal

2007-12-30T13:02:00.001-05:00

At this moment, with one spot left to be decided in each conference, CBS in New York is showing a game between the Buffalo Bills and Philadelphia Eagles. Neither team has anything to play for but pride and draft position.

Meanwhile, unseen in New York will be the Cleveland Browns game, which helps determine if the Browns get the last spot in the AFC playoffs. But hey, what New Yorkers want to see is two teams -- one or the other of which is hated by most New York fans -- with nothing to play for.

This, I suppose, is the league's revenge for bringing last night's Patriots-Giants game out of hiding.

Oh, and about those Browns? Dear lord, after last week, I don't know what to think. It's hard not to take that performance -- five interceptions in a 19-14 loss with the playoffs on the line -- as a breach of covenant or something.

If they win today, I'll pay attention to the Titans game tonight -- in which the Colts have already announced that they're going to just go through the motions. But my dreams were shattered last week. Much like Michigan's season, the Browns' started disastrously, showed promise in between and now seems poised for a crappy ending. I hate to be pessimistic, especially because I did such a good job at not succumbing with any of my other teams this season, but I can see my future, and I'm preparing for a whirlwind of rage.

I think I'm going to go out to the Strand and buy The Iliad or something. You know, to calm me down.

UPDATE: Oh, seriously, fuck everything. I think I got some of the earlier post wrong, but I'll leave it standing as a testament to my anger and stupidity. Like there's not enough of those on this blog already.

Sigh.

Oh, and I couldn't make up my mind which translation of The Iliad I wanted, so I bought a $2.95 copy of Hamlet instead.

Everything changes on New Year's Day

2007-12-29T23:30:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow I will fly out of Newark airport and travel to a city I don't want to visit in order to watch a team that won't exist this time next week.

I flew to Ann Arbor in September and watched Michigan lose 39-7 to Oregon. I flew to Ann Arbor in November and watched Michigan lose 14-3 to Ohio State.

Physically, the Ohio State game was one of my most miserable experiences as an adult. This was my own fault. Before we left for the game, I could have opted, like everyone else, to wear a jacket or buy a poncho. No. If it was going to be an afternoon of cold rain, I wanted to feel cold rain. I wanted to hurt. Win or lose, the pain would heighten my experience. And it did.

Now I'll go to Orlando. Fuck knows what the score is going to be on Tuesday afternoon. I don't expect Michigan to win. It could happen, I guess. For the appalling, unjustified, infuriating contempt that this program endured in 2007, New Year's Day promises to be the first time that Mike Hart and Chad Henne will actually be healthy for an entire game. This is a cause for joy and sadness.

I've wanted to write about Mike Hart all season, but I still don't know how to do it. Even now, I'm at risk of falling into a mess of hyperbole. At some point in his career, Mike Hart became Michigan. The New York Times ran a lengthy profile on him this fall. Friends and I traded some astonished e-mails about this guy, who we already loved so much. He'd done enough on the field to embody everything that we hold dear about the program -- its stubborn pride, its consistency, its scrap and resilience -- and then late in his career we realized that there was this fully formed person behind it all. Mike Hart is a guy who embraced the university and ingratiated himself to everything from the Indian Students Association to the school's Dance Marathon. He invested himself in the life of the school in ways that had nothing to do with football. The guy wasn't just a football player anymore, but one of us.

Hart talks about Michigan with the kind of intensity and ferocity that's familiar: It's the kind of bizarre enthusiasm that Michigan spurs in some people. Not all of its students and alumni, but a wonderfully wound-up minority. A couple years ago I went to Stuyvesant High School to recruit Michigan applicants and could not shut up about the school. (This is not unique to Michigan. I know Duke grads and Dartmouth grads who act the same way about their schools, which is why if through a horrible accident I someday procreate, the kid can only go to Dartmouth, Duke or Michigan.) Hart tapped into this weird collective unconscious of the University of Michigan.

An Auburn fan who visited Michigan Stadium this fall observed the following:

I spent the first part of last Saturday at the Big House watching Michigan blast hapless Purdue, and one of the things you can't help but notice is just how much Wolverine fans care about Mike Hart. Whether it's the endless stream of "20" jerseys, Hart t-shirts, the cries of joy when he spun off the back of a defender and scored on what appeared to be a lost play, the cries of anguish when he left the game with a limp and appeared on the JumboTron grimacing as his ankle got the once-over.

. . . I know as an SEC fan I'm supposed to never admit envying anything about a Big 10 program under any circumstances, but yeah, I was jealous.

It seems like Hart and Henne have been there forever. Before them there were John Navarre and Chris Perry. Perhaps unfairly, Navarre was never loved. Five years ago, if you asked me to name my favorite Michigan player, I immediately would have responded with Perry, but then came Hart, and Perry was just a memory. Someday Hart will just be a memory, too. Sunday Morning Quarterback described Hart and Henne's rise at Michigan thusly:

... I can't say I necessarily remember any of those players as freshmen, not very well, not like Henne and Hart, who were almost instantly ubiquitous; none of them so quickly became the face(s) of one of the most high profile programs in the country, and none of them succeeded so spectacularly out of the gate: behind the freshman stars, the 2004 Wolverines won the Big Ten and came within a few seconds and one point of outduelling Vince Young in the Rose Bowl, where Henne threw for four touchdowns.

Michigan has played that well since (virtually the entirety of 2006) and returned to the Rose Bowl - consider: Henne has thrown a school record 84 touchdown passes, and since his first start against San Diego State, Hart has topped 90 yards in 31 of 35 games in which he's logged at least 15 carries, including every single game he's played over the last two regular seasons; he is so so slow in the open field, but there is no contemporary parallel for that level of consistency from a running back. Michigan is 36-13 in games at least one of them starts and has scored at least 17 in 45 of those games, etc. Imagine Michigan fans, following these two faces more than any others on a weekly basis for three months over four years, in the end spending the better part of a full cumulative year of their lives watching Henne and Hart grow, praying to false gods and any powerful entity who might conceivably hold vigil over their injuries, and finishing each season more and more disappointed.

Elsewhere SMQB observed that " I'm not allowed to love Mike Hart the way Michigan fans love Mike Hart, the kind of love that isn't possible ..."

And then next Wednesday morning I'll wake up in a hotel room in Orlando and get ready to leave for the airport. Win or (much more likely) lose, it will not be a good morning. Hart will be gone. Chad Henne will be gone. Henne, like Lloyd Carr, has been the target of anger that he never deserved. During the Oregon game he went out with one of the many injuries sent from Zeus' lightningbolts. Freshman Ryan Mallett was his substitute. I don't know if I've hated Michigan fans any more than I did on that day, when the crowd booed Henne and cheered as Mallett took the field.

Henne does not speak out like Hart; he is not a cinderblock like Jake Long. He was not elected a captain of this team. He has merely been consistent and quiet, performing Herculean tasks when called upon, achieving things as a freshman that no Big Ten quarterback aside from Troy Smith has done during his tenure. Then he got hurt; for this, he is regarded in some circles as a disappointment. He deserved better from us. As eloquently observed in November:

It is over for Chad, the quarterback who told us this didn’t feel like the same team from last year, and then came back from a torn knee ligament to remind us what it looked like. The one who separated his shoulder against Illinois, left for a half, then came back a little later and won the game for us. And afterward, he described his shoulder constantly clicking in and out, with an ambivalent face and tone of voice, as if it were a canker sore his front teeth kept accidentally rubbing up against, and not every reason we know he exists. We had never felt the pain he felt, we knew only that it was more than we could handle, and that it was best left to be endured by men like him.
The man who tripped over a goal post after defeating Michigan State (when he went 10-13, and threw for 129 yards and 2TD in his final two drives), and consciously fell flat on his face because he knew his shoulder had to be saved for answering our prayers. It is over for that man.

On January 2, Lloyd Carr will be gone. I'm not at a point where I'm going to write his coda. If K.C. Lopata had played on September 1, 2007 instead of Jason Gingell, and maybe even if Sean Crable and his overeager helmet weren't penalized in November 2006, the first draft of history regarding his tenure would be different. And that's fine. Like Hyman Roth, this is the life he has chosen. Like Mike Gundy, he's a grown man -- he can take it. The small margins aren't an excuse. A loss is a loss, teams lose close games, and that's sports.

As disappointing as this season has been, and as unpleasant as I expect the team's performance against Florida to be, in a weird way 2007 has been a testament. Michigan was humiliated in its first two games, but the team never fell apart. Starting out that way, other teams would become defunct. If you told us on September 8 that Michigan would finish the year 8-4 and play Florida on New Year's Day, despite Hart and Henne spending the season defined by terms like "high ankle sprain," "dislocation" and "torn ligament," we would have been overjoyed. The knee-jerk line of ignorant Michigan fan -- that the program does so little with so much talent -- was flat off this year. With its plague of injuries and green defense, this team may have actually outperformed. It might have become South Carolina; it might have become Notre Dame. People sit around with bottles of beer and flatscreens and bitch like these games are about X's and O's and can be won just like on PS2, when there are matters of motivation, training and cohesion that those of us on the outside know literally nothing about. Charlie Weis proved that.

Still, it's been a miserable season. When I've written about football this fall, it really hasn't been about football, just excerpts from Dante or ee cummings and the occasional written purge of pure pain. If I were doing that poetry shit tonight, this post would've started with Dante Gabriel Rosetti. This bowl trip is not joyful, and I care about the result less than other Michigan games. I'm going to Orlando because I want to be there for the last time that Carr, Hart and Henne are on the field, while the program still means something more to the school and its fans than a jerry-rigged offensive scheme and the arbitrary zeitgeist dictated by ESPN and half-wits with blogs.

Really, I don't dislike Rich Rodriguez, but amid the excitement of his announcement, I don't think many of us have thought about what it's going to be like when we walk into Michigan Stadium next fall and see the previous 40 years discarded. A house that needed a fresh coat of paint and a new roof is going to be absolutely gutted. It might turn out just fine, but I think the premise is hard to dispute. Some people have been screaming for that; maybe they're right. These people would have given us a program that never would have recruited Hart and Henne.

One last bit of media bile in 2007

2007-12-29T16:20:00.000-05:00

Time Out New York took a real, live ironworker (ooh, so salt-of-the-Earth!) to some fancy restaurants, apparently to measure themselves and the trendspots they applaud against the values of an honest-to-God working-class hero. And not to engage in some holiday-season noblesse oblige, or to affirm the mindless worship of celebri-chefs or the exalted dining salons of the clapping-seal foodies. It's just because, hey, let's see how the other half lives.

Also, he was so cute!

[H]e has a handshake for every busboy we see (he used to be one himself), charms a beer or two out of each bartender we encounter and seems completely unintimidated by his task. He’s also “fucking starving.”

At Jean-Georges, he almost identified bergamot, which shows how his soul is pure. Kind of like how he preferred his sushi at Masa without the soy sauce. Then at Momofuku Ssaam Bar he stumbles and can't finish his "Santa Barbara sea urchin with warm tapioca pearls, shrimp crackers, yuzu whipped tofu, furikake and sel gris."

Oh no! But luckily, our the not-self-loathing-at-all Time Out is there to save the day with a scenester take on real-man food. Here come the pork-belly sandwiches with hoisin, cucumbers and scallions! And of course, Ironworking Donnie loves it!

Donnie proclaims the dish the best of the night: a 9. “That shit was slammin’!” he shouts, and, in celebration, orders another beer.

You know what else is slammin'? My head in a door after reading this!

This was my Christmas

2007-12-29T14:28:00.000-05:00

I flew out of a busy and mildly irritating Newark. Even though I randomly had been granted an Elite Access boarding pass by the Continental gods, I had a longish wait to check a bag so that I the present I was giving that involved more than three ounces of liquid would not become a casualty of the War on Terror.

I sat next to a pilot heading home for the holidays. He'd just flown 200 some passengers in from Brussels. We talked about the airline industry, unions, the general degradation of the airline experience from flying's golden age, and NFL football.

I'm not telling you where I was for Christmas, but the lake level was a good six feet lower than we were used to, leaving an expanse of mudflats, one of the gas stations had a vending machine that sold live bait and I had lunch at a Chick-fil-A.

My sister, who falls for every trick in the book, got flustered when the boyfriend of her boyfriend's mother accused her of calling him "Limpy." He has an artificial leg.

At the location of a second bunch of relatives, which I'm also not telling you about, except to say that there's a university and lots of hills, my uncle poured me a tumbler full of bourbon, then another. Once I switched to beer for my own good, I gave my three-year-old cousin a sip , and she thanked me sweetly. The next day we drank champagne for lunch, and then did steaks on the grill (while at the store obtaining said steaks, CrimeNotes called me from Michigan, excited about his plans to sled in honor of Benazir). That night, my cousin and others went to that college town's equivalent of the Brown Jug, a hole-in-the-wall with signs from students and visitors all over the walls, some just months old, others from two decades in the past.

It was much more exciting than I made it sound, trust me. I did, however, sleep 11 hours when I got back.

Benazir would have wanted us to sled

2007-12-28T15:04:00.001-05:00

Last night I went sledding with some New York friends who grew up near me.

There are all kinds of interesting observations about neoconservatism's origins among reformed Trotskyites. People on the left now use "neoconservative" as a pejorative label for things that they simply do not like, including tax and regulatory policies, when at base, neoconservatism's sin is naive optimism about human behavior. It's a lot like Marxism in that respect.

We paid $17 tickets to enter the sledding park. It's been a few years since I've gone sledding, but I loved it when I was a kid. It's all we did at recess. We'd take our roll-up sleds to the hill behind our school and sled for 15 or 20 minutes. It only takes a couple of days before fresh snow turns to sheets of ice. For most of elementary school, I spent my winters with bruises on my legs and hips and scrapes on my face. Our tailbones always hurt from the way we slammed into bumps and makeshift ice ramps.

The Bush Administration's neoconservative project has sometimes used as its justification this idea that freedom is human destiny and mankind's ultimate achievement, that a free Iraq will be a beacon for the Middle East and have a restorative power over neighboring repressive regimes. This kind of observation is hopelessly naive, and dreamier than the most extreme lefty-hippie talking points. No supporter of this administration can claim to favor a toughminded foreign policy grounded in reality.

When we got to the sledding park, most of the other clients were fifth graders and their parents. As the night went on, the crowd transitioned to rowdy teenagers and a handful of other people in our age range. I liked the teenagers better. They would plow each other down at the base of the hill. My sled and I slammed into a few dudes as the night went on. A member of my party hurdled some guys. No big thing.

Even if you want to believe in them, neoconservative ideals, like Marxist ones, are just unattainable. They are premised on selflessness. They can't work in practice. As in, you've got the Bush crowd talking about the transformative power of freedom while simultaneously lying in bed with a military dictator in Pakistan. They're talking radical idealism while playing classical-realist hardball. Musharraf is another pro-American dictator, just like the Shah, Pinochet, Ferdinand Marcos and Batista. Supporting his regime is irreconcilable with neoconservatism.

It's been maybe 10 years since I've gone sledding, and it's as good as I remembered. Maybe it's not as cool as yuppie favorites like skiing and snowboarding, but with that shit you have to worry about balance and coordination and everything. Sledding, it's all out of your hands. You can throw other bastards off their sleds, get knocked down, knock other people down, and there's none of that shit about sharp poles or edges.

And, you know, Benazir Bhutto was no saint herself. Her governments were corrupt. She was part of a family political dynasty that ran itself like a ruthless political machine. As the BBC was saying all day yesterday, the Taliban rose in Afghanistan under her watch. She was extremely attractive to us as Westerners -- Oxford educated, handsome as she grew older but truly beautiful 15 years ago. Benazir had a great media image. She was hard not to like.

The same group of teenagers kept channeling behind us. A couple of girls flailed and fell down as we waited to ascend the hill. When I tripped and slammed on my ass, they laughed hysterically. I brushed myself off. They apologized for laughing at me. "I saw you guys fall," I said, "and your falls were way worse than mine." Later, the teenagers debated the merits of going to iHop versus Denny's at 4 a.m. They were around 16. I know because one of them talked about driving so the others could drink on the way.

This is how we go into 2008: An instable nuclear power is on the verge of collapse. American capital markets are unmanageable. The dollar is becoming worthless. Foreign governments are acquiring significant holdings in American financial institutions. We're on the eve of the worst recession in 30 years, and the weak dollar invites the people running China, Dubai and -- who's next, Putin? -- to keep buying up American institutions. It's one massive, rotten flea market. Pakistan is on the brink of becoming a failed nuclear state, and when the inevitable coup d'etat ends with Musharraf getting the Ceausescu treatment, hello nuclear South Asia. It's a great time to be alive! Happy New Year!

I wanted to go with them to iHop or Denny's and drink in their car. I wanted to knock girls on their asses with my sled and then become self-righteous when they yelled at me. I wanted to push my friends on the ice patch, just because. Then they could push me back. Snow was down my boxers due to a mid-hill wipeout. Rosebud

2007 reviewed

2007-12-27T11:30:00.000-05:00

Instead of some "10 Best" list, which I hate, here are a few concluding reviews and arguments. The theme to all of this is, "Christ, I'm a fucking cliche."

Favorite Album: I'm Not There Soundtrack

This is an album of cover songs. The Byrds and Hendrix showed that Dylan was meant to be covered. This album is better than The Byrds and Hendrix. It is the best collection of Dylan covers ever.

It's a testament that you can hear a song for literally the five-hundredth time and the experience is as thrilling as it was sophomore year of high school when Highway 61 played on tapes played in friends' basements. Special highlights include the Sonic Youth cover of the title track, the Richie Havens cover of "Tombstone Blues" and the Cat Power cover of "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again," a Jack Johnson (!) cover of "Mama You've Been On My Mind," The Hold Steady covering "Can You Please Crawl Out My Window" (they take an obscure song, add some "Positively 4th Street," and it still sounds like they cooked it on their own.) Aside from fairly unimaginative tracks from Stephen Malkmus and Calexico (which aren't bad, just easy) the entire album is stunning.

This soundtrack and Dylan's Chronicles memoir make it clearer than ever that Dylan is America's gift to 20th century culture. Someday, Faulkner and Louis Armstrong will be the territory of specialists (they probably are already) but every generation will rediscover Dylan and adopt him.

The Album to Love Most After 10 Listens: The New Pornographers, Challengers

Skim the ebullience from their three preceding albums, and the product is starker and simpler, a kind of musical hug, Simon & Garfunkel's harmonizing without the treacle. It took awhile to sink in. The first few times I felt empty-handed, but once the expectations readjusted, it seemed clear that this is the Pornographers' best, most rewarding album, even if it's not the rowdiest.

The Album that Couldn't Be Loved: Wilco, Sky Blue Sky

It's a glass of room-temperature water that sat on the bedstand all night. It's a plate of scrambled eggs that's too undercooked and too close to room temperature. Tepid, bland, and unmemorable. That's okay, though. Good artists get to fail, and when they do, it reminds you of the parts you like about them so much in the first place.

Elder Statesman Who Hit His Peak: Bruce Springsteen, Magic

I get it, and the enthusiasm hasn't weakened as the weeks pass by. This was a very good album. Maturity has its privileges.

The 2006 Album that I Found in 2007, When it Proceeded to Monopolize my iPod: The Thermals, The Body, the Blood, the Machine

It's the violence and fright of Children of Men set to music, and made angrier. This album fucks you up. It's got the rage of Rage Against the Machine made catchier. So I like it. Technically it shouldn't count because it came out in 2006, but I found it this year and I get to set the rules. The album is something about teenage rebellion against an imagined Christian-fascist state, and a certain numbness that goes away as our protagonists flee.

I also found out that I really like the Cold War Kids, even though their album was 2006 as well. The band name was an initial turn-off, I think.

Second-Favorite Concert of 2007: Wilco, Hammerstein Ballroom

From Kyle Dean Reinford's photostream.

Even Sky Blue Sky sounded good when they played it live. What I wrote then:

[T]here's sometimes this sense of smugness in the band's product, that Jeff Tweedy, while not tweedy, kind of thinks he's the smartest guy in the room. It's almost like he overthinks. He never lets loose with the kind of passion you hear in Neil's "Powderfinger," or in "Like a Rolling Stone" or in "Sway." The blue, you see, is sky blue, never subterranean-homesick or tangled up. Sometimes precision is a shame.

The caution of this band's albums -- as good as they are -- doesn't show when it plays live. They know how to guide a crowd, and the undercurrent of stately adornment fades. So "Heavy Metal Drummer" feels like more of a celebration, and "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" is just a kick-ass song, and the blue tangles up just enough to position passion ahead of perfection.

Favorite Concert of 2007: Arcade Fire, Radio City Music Hall

From TammyLo's photostream.

I'm not into handicapping shit like this, but after seeing Arcade Fire at Radio City and Randall's Island, I think they're going to be as big as U2 in a few years. They can own a massive space. They sing serious songs but remain accessible. I liked Neon Bible (Jeff, we disagree) but never felt much for the band until I saw them live. The Radio City show had moments of anarchy and chaos -- Win Butler openly encouraging people to defy security and rush the stage, projectiles flying through the whole show, pyrotechnics and a screaming crowd, in a spectacular venue that usually doesn't see such antics. It was everything a show is supposed to be. If this sounds gimmicky or stage-managed, it wasn't.

2007 was a year of great live shows. There wasn't a single show where I shuffled my feet, glanced at my watch, and wanted the encore to wrap so that I could head home. Highlights included The New Pornographers at Irving Plaza, Spoon at Bowery Ballroom and Neil Young at United Palace. Only The White Stripes show at the Garden left a little to be desired, but it hardly qualified as a low point.

Favorite Book of 2007: Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson

But then sometimes the hype is right, and this was one of those times. There was a huge, ambitious book, with big themes and plots, and in the final pages a series of payoffs that made the whole exercise worth it. There was no slight of hand or gimmickry. This is the best big novel in the past 10 or 15 years -- more coherent and disciplined than Underworld, and up there with American Pastoral, Atonement and Never Let Me Go as the greatest piece of accessible literary fiction published in my adult lifetime. (How heavily qualified was that?)

I must have re-read the book's strange opening passage about four times before I really dug in. It started back in September, when I bought the book in Ann Arbor and then went to Ashley's to smoke cigarettes, drink beer and read the first sixty pages. I closed the book and put it aside -- great stuff, and I was not prepared. Along the way, I read Johnson's Jesus' Son and pecked at The Name of the World, both of which are fine but not in the same class as Tree of Smoke. When I revisited the book in December, I cut through its 614 pages in about 96 hours, taking notes and drawing lines between names and dates in the book's end pages, holding the book close to my eyes and doing my best to track every character and element in smudged, penciled-in notes.

It's war fiction. It's about mythology -- Buddhism, Catholicism, Confucianism and local practices in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. It is about underground tunnels and obsessions. Like all post-Classical war stories, it is about corruption and our heroes' ruin. It is deeper, bolder, more expansive than Johnson's claustrophobic drug horrors in Jesus' Son.

Denis Johnson is a helluva writer. His sentences are rich and vivid but never intrude. I can't recall a book with better prose. You, the reader, are never turned off by a feeling that he is trying too hard to dazzle. The book is loaded with paragraphs as good as this one:

Through the doorway of a tavern -- a couple of sad-drunk infantrymen dancing in the jukebox glow, each alone, chins down, fingers popping, shoulders working, heads bobbing, trudging like carriage horses toward some solitary destiny. She stopped to watch them. In the songs on jukeboxes or on radios tuned to AFVN she often heard God calling out to her -- "Love me with all your heart" -- "This guy's in love with you" -- "All you need is love" -- but tonight the voice sang only to soldiers, and its message didn't reach the street.

Tree of Smoke, p. 309. If there's another book with such great language, show me the way.

The Two Books that Idiot Critics Underrated: Exit Ghost and Falling Man

It's fun to tear down idols. I get it. Philip Roth got away with Everyman so it was time to pull out the knives. He started the book by talking about prostates and most of you couldn't overcome that. So you shut down, got lazy, and barely bothered to read the rest. Your loss.

The Falling Man response was much shoddier, because somehow you couldn't get it out of your feeble little minds that the guy didn't throw in a bunch of clever know-it-all tricks. He wrote a straightforward story. He nailed it. Eerie, funny, sad, scary, smart and credible -- probably the best thing that he's written since White Noise.

Least satisfying book of 2007: The Brief Wonderful Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz

It was fine, but it's now about Exhibit G of the CrimeNotes Thesis: With the exception of Zadie Smith or Mark Z. Danielewski, overpraising young writers screws both the writers and their readers, leaving you feeling empty when a novel is merely good and not a masterpiece, thus leaving you the reader unnecessarily wary of buying future books because the critics set the stage for a let-down when it didn't need to be that way. See also J.S. Foer, Marisha Pessl, Nell Freudenberger, Benjamin Kunkel.

Unless they've written the new V. (actually written V., not something merely decent that makes the reviewer pine for V.) a rave review for a first novel should be no more enthusiastic than: "This is a strong debut that shows much promise. The young novelist did some things well, and if the book was uneven, it was less uneven than most."

This is fine. F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel pretty sucked; Junot Diaz's first novel is better than This Side of Paradise. Let him be.

Book that changed my fucking life in 2007: The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein

A very scary book that begins with CIA experiments in brainwashing, then charts the rise of neo-liberal economics at the University of Chicago, following how psychological warfare in Latin America led to radical economic restructuring at the behest of American corporate interests and intellectuals who treated nations as their petri dishes for radical theories.

The Shock Doctrine is a secret history of geopolitics since World War II. Klein's principal leap -- that sensory-deprivation techniques used on an individual level translate into entire nations traumatized by coups and turmoil -- isn't quite persuasive. She just didn't have the social science to back this up her major thesis. But this is a less damning criticism than it should be. Her account of the bonds between radicals in academia, government and corporations is the real revelation, thoroughly persuasive, and more frightening than any conspiracy theory Oliver Stone conjured. Think tanks ad faculties make for unlikely villains, and then she turns to Chile.

Plus, the book has a fucking trailer produced by Alfonso Cuaron:

Best movie of 2007: No Country for Old Men

Actually, this is the only new release I saw in 2007, so it's the only eligible entry. Going to movies in New York sucks. It's like hanging out in an airport -- tons of lines, confusion at ticket kiosks, frustrated patrons, too much advance planning, and passive-aggressive seat jockeying. I hate it. If you spontaneously decide to go to a movie on a Sunday afternoon, God help you, sir.

As to the movie itself -- pretty good. Great work by Javier Bardem and Kelly MacDonald, every other performance is credible, it's engrossing throughout, the photography was good even if the geography made it easy, and then you get to the end and it all felt a little empty. I love the Coen Brothers and Cormac McCarthy and therefore expected one of the greatest things of my life. It asn't as good as Fargo, Blood Simple, Barton Fink or Miller's Crossing, but better than anything they've done in 10 years. (I don't understand the Big Lebowski cult.)

I also saw Knocked Up on-demand and judge it the most overrated movie of 2007. There was one funny scene involving a bouncer. That was it. It was a comedy for pro-life frat boys who support Mike Huckabee and desperate single girls who want babies. I told someone this and got yelled at, and was duly informed that not all Democrats want abortions.

Whatever. If Seth Rogan's character knocked up Giselle, she would've made a quick run to the clinic. Giselle had that baby because she wanted Tom Brady's genes, and now he's trapped. We live in a cynical world -- the Tom Bradys and CrimeNoteses of the world could auction their semen at Sotheby's, but Seth Rogan would be stuck with crackwhores. In real life, the chick in that movie never would have carried the baby of a fat loser Canadian with no viable income, and none of us would have held that against her. 40-Year-Old Virgin: brilliant. Knocked Up: unfunny, right-wing fantasy for losers.

Oh, fuuuuuuuuuck

2007-12-23T00:37:00.001-05:00

I set the alarm for 4:30 a.m., with a car reserved for 5 and a flight leaving Newark at 6:45.

The problem is that I always fall asleep between 2:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., and wake up every day like clockwork at 8:50.

I slept through the alarm, then somehow woke at 5:15. My car presumably came, waited, and left. I hadn't finished packing. I had 90 minutes to dress, pack, find a cab, travel the width of Manhattan and then on to Newark, go through lines at check-in and security, and hop on a commuter jet.

Out the door within 10 minutes, there was, bizarrely, a parade of on-duty cabs rolling down my street. I leaped into one, negotiated an extra charge to get my ass to Newark, and motored off.

It worked out in the end. Newark was packed and hopping by 6 a.m., but Continental staffed heavily and lines moved quickly. There was even time to grab a coffee and muffin on the way: from wake to gate in an hour.

I abruptly ran into a college acquaintance about to board the same flight.

"Jack!" I shouted, full of holiday cheer. "Merry Christmas! Are you still at [employer redacted]?"

Yeah. He didn't want to talk about work any more than I did. I said that it was great to see him anyway, then went to work on a Times Crossword. (In my rush to get out that morning, I forgot to throw Richard Russo's Bridge of Sighs into my carry-on.)

When my parents met me on the other end of the flight, they said that I looked bright-eyed for that hour of the morning. I laughed at them, and if my jacket reeked of cigarettes, they either didn't notice or didn't comment.

Thursday Night Massacre

2007-12-20T23:54:00.000-05:00

Here's what Michigan's new head coach Rich Rodriguez has done since he woke up on Sunday morning:

Announced his resignation to West Virginia via letter delivered by graduate assistant.
Before informing WVU of this decision, called a recruit to try to poach him to Michigan.
Not only called the Michigan Man meme a "hyperbole," but pronounced it "hyper bowl."
Announced an intention to contest the buyout clause of his West Virginia contract. The governor of the fucking state is now involved.
In response to a question as to why the Michigan job is special, responded with a discussion of its recruiting advantages.
Fired the entire coaching staff en masse, apparently without interviewing anyone or considering the possibility of retention. No Fred Jackson; no Erik Campbell. Apparently, no sit-down to see if anyone from the old staff (which actually understands the program and the university and all of that tradition shit that gets our rocks off) was worthy of retention.

This is putting aside various culture-clash criticisms from friends, which I've found petty and nasty -- stuff about his wife's hair and the fact that their kids' names all start with the letter "R." This is also putting aside the general unease some feel with ditching a successful system for a style of offense that has been classified as junk and gimmickry.

Good-bye, future Tom Brady; hello, future Michael Vick.

We've gone from guarded optimism, to actual enthusiasm, to trepidation and dread in the course of 96 hours. Draw Sharp might actually have been right, which is the most disturbing part of all of this. And Les Miles actually may have been the lesser evil.

One thing's for fucking sure: If Michigan goes 3-9 next year, at least we won't hear claptrap about tradition.

From this point forward, Michigan is just any other program.

Other observations: The Dolphins job will open soon, and some view Miami as a special place; Tom Osborne would make a fine interim Athletic Director at schools other than Nebraska; and in a few years, Ron English will probably have the resume to take over as Michigan's head coach.

It's also possible that this is an overreaction, which would be unusual. I'm usually not much into hyperbole.

Update: This afternoon I read the following from Mike Hart, and became even angrier:

Senior tailback Mike Hart said he was disappointed to hear about the staff changes, but said he knows the coaches "are all going to get jobs." Hart said he hopes Rodriguez and his incoming staff "learn Michigan tradition."
"Obviously, when I come back (to visit), there's going to be no one here for me," Hart said. "That's 128 years of history gone, with no one (on the new staff) with any recollection of that and the tradition. If these guys get to know the history and tradition, they will learn that Michigan is a lot different than any other place. I just hope they learn Michigan and what it's all about."

I wished that he'd pegged Rich Rodriguez as Lloyd Carr's little brother.

And then great relief came with this news:

New Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez has plans to rehire at least one member of the current staff -- longtime assistant Fred Jackson.
***
"I'm looking forward to working with him and learning that offense," Jackson said, referring to Rodriguez's spread offense. "I'm looking forward to keeping the Michigan tradition alive."
Rodriguez appeared on "The Mike Tirico Show" on Friday afternoon and reiterated there's a potential for other rehires.
"I sat last night and met with all the staff members, not just the position coaches, but the support staff and talked to them," Rodriguez said on the show. "I don't call it retain, but I'm rehiring a lot of these support staffs. I've already rehired one of the position coaches in Fred Jackson. Not all the position coaches are leaving. I'm rehiring Fred and most of the administrative staff will be rehired or already have been rehired.

Jackson is a very well liked guy, apparently an excellent recruiter, and one of the assistants widely expected to be retained through any transition. This goes a long way toward calming my fears.

This post isn't the opening salvo of a running effort to bitch about Rodriguez. I don't hate him. The circumstances of his departure from West Virginia are concerning. Reports of an immediate and universal firing looked like evidence of a similar institutional disrespect. His presser on Monday was brilliant and it's been less than a week, but yeah -- there's enough here to warrant tough scrutiny. Concern and harsh judgment aren't the same as vendetta.

Nicknames I've had

2007-12-20T04:01:00.000-05:00

Edited, of course, to use my blog pseudonym.

[Flop]py

[Flop]ster

Sl[op] [Flop]

Special [Flop]s

[Flop]balls

[Flop]pinator

[Flop]meister General

[Flop] Dawg

Tr[op]ic of [Flop]

[Flop]py Bag of Donuts

Big [Flop]py

My sweet-assed Christmas playlist

2007-12-18T19:51:00.001-05:00

Whenever I'm visiting my parents for Christmas, there's always a lot of negotiation over the music selection. My mom wants to hear carols non-stop. Me, it's been about 17 years since I've liked most of that stuff. I don't want to be a fucking Grinch, so in car trips I'm trapped listening to this crap non-stop.

Then I reached a solution. I originally wanted to come up with a list that would please my parents without hurting me, but now I realize that it's oh-so-much better than that. Download these songs and arrange them in this precise order, and you're guaranteed a happy Christmas regardless of creed or temperament.

1. That's What Christmas Means to Me My Love, Stevie Wonder. If the lyrics were different, I'd listen to it year-round. This song is just really, really good.
2. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), Darlene Love. Always reminds me of Goodfellas, and might explain why I consider Goodfellas a Christmas movie.
3. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, Brenda Lee. An old standard that doesn't suck.
4. The Chipmunk Song. Annoying even in tiny doses, but in the company of these other songs, it's a Yuletide delight.
5. Run Rudolph Run, Chuck Barry. Rowdy and zany!
6. Santa Baby, Eartha Kitt. For the seductive materialist in all of us.
7. Feliz Navidad, Jose Feliciano. I rocked out to this during the Sesame Street Christmas special when I was about three or four. Another indispensable classic.
8. Frosty the Snowman, The Ronettes. Christmas and Motown go together brilliantly.
9. 'Zat You Santa Claus? Louis Armstrong. Can't spell "rousting morals" without Louis Armstrong!
10. O Holy Night, Tiny Tim. What makes a traditional religious song palatable to an atheist? A hilarious, wacky rendition, that's what.
11. Mambo Santa Mambo, The Enchanters. Calypso also goes well with Christmas.
12. White Christmas, Darlene Love. See entry 8.
13. White Christmas, Bing Crosby. Throw in a traditional song to keep Mom happy. The two versions of White Christmas work best back to back.
14. The Christmas Song, Nat King Cole. This also makes Mom happy, but it's a great song to boot.
15. Frosty the Snowman, Jimmy Durante. It's funny.
16. Sleigh Ride, The Ronettes. See entry 8.
17. We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Jingle Dogs. Also featuring: cats. You go out with a bang, and all the pets in the house will go moderately crazy, cocking their heads and barking and running around.

This playlist goes well on Christmas morning with the family, yes, but it also works as a normal hang-out playlist. I listened today as I walked around Manhattan's cold canyons, Marlboro Light dangling from my mouth as I spread a unique brand of holiday cheer. It really got me in the spirit of the season.

It's also good stuff for someone who loves Christmas but prefers to stay true to its pagan roots. But even if you're a Believer, it's good for you too.

Some brief thoughts on the occasion of Michigan hiring a new football coach

2007-12-17T17:51:00.000-05:00

Throughout the past month, as bloggers and even some of my respected fellow alums drove themselves intensely, twitchily crazy pouncing on every shred of internet-spread information re: Michigan's coaching search, I have done my best to remain calm.

No coach is a savior. Michigan doesn't even need saving. Lloyd Carr is a pantheon-worthy Michigan coach. My biggest concern was coming to grips with the fact that no one else would be, you know, like him. Lloyd seemed to me the ideal of a balanced man, with interests above and beyond college football. He will be missed. Michigan could have hired the second coming of Fielding Yost and I'd still miss Lloyd. It's OK.

There were three major inflection points in this roller-coaster ride of a search. Maybe four. The first was on the final Saturday of the year, when Kirk Herbstreit looked into the camera, batted his baby blue eyes and announced that Les Miles would be coming to Michigan, and bringing Georgia Tech defensive coordinator Jon Tenuta with him. I emailed Crimenotes, noting that Tenuta (whom I've admired for years) helped soften the blow of Michigan having hastily nabbed Miles, and went out to the greenmarket. I came back to the chaos that was the aftermath of that whole fiasco. (Personally, I think Martin slow-walked him on purpose. But it's possible he just got too caught up in christening the Flying Wasp. We should all be so flaky.)

The second was the near-hiring of Greg Schiano. Apparently, he took Michigan's offer home, mulled it over in the brand-new house he has on land carved out of a nature preserve on the Raritan River, then walked a few steps over to his office and told his guys he couldn't leave. Totally understandable. I was mildly disappointed, having gotten excited about having a defense of 11 guys flying around like angry happy fun balls.

Then there was the actual hiring of Rodriguez, which was an on-off-on situation. At first it seemed he would stay, but then he changed his mind, apparently after a discussion with his mentor, Don Nehlen. Who was an assistant with, yes, Bo Schembechler.

And so it was that Bo helped get Michigan a new coach, who was born in a small town in West Virginia, just a couple miles from the one where Fielding Yost was. It sounds like a nice, tidy storybook ending, but really it's just beginning. Nothing is promised. Bad things happen.

But so do good ones. Doubtless, We'll have much more to say on this, but I wanted to get some thoughts down on "paper" for now without trying to overthink things. There are issues to discuss, not least of which is the massive, massive culture shock Rodriguez is in for coming from West Virginia to Ann Arbor.

I told you being tough was important

2007-12-17T00:19:00.000-05:00

Faceful of snow: Fun!

Especially when you play a bunch of soft, warm-weather pansies like the Buffalo Bills, who wouldn't know cold if it worked its icy finger around their puka-shell necklaces and down their chicken-wing themed Hawaiian shirts.

This is what we've been waiting for in Cleveland. For a long time. The Browns played an important game in December for the first time since 2002. And even then, that was kind of a fluky year in which a lot of things came together. To some extent, the same could be said of this one.

But these Browns have real talent and ability. Braylon Edwards would start for any team in the league. Ditto Joe Thomas and Kellen Winslow most likely. Derek Anderson has been a revelation at quarterback, and there's even some good players on a defense that is, well, it's not all that impressive. But between the defense that plays better than it's league-worst ranking and near blizzard on the lakefront, the Browns held the Bills scoreless and won 8-0.

If that score looks like one from another era, it's because the NFL hasn't seen a final like that since 1929. And it happened not on a TD and a two-pointer, but on a pair of a highly improbable field goals by Phil Dawson, who should get some sort of medal or something for making kicks in that snow -- especially the one from almost 50 fucking yards.

Playoff implications aside, this is a highly satisfying win.

Whose lake? Our lake, bitches.

You've got to be tough

2007-12-16T03:30:00.000-05:00

Even after looking at handfuls twice, I didn't believe what I was seeing, so I scooped a handful of the slushy snow onto the navy blue brim of my cap. But it wasn't slush or snow, either. They really were spherical little ice crystals, falling out of the sky at 3 in the morning.

The way they looked under the street light against the dark cloth made me think of diamonds, spilled onto black velvet somewhere warm and dry for appraisal. I got into a cab and wondered if we'd get hit by some idiot driver who couldn't handle the weather, and if I'd get killed or maimed or something, my life forever changed by some stroke of bloody-minded luck, like I was in some Raymond Carver story.

But we didn't, and I got out and walked a couple blocks to my place. The wind drove the hard little balls of ice -- not hail; hailstones grow in layers, going up and down in thunderclouds until their weight is too much for the convection and out they spill. They stung my ears and eyes and I had to put my head down and let my cap take the brunt of it for me.

A couple hours earlier, I'd been IMing with my friend who lives in Portland. The one in Oregon. He reported that he thinks the black guys in his neighborhood don't fuck around with his naive, suburban self because he often wears a Browns hat. It's his version of one of those T-shirts that reads [Location or place name]: You've Got To Be Tough, except in Portland, maybe they don't get the joke.

I thought about that while I was trying to estimate the speed at which these tiny bits of icy buckshot were peppering me. Fast enough for them to be moving horizontal. Weather like this just isn't surprising. Sometimes, I think I should move out there, move to fucking California where nights are soft. I wonder what it'd take to make me laugh out loud on the street there at 3 in the fucking morning.

I can't believe I'm actually defending Bill Martin

2007-12-15T12:27:00.001-05:00

It seems like I've bitched about him virtually from the beginning. My dislike peaked with the quickly-withdrawn sponsorship offer to give SBC naming rights for the Michigan-Ohio State game, but really had momentum with his shepherding of the Michigan Stadium renovations. The anger there wasn't so much toward luxury boxes themselves -- they're a necessary evil -- but because he showed as much respect for dissent and process as Robert Moses at his worst.

The agendas of regents' meetings were manipulated to limit the speaking time of those who disagreed with him. Most egregiously, he used the memorial service for Bo Schembechler as an opportunity to pimp his stadium plans. I've searched for transcripts of his remarks, but I can't find them. Essentially, he recalled that one of his final conversations with Schembechler involved overhauling the stadium. He claimed that Bo supported the plans, which was evidence that until his dying day Bo wanted what was best for Michigan. Putting aside that such conversation can never be verified, Martin essentially used the funeral for a beloved coach to rally support for his pet project, and implied that people who disagreed with him were anti-Bo, and hence, anti-Michigan.

I think Martin's a manipulator and a dick.

Still, Martin's list of accomplishments is incredibly impressive, even if they don't all track my own agenda. A short recap from the top of my head includes the following:

Push through the aforementioned stadium renovation plans, despite dissent from regents and most of the faculty. He played dirty, but he got what he wanted.
Plans for a reconstituted baseball facility.
Retained a very popular and successful baseball coach right at the moment when it looked like he'd be poached.
Hired John Beilein. (I don't know about basketball or give a damn, but everyone seems to think this was a great hire.)
Hired a women's basketball coach.
Most importantly, fixed an Athletic Department that was in a financial mess following Tom Goss's tenure.

There's more that I'm forgetting. He's abrasive and manipulative, largely unlovable, but his job isn't to be loved, it's to keep finances strong and get shit done. Half-wits can give him grief for scheduling Appalachian State, but in his list of responsibilities and priorities, that falls somewhere around No. 63.

The problem isn't that he's fucked anything up, it's that most people literally have no understanding of what his job is. He could completely blow this coaching search. It would be a black mark on his record, but would only land somewhere in the top five flashpoints of his tenure. It certainly wouldn't be a firing offense. Taking the athletic department into the red, accounting irregularities, an NCAA investigation, hideous cost overruns: those would be firing offenses. Those are the things that his job is about. Not to serve as a figurehead or comforter-in-chief.

So far as I can tell, Bill Martin's sins in the Michigan coaching search are the following:

He sails. So did Don Canham.
He didn't land Les Miles. As stated in previous posts, I hate Les Miles, so I don't view this as a bad thing. If you think this non-hire is the product of sailing-related negligence, you're dreaming. Anyone with a position of even marginal responsibility in this world -- including yours truly -- is reachable at any time. Blackberrys are Satan's curse. If Michigan wanted to hire Les Miles, Martin would have been available. Michigan did not want to hire Les Miles. This angers people. That is a policy disagreement, which is not the same thing as incompetence.
He didn't land Greg Schiano. Greg Schiano has his own reasons for staying put. It's highly possible that no offer from any school other than Penn State would attract him. This wasn't a product of Michigan getting snubbed by lowly Rutgers. Look, I don't know how much experience people have in being recruited for jobs, or trying to recruit other people for jobs, but these decisions are made for about a dozen different reasons. Money and prestige are not always the determining factors, even for high achievers. By this rationale, Bo should've left for A&M when they dangled a fat paycheck his way. People don't always operate this way, and we're better off for it.
He didn't hire a search firm. Maybe this would have smoothed the process a little, but as we learned in the stadium project, Martin seems less concerned about process than getting the results that he wants. If he's got some kind of decision tree or list of candidates that he knows he wants, a search firm might have made things marginally easier but I don't see how it would have affected the end result. This leads to the following criticism:
This is happening too slowly. Bullshit. You're hiring somebody who's going to be there long term. This isn't a race. The goal isn't to hire the flashiest name as quickly as possible. It's a long-term investment, not day trading. Do your fucking diligence and take into consideration the dozen or so factors that you want in the next head coach. Nothing would be worse than a knee-jerk decision to hire the flashiest new thing (e.g., Pinkel) and bask in accolades, only to find out three years down the line that you've brought in a horrible mismatch. That's program suicide.
He had advance notice that Lloyd was likely leaving, and didn't do enough advance planning. Brilliant call. If there's been any actual problem with this goddamn search, it's that every time someone sneezes there's a leak and the latest turn is all over blogs and newspapers. If I were Martin, I'd have a Nixonian level of paranoia about leaks at this point. Say he uses intermediaries and starts putting out feelers to prospective coaches over the summer and fall: At this point, there's no doubt that such shit would've hit the press within five minutes. For all the people who seem to give a shit about nothing but recruiting, official rumors of the head coach's imminent departure sure wouldn't have been good for that, right? There would've been no season, only obsessive speculation about who was coming next, when that issue wasn't even ripe.

There are plenty of reasons why a person shouldn't like Bill Martin. I don't like him. But I have to acknowledge that for the length of his tenure, he's done an extremely difficult job really, really well. He singlehandedly righted the athletic department's finances, went on a building spree reminiscent of Robert Moses, handled the final stages of the fallout from the Ed Martin/Steve Fisher scandal, and generally gotten everything that he's wanted. He's nothing if not an extremely smart and capable of son of a bitch. He's not responsible for micromanaging the fucking basketball team, it's not his job to handicap Appalachian State, and the fact that he didn't hire a dream candidate that you've fetishized for months does not equate to a firing offense.

Republican primaries: short version

2007-12-14T19:31:00.000-05:00

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water

 e.e. cummings

Why Les Miles will never be my coach

2007-12-13T01:03:00.001-05:00

I can't stand the guy.

It's not just that I'm a Lloyd "apologist" or "loyalist," whatever those things are. There's a real possibility that Les Miles wooed teenage athletes by telling them that Michigan's head coach (beloved in my circle though not everywhere) suffered from a chronic neurodegenerative disease. If I'm the Marques of Queensbury because that makes me hate him, so be it. I'm loyal to my school, not a prospective head coach to be named later.

The qualities that seem to draw Joe Michigan to Miles are the same things that make my stomach roil. "Excitement" and "aggression" make sense when they're value-added. Miles is Steve Fossett in a ballcap. Cool shit to watch from a distance, but not so cool when you're scraped across the desert because adventure ballooning sounded fun. At LSU, he's had talent but still only won by razor-thin margins. To call his on-field playcalling "risky" would be an understatement. In The Deer Hunter, Christopher Walken did well for a long time playing Russian Roulette. He made plenty of money, and then it came to an end.

But it's more than all of this.

The University of Michigan is not a football school. It's a vast, great academic institution that happens to have a football program.

Michigan losing to Appalachian State didn't change my life. It ruined a three-day weekend and briefly prompted ideations of suicide, but a week later life was back to normal, even after Oregon's ass-kicking.

The team can lose on the field, and I'll be pissed and traumatized. I have nightmares about losses, condemn my lifestyle choice, scream to my friends that I wish I'd gone to Middlebury or Amherst or some other liberal arts school where kids spend Saturdays high, reading Keats in the woods somewhere. But that, I can divorce from my overall feelings about Michigan as an institution. When I walk into work and a millionaire in his sixties gently mocks me about losing to Appalachian State, I can laugh uncomfortably and concoct a rationalization.

What I could not rationalize is having a head coach whose public behavior is a consistent embarrassment. It's why Gary Moeller managed to get himself fired. Unfortunately, Michigan's head football coach is linked to how the public at large views the school. Lloyd was terse, close-mouthed, careful -- he might have been abrasive with sideline reporters and he might have been a dull interview, but you never feared that he'd utter words to embarrass you as an alumnus.

Michigan's unofficial spokesperson cannot be someone who would say, "We have a new rival in fucking Michigan State." He can't get choked up in press conferences. He can't rationalize a two-loss record as tantamount to being undefeated in regulation. He can't storm in front of television cameras and deliver a UFC-style rant.

That shit's fine at Oklahoma State or LSU. Alabama coaches can call people "coon-asses" and compare losing a football game to September 11. At some places, football plays a role in the hiring of college presidents and is a principal fundraising motivator. I did not go to one of those schools. Mary Sue Coleman, Lee Bollinger and a $7 billion endowment have nothing to do with a team.

I can handle losing to the Appalachian States of the world. I could even handle the program decaying into a Northwestern-style mediocrity -- that would surely suck and require years of pain and adjustment, but it would not make me renounce my degree or tarnish my feelings about the school.

I wouldn't feel the same way if the school's highest-profile employee were perpetually uncorked and verbally reckless. Michigan has always kept sports in its place, and that's no easy achievement. You can spend four years at the school, ignore its athletics, and not feel like you're missing anything. You can be on faculty without giving a damn about football. If you're a major donor wanting to give $20 million for cancer research, your decision of whether to donate to the hospitals at Duke, Michigan or Columbia will not incorporate coaching behavior.

This is why big-time athletics at Michigan have always been risky. By and large, they're good public relations and enhance the undergraduate experience. They also open up the school to forces that have nothing to do with its institutional mission, which, if kept unchecked, risk overshadowing everything else.

And then one day there's a clip repeated ad nauseum of some dumb-ass head coach popping off in a press conference, or in headlines because he said something dumb about the Pac-10, and Michigan starts to look like a football school. As an alumnus, you have a hard time explaining the person away. As a prof, maybe you feel embarrassed to be affiliated with a circus. And as a donor, the football program still doesn't mean jack shit to your decision, but if you're looking to do something serious with your legacy, quite possibly there's an itch somewhere about not wanting a new rival in fucking: Michigan State.

This is how it happened

2007-12-06T03:41:00.000-05:00

Last Saturday was a fiasco for Michigan athletic director Bill Martin. He was apparently totally unreachable down at his club in Key Largo, Florida, when Les Miles' agent called him, frantically hoping to get an offer for his client now that LSU had upped the ante. When he got back to Michigan, reporters were calling wanting to know why he spent the day sailing. Even the bloggers were mocking him, making it sound as if he'd been enjoying himself when really everything had gone horribly, horribly wrong.

First, Mrs. Martin snapped the bowsprit off their new sloop when she tried to christen it. Then Miles roared past in the new cabin cruiser LSU bought him and the wake nearly knocked everyone off the dock. Then, after Miles was done terrorizing jet-skiers and quintets, he flew up to Atlanta, called a press conference and announced: "I just got head from Amelia Earhart!"

Sources say any counteroffer would have to involve Pancho Barnes.

Champagne wishes

2007-12-04T10:45:00.000-05:00

When the Ravens scored in the ~~third~~ fourth quarter to take a touchdown lead, Tony Kornheiser pointed out that Shula had grabbed his back in excitement. Shula pretended like he wasn't rooting against anybody ... but we knew. -- Deadspin, Dec. 4, 2007.

It would certainly be nice to have once been part of some band of brothers that achieved something singular and unique. And it would be nice, if, once a year, all of us having gone our separate ways, we paused our lives at the same moment to celebrate and remember all that we accomplished.

If, however, that cause for commemoration was that someone else had failed, leaving the glory alone to us, I would have to wonder how people had lived with me all this time. What an ugly spectacle the 1972 Miami Dolphins now seem to be making of themselves, with the New England Patriots aiming at an undefeated season that would not just match the Dolphins' achievement, but surpass it by two wins at 19-0-0.

Yes, the Patriots have cheated. Yes, I too am tired of hearing each of them held up for adulation as if the men who don that uniform are somehow jewels the rest of the league, never mind us mere mortals, can never hope to equal. Yes, I have my own team's interests in mind, too.

But man, how narcissistic must you be to celebrate someone falling short of your own achievements? I wonder who else is this awful? Do you think Max Planck put his fist through his hat when Einstein won the Nobel Prize three years later? Do you think Sebastian Coe kicks his Corgi every time someone says the name "Hicham El Guerrouj"?

I mean, not to indulge in metaphor here, but the behavior of the 1972 Dolphins is something like if Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay busted out the Piper-Heidsieck every time the Nepalese Air Force had to helicopter a corpse off of Everest.

Crisis averted

2007-12-01T14:51:00.001-05:00

Depending on the ultimate explanation, I'd like to thank Mary Sue Coleman, the University of Michigan Board of Regents and/or Les Miles's avarice for sparing my university years of pain and embarrassment.

I look forward to sleeping the sleep of the just and discontinuing vitriolic e-mails.

New York Times: Always sports-retarded

2007-11-30T00:42:00.000-05:00

I don't know why they even bother.

This is the lead photopackage on nytimes.com as of 12:40 a.m. Fucking morons.

Mistaken identity

2007-11-28T00:10:00.000-05:00

Helen Keller.

I'm always mistaking Helen Keller for Anne Frank.

It's not my worst problem, but it's happened often enough to be a trend.

Over Thanksgiving, someone mentioned Helen Keller not being able to talk. I mistakenly confused this remark as a joke about Anne Frank not being able to speak because she was seized by the Nazis and killed. It legitimately offended me. My face blanched and I sat stunned and silent for several seconds before I processed that Helen Keller and Anne Frank were different people.

Coincidentally, South Park's traditional Thanksgiving episode about Helen Keller: The Musical was in rotation. The confusion never arises from the episode, because of lyrics like, "Helen Keller, Helen Keller, blind as a bat. Can't see or speak. What's up with that?"

On the other hand, a coworker once recounted her adventures in Amsterdam. A few months later the topic came up again, and I made fun of her for touring the Helen Keller House while stoned. She yelled at me. I had no idea what the problem was. She told me I wasn't being funny. No, of course not, I said. It took a few minutes to clear up the confusion.

I don't know how someone who'd visit the Anne Frank House baked could have the piety to lecture me for confusing Anne Frank with Helen Keller.

Thanksgiving Eve

2007-11-24T01:26:00.000-05:00

"Hey, let's find some 21-year-old *****."

"No," said Ryan M*****, "they're all fat."

"No," I said, "I want a good story. My friends in New York are *******."

"That'll be $1.75 for your gallon of beer," said our waitress.

"Your pitching arm is beautiful," I say. "That can't be accurate."'

"You know the owners."

"I will leave you $10 in tip because you are 21 and beautiful."

Tag Team back again. AC/DC earns royalties.

We see Wendy E******. "Is that Drew W********?"

Yes. Cocaine and powerlines, that was the story. It's like a Denis Johnson story without violence or heartache. M*** B***** has called us all. Jason owns a house in East Town, paid for less than the Thai food I ordered on Tuesday. Where I'm from, a gallon of beer costs a nickel and you can by a mansion for $10. Find 21-year-old *****? B** is unamused.

Kelly ******* shrieks at me. She will move to Portland. Ken Kesey spent some of his best years in Oregon.

"It's all done," I say. "[Redacted] is the worst thing to wish on anyone. It's hell on earth."

Tag Team, back again. Montell Jordan.

"Ryan M*****, Jason, you are all puss****." I drink down. Is that even my beer? It's unclear. Raspberry beret? Pregnancy. There's Wendy! Talking to Drew W********. I am a gentleman.

"Where do you live?"

"Central Park is far. Thompkins Square Park dog run."

"Wha?'

"Thompkins Square Park dog run."

"Wha? Hey, I knew your sister."

"She's a nice girl," I say.

On the way out I run into a kid. He goes to Michigan for undergrad. He yells when he sees my shirt. We briefly discuss college. I shout Ralph Williams's name. The kid gets excited, too. This will be my top moment all month.

J*** B******** doesn't want to listen to me, but when I was seventeen, he was the man. I'm drunk and it's late. I have a Miller Lite flashing necklace. Tomorrow, I'll give it to my eight-year-old cousin, right before I throw him.

Oh, just stop it

2007-11-21T11:59:00.000-05:00

Shopping is an errand and a chore. It's not an event, and it sure as hell isn't a tradition. Stay home. Sleep in. Spend time with your family, not money.

It's just crap you don't need anyway. Especially not at 4 in the goddamned morning. Sleep in and have breakfast together at 10, over coffee and the hometown paper. If you want to see people back in town, pick up the phone, don't hope to bump into them around dawn, pawing at housewares.

Do you really think this is going to be fun? No one should voluntarily leave their house at that hour. Especially not to bring home a pre-lighted Christmas tree or a sheet set. Quit making this out to be some celebration of the season. It's just an infantile, consumerist mission.

Shopping is not a celebration, it is not a tradition and it is not bonding. Just stop it.

My soul is bruised

2007-11-17T01:57:00.000-05:00

ANN ARBOR -- I just lived The Road.

And we have nowhere to go but down.

On Lloyd

2007-11-15T18:53:00.000-05:00

Lloyd Carr has been the coach of Michigan for as long as I've been an invested fan. There will come a day when he's not, possibly soon.

Saturday could be his final Ohio State game. For idiots, this would be cause for jubilation. For me, it would begin a long period of unease.

Lloyd has been successful by any measure, with a national title and five of Michigan's 42 Big Ten titles to his name. His winning percentage is behind only those of Schembechler and Yost among Michigan coaches, and under his watch, Michigan became the national leader in all-time wins and winning percentage. His personal winning percentage is higher than the school's all-time win percentage. Not shabby.

National media types and fans like to make coaches into godheads. When comparing the best football coaches in the country, it sounds as if they're discussing the seven wonders of the world: The Great Lighthouse of Norman; The Colossus of the Coliseum; The Hanging Gardens of Gainesville; The Great Pyramid of Happy Valley.

Lloyd doesn't get that treatment. He doesn't have the flash to engender slack-jawed awe. He's just a coach whose players uniformly love him and would run through walls for him, who is in charge of a scandal-free program that, despite bumps in the road, never collapses. And more often, wins. A lot. From what anecdotal evidence I can gather, he treats his players well, demands their best, and gets it. They love him. Before September's Notre Dame game, at a time when Michigan was 0-2 and looked on the brink of disaster, former Michigan tight end Aaron Shea called Carr "the best coach I've ever had in my whole career. I wish him luck, and I truly love that man."

Some fans find it harder. Lloyd does not inspire mindless worship. He doesn't take stupid gambles that earn the praise of the national media and chin-stroking pre-season puff pieces. His demeanor, like his playcalling, is restrained. He doesn't have any personal-appearance trademarks. He doesn't tell reporters how late he stays up watching film and working on game plans. And he sure as hell doesn't court their attention. The only way you'll see him on a magazine cover is on his players' shoulders.

Lloyd is just a man who has made Michigan football his life's work. He has a life outside of football coaching, and appears to be intelligent, at least enough to understand that football is not the end-all, be-all that some make it.

In an interview with scholastic.com, the book publisher, Carr dropped a reference to Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Imagine your school's coach sitting for an interview with Scholastic Books, let alone throwing around Emerson references.) His 1997 team was famous for reading Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air and using it as inspiration on its climb to the top of the college football world.

In a perfect world, Lloyd would coach into his 80s, improving the lives of generations of football players, as well as students like myself who find themselves respecting and admiring the man.

Lloyd embodies Michigan ideals. He does not run up the score. He does not believe in winning at all costs; he treats sportsmanship and dignity as tangible goals. He insists his players leave Michigan as better people. Many of them do, and go on to become teachers, airline pilots and entrepreneurs.

And his teams win. We should all be so successful in our life's work.

Someone wrote earlier this week that tomorrow's game is the rubber match for Lloyd's legacy. That statement couldn't be more wrong.

Whenever he begins life as an ex-coach, Lloyd Carr will deliver our team into the hands of someone who will not seem worthy. This is fine. Any assessment of Lloyd at the moment he took over Michigan would have been the same. The program was poised at a touchy moment. But Lloyd took over, never once lobbied for the job, and simply proved himself. He overcame a highly embarrassing loss to Northwestern, his team played hard all season, and delivered a 31-23 upset of undefeated Ohio State. Should he bookend his career with likely upsets of the hated Buckeyes, it would be a sweet finish indeed for a man who deserves it.

And if not, we'll all get over the disappointment. I wouldn't trade the past 13 seasons of Michigan football for anything. And whenever it is a new coach takes over, he'll probably seem at least as unworthy as Lloyd might once have. I'm optimistic that Michigan's next coach will do just fine. But I can't shake the feeling it won't be the same.

People like Lloyd are called once in a lifetime for a reason.

BREAKING: World's most important tournament underway

2007-11-15T18:33:00.000-05:00

Activist blog commenter J. Businger has begun a tournament to crown the 2007 NCAA football champion. It is real. Very real. Here's a taste:

The television package is split between ESPN/ABC and CBS, both of which devote significant regular season airtime to college football. Fox, which doesn’t carry regular season games at the network level and which has contributed to the current BCS mess by offering globs of money to extend and televise the status quo, was barred from negotiations. (Plus, we strongly suspected that Fox suits would insist on renaming the national championship game “The Rudy Giuliani Bowl.”)

Enjoy history in the making.

I'm glad I don't live in Georgia

2007-11-14T14:19:00.001-05:00

Sure, because of the drought and the never-ending bullshit over the confederate battle flag
and all. But also because when faced with a public crisis, the governor decides the best use of his time is to fucking pray for rain.

Look, your beliefs are all well and good, Sonny Perdue, but while you're on the clock, let's focus on some more tangible solutions, m'kay? You can hit the knees and pray for rain at night. You're dealing with some serious shit here, not the 1948 Braves. I'm sure you fancy yourself th Moses of Fulton County, but even he banged on a couple rocks.

Maybe you could ask the local bottling concern to cool it on the Cherry Coke Zero for a bit. Or at least crank out some more fucking Dasani. You could even try to get some conservation laws cooking. Legislature's right across the street, and they have to drink, too. But no, you're going to pray for rain instead. That's just super.

If I lived in Atlanta, I'd be looking to move somewhere more sane. Like Arkansas. Or Yangon.

What a relaxing, stress-free weekend

2007-11-13T00:18:00.000-05:00

For a weekend without any football whatsoever, this one was pretty good all around. I spent Saturday morning at the Frick Collection, followed by a relaxing afternoon current-events discussion with some friends at a local, independent coffee shop.

It was a good weekend for the players on my favorite football teams. Chad Henne and Hart went to that Oasis Hot Tub Gardens place in Ann Arbor, where they relaxed their aching body parts in the healing, rented waters while members of the softball team fed them dates and Haribo peaches. On Sunday, they went to Cafe Zola for brunch with Jamar Adams, and stayed until 3:30 talking about the presidential race, whether there should be a student regent and making fun of Hart for liking Johnny Tremain in seventh grade. Hart planned to get revenge by introducing Adams as "The Silversmith" when he tapes the player intros for ABC later this week.

Meanwhile, the Browns spent their weekend as a team. First they went to a place out in Lorain County and played paintball on Sunday. Then Monday night they had off so they could go to Lola in Tremont where they rented out the place for a team dinner of local, northeast Ohio ingredients expertly prepared by chef Michael Symon. (They all made Brady Quinn pick up the tab; Derek Anderson made sure to get his table a magnum of the 2000 Ch. Lafite Rothschild). They all went home in anticipation of their usual Tuesday off day.

Braylon Edwards plans to work out, then have a sensible lunch, and maybe put up that birdfeeder he's had sitting in the garage for a month. Kicker Phil Dawson is planning to drive his kids to school, then go to Panera for a sandwich and finish his book (Time Traveler's Wife) for book club. Coach Romeo Crennel is going to a benefit luncheon with his wife, Rosemary, who works with disadvantaged youth. Joe Thomas is going fly fishing in the Rocky River. The steelhead are running great this time of year.

The age of turbulence

2007-11-12T20:14:00.000-05:00

Christ, I can't wait for this season to end. Not just because of my Michigan-related psychological issues, but because of the entire freakshow. I'm sick of Lou Holtz, Pat Forde, Charlie Weis's smug fucking face, Bill Callahan and his imminent standoff with the ATF, the many fucking retards who attended my university, and anything remotely affiliated with Les Miles. I'm sick of Kansas rising, Hawaii being discussed as if it's legitimate (Michigan deserves to be in the national title game as much as Hawaii deserves to be in a New Year's Day bowl, let alone a BCS bowl), the words "Darren McFadden," shitty Big 12 teams, shitty Big 10 teams, hollow SEC teams being discussed as if they're worth of respect, and Les Miles. I'm sick of Holly Rowe, ESPN's list of 100 greatest college football players, Paul McGuire, Brady Quinn hawking Gillette (boycott Gillette), Perry Farrell's glitterpants, that footage of Matt Ryan puking on the sidelines, and Les Miles.

People once thought Ken Lay was a genius. Recklessness catches up with everyone eventually.

ESPN needs to stop. Lou Holtz's pep talks are amusing only in the way that it would be amusing to put an Alzheimer's patient onstage at a comedy club and let 'er rip. That is, they're painful and sadistic. You forget that this sputtering punchline was once a leader of men, a great coach, now willingly dropped before a camera in order to make an ass of himself in service of our entertainment. Lawyers and court-appointed guardians must inject themselves. Someone who loves him must intervene. Old people should be allowed to live their golden years in dignity, not turned into the announcing equivalent of a snuff film. This is what Howard Beale would have been like if he had no rage.

Dear Pat Forde: Suck my fat one, you cheap dimestore hood.

Ninety-five percent of the people coaching, announcing and analyzing this sport fall into the category of hypocrite, half-wit or liar.

Also, this is my own fault, but I know more about Houston Nutt and the Arkansas booster-and-recruiting follies than should ever, ever be expected of a native Midwesterner who's spent his last eight years in the Northeast. I would like to wire my brain to a magic robot/computer and let it remove massive quantities of memory, including everything about Houston Nutt and Mitch Mustain. Why the fuck do I know what Houston fucking Nutt told a guy when he was in high school and what Razorbacks' parents think? Did I ever even care? Not by a long shot. But I know anyway. Fuck, I'm surprised that I didn't go through the FOIA requests and the documents that were produced and assimilate them all into massive spreadsheets just for shits and giggles. I should be put down.

While we're at it, let's also void every memory of Dennis Franchione and his stupid-assed secret newsletters. Why do I know? Why did I read those things? I cannot tell you. Something to do with a USC ballcap and the word "guff." I want all of that shit wiped clean.

Speaking of wiping shit clean, I'm not listening to anyone trying to make sense of what's happening in college football, because all we're doing is standing around with massive fistfuls of shit, trying to shape wet, dirty feces into nice little sculptures that resemble something explicable. That's not a sculpture of a lizard -- it's shit, dude, seeping out between your fingers. Otherwise metaphorized (That's not a word? Fuck off.) a Great Dane pukes on Mom's kitchen floor after it lapped a two-liter of Diet Coke, and the Thanksgiving guests stand around the mess, declaring that they see an image of the Virgin Mary somewhere in the puke. And then they start praying and call the local media, and the next thing you know the Great Dane's mess of Diet Coke puke is being consecrated as holy. And then you're thinking, "Fuck, all that's there is dog vomit. Devotion will not change that. Why pretend?"

Mailer

2007-11-10T23:33:00.000-05:00

He was never a great writer. None of his books may stand the test of time. A hundred years from now, it's possible that The Executioner's Song still will be read, the way people read The Jungle or Babbitt, not because it's great art but because it's accessible sociology about the era. Hell, Mikal Gilmore's Shot in the Heart one-upped the original, and "The White Negro" feels dated in ways The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test probably never will.

This isn't the passing of a great writer as much as an occasion for the mourning of a kind of public intellectual that literally no longer exists. If you've ever seen clips of Mailer chopping it up with Gore Vidal, years before any of us were born, you get kind of a nostalgia for a time when men of letters strode the culture with outsized personalities and egos. They were celebrities. They set the terms of debate. They took their roles as public intellectuals seriously, and enjoyed the fame. They used it responsibly. I've never loved his writing, true -- Vidal, Wolfe and Joan Didion played the same game and eventually one-upped him. (Mailer stayed a step ahead of George Plimpton, but "The Paris Review" will outlast them both.) Mailer veered into irrelevance long before Harlot's Ghost.

Still, he strode bigger and grander than any of the young writers we're stuck with today. Norman Mailer crapped bigger than Jonathan Franzen well into old age, and from his grave, he always will.

The Pith! Oh, the pith!

2007-11-09T12:48:00.000-05:00

While the nation's fortunes hardly turn on the strike by the Writers' Guild of America, it's still a labor action, it still has worth. Also, since the strikers tend to be rather good at pithy jabs, bons mots and, well, writing in general, the blog that has sprung up to chronicle life on the pickets is a rather good read.

Some mirthworthy nuggets from the lines:

CBS TELEVISION CITY: Big glasses, big heart
Genesee gate. Drew Carey sent us out ten pizzas today. As one writer put it, "The man gave up half his lunch for us!"

UNIVERSAL: We can do the Jurassic Park ride later
Apparently, there was a Teamster present who just happened to be visiting from out of state with his wife. Somehow he stumbled across the shoot and told his wife he wanted to join the picket line. She basically said, "Are you crazy?" And he answered something like, "We're Teamsters, that's what we do."

CHELSEA PIERS, NYC: All Jacked Up
"One guy from our group got hassled by some stockbroker-looking dude who was screaming 'Get back to work! I don't want 24 to be cancelled!' He was serious."
-Dyna Moe

I bet that guy was a joy to be around during the transit strike, too.

A note on the writers strike

2007-11-07T16:55:00.000-05:00

While I'm showing solidarity during the writers' strike by not writing, that doesn't mean that you, the readers of Cole Slaw Blog, should suffer. Hence I've decided to allow my friend, Ohio Independent Moderate, a chance to guest post. His words are below. He would also like to add that he is NOT a Republican, but rather assesses each candidate individually on the merits, which is why he couldn't bring himself to vote for that flip-flopping Boston Brahmin, John Kerry, in 2004.

Hollywood is better off without you, lazy union commies

By Ohio Independent Moderate

Get back to work, you lazy, greedy bums. Oh, boo-hoo, you didn't get enough from DVD sales. Maybe if you had been smart enough to innovate, to come up with the idea of selling DVDs, then you would have a claim to it. But this, this is an outrage -- you're just trying to use your leverage to profit off the work of others. God, I hope the strike ruins all of your careers. Well, faster than they would have been wrecked anyway.

Hey, did you notice? Reality shows don't need you! That's right, the market has decided you're surplus to requirements, just like those money-grubbing autoworkers who ruined GM and Ford and forced all those jobs from my state overseas. Not to mention let all those faggoty imports clog up our highways. (And the grill of my uncle's F-250!) But at least the autoworkes they did real work, man's work. You just fucking ... write!

Seriously, what's your biggest workplace hazard? Sprained predicate? Maybe latte burns? You sit at your coffee shops and type away on your MacBooks and whatever, and you come up with ways for Desperate Housewives to entertain us. Like anyone couldn't do that. You know what, I hope this provides a chance for some hard-working young men and women. See? They're willing to work, unlike you guys. This is what's wrong with America, people can just not go in to work and not get fired. Those fucking studio execs are such pussies. If I were in charge, I'd fire all of you, then hire some young kids who really wanted to work. I'd have them write some good movies, too, like 300. None of this shit with the fucking talking rats in French kitchens (although I'm sure the part about rats in Paris kitchens was totally accurate. I bet they'd surrender as soon as the exterminator came.) What Hollyweird needs is a non-biased studio. We'd refuse to work with unions and then we could do some real movies. Like Petraeus. Oh man, Mel Gibson would be great in that. And maybe a thriller about the War on Terror. Or a dystopian flick in which a Young Republican, writing for The Corner, saves the world from dhimmitude. Caliphate: America would be a great name for it. Or maybe the United States of Mexico. And a movie about the Minutemen, too. That would be great.

Oh, this is totally what's going to happen. Hollyweird union slugs, you just made the biggest mistake of your lives. A real movie studio, free from all the stupid Hollywood shit! That's what we need to counteract all the liberal bullshit coming from Hollywood. Suck it, Michael Moore! I bet your a Meatchicken fan, too! HA HA! Tressel owns your ass! Or he would if he wanted to own 300 pounds of fat! Yeah, I said it, you're fat, Michael Moore, you Wolverine-lover. Ann Arbor is a whore!

Whoops, sorry. My cousin Wayne is a huge fan, and sometimes, I can hear his voice even when he's not here. Sorry about that, Wayne. Anyway, this writers' strke is the best thing to happen to Hollywood since Ronald Reagan. Fucking unions. They should be illegal. Or at least they should for limp-wristed girly men like fucking TV writers! Oh, thanks for Mr. Belvedere, assholes. Where would we be without you?

Food fraud

2007-11-07T15:43:00.001-05:00

I'm the worst kind of evangelist. For the past six months or so, I've been doing the majority of my food shopping at a greenmarket. I do this because the quality of the produce and other goods is high and because it's all locally grown. And you should, too. No, really. It's going to save the fucking world.

Also, I enjoy walking home with a baguette in under my arm or a watermelon cradled in my elbow, but that's just me.

But before I can say anything about food miles, the rising cost of oil and the likelihood that we're all going to wind up having to eat local eventually, I should point out that I really have no standing to talk like this. None. I'm a food fraud. Eating local more has been nothing but a boon to me -- I could have done this for purely self-interested reasons.

There's a greenmarket close to me, closer than any good grocery store. And I hate grocery stores. They're fraught with peril. You're basically looking into people's cabinets when you see their carts. And looking into other people's cabinets is usually depressing -- a view of their sad, private lives. And even if you avoid that, there's maneuvering around people blocking your way, more despair when you see all the sad things they market to kids in the form of pink cereal and green ketchup and at the end you get to wait in line to hand over your hard-earned money, while the person in front of you argues that the crackers that just rang up for $3.29 each should really be 2 for $6.

And everything smells like celery.

No, I don't miss it at all. What got me going to the market regularly was the idea of food miles. Eventually, I realized that buying asparagus from Peru in August and blueberries from Argentina in February was really, really dumb. Why should my food have been places I haven't? And is that really a wise use of fossil fuels, to provide antioxidants to Manhattanites?

So yeah, I stopped supporting that, for the most part (I still occasionally duck into a megamart, but that's because olive groves and rice paddies and the like are rare indeed in the tri-state area). I also still eat out from time to time, probably more than I should.

But I've made the switch. In my mind, getting food means going to the market, not the store. And I would love to tell you how everyone should do this, so that food miles go down, pollution goes down, oil can get used for more important shit than trucking DiGiorno's across the nation, local farms stay farms and don't become subdivisions and retail, Frank Perdue punches out his hat, multistate e. coli recalls go the way of air-raid drills, Whole Foods stops peddling $7-a-pint Honduran huckleberries, and the obesity epidemic and terrorism are both solved at the same time, and the BCS is banned and all the conference commissioners are sent to pick iceberg lettuce for Big Macs in the central valley. But I can't, because I think I'd do it if none of that were true.

Fixing American dependence on megamarts, processed food, and "happy motoring" (as Jim Kunstler would call it) isn't a huge sacrifice for me. I'd be willing to make some sacrifices, but so far, it's been all upgrade for me. So, yeah. Seriously, farmers' markets rule. Your money helps your local community, and not the bottom line of ConAgra. The food is better than you can imagine, and fresher than trucks and planes can possibly deliver. You're contributing to a better life for you and everyone around you. You're reducing traffic. You get to do things like walk home with a giant stalk of brussels sprouts, or honey made from hives on city rooftops. When gas is $7 a gallon, why pay for your Foxy brand lettuce to come from Fresno when you could get it from the next county over?

But what do I know? I actually like this shit.

Solidarity

2007-11-07T01:46:00.000-05:00

2 S +

- RE

+

Bow before my prescience

2007-11-04T20:59:00.000-05:00

HBO aired The Sopranos season finale again tonight. It was great revisiting the series's final scenes. The fights over the concluding restaurant sequence took too much oxygen out of the room. We were all so worked up about how the series would end that we forgot to pay attention to the fine points of what David Chase et al. gave us.

I've wanted to revisit the Tony Soprano death debate in light of some recent comments by David Chase. My post on the subject may be the most-read piece in this site's history. It still receives frequent Google hits and message-board links. My original observations included the following:

Literally all that happened was people going about their business in a diner. That was it. People in a diner, shot very artfully, very tensely, in utterly mundane activities. Obviously we're waiting for something bad to happen. ... We expected something sinister -- that's the way these stories are supposed to end. Instead, dinner happened.
This is, however, a microcosm for the problem with the Death Theory. It's based on pure guesswork (as well informed as it might be) rather than anything that actually occurred on screen. You buy into it, and you're required to take several leaps of faith unsupported by actual events. Leaps of faith, by nature, aren't rebuttable. If you believe that an entire subplot unfolded, wherein AJ was tailed off-screen by an assassin, it's hard to have a conversation grounded in what we know. Knock it down, and another speculative answer is always in the offing.
There seems to be a certain impulse to find support (any support, no matter how thin) for a preordained, desired conclusion. As a result, the death theories rely heavily on wild conjectures (see above) and iron faith in thoughtful but unproveable guesswork about what may or may not have happened off-screen (in a series that never relied on Macguffins or off-screen twists) regardless of observable evidence.

I'm not always right. I completely mis-read the Duke rape prosecution. I was somewhat vindicated in thinking that the 2006 Michigan team shouldn't have a title berth.

On The Sopranos finale, I give myself an A+. Per David Chase:

Breaking his silence months after the HBO mob drama ended its run, he is offering a belated explanation for that blackout at the restaurant. He strongly suggests that, no, Tony Soprano didn’t get whacked moments later as he munched onion rings with his family at Holsten’s. And mostly Chase wonders why so many viewers got so worked up over the series’ non-finish.
***
Chase says the New Jersey mob boss “had been people’s alter ego. They had gleefully watched him rob, kill, pillage, lie and cheat. They had cheered him on. And then, all of a sudden, they wanted to see him punished for all that. They wanted ’justice’...
“The pathetic thing — to me — was how much they wanted HIS blood, after cheering him on for eight years.”
In the days, and even weeks, after the finale aired June 10, “Sopranos” wonks combed that episode for buried clues, concocting wild theories. (Was this some sort of “Last Supper” reimagined with Tony, wife Carmela, son A.J. and daughter Meadow?)
Chase insists that what you saw (and didn’t see) is what you get.
“There are no esoteric clues in there. No ‘Da Vinci Code,”’ he declares.
He says it’s “just great” if fans tried to find a deeper meaning, but “most of them, most of us, should have done this kind of thing in high school English class and didn’t.”
He defends the bleak, seemingly inconclusive ending as appropriate — and even a little hopeful.
A.J. will “probably be a low-level movie producer. But he’s not going to be a killer like his father, is he? Meadow may not become a pediatrician or even a lawyer ... but she’ll learn to operate in the world in ways that Carmela never did.
“It’s not ideal. It’s not what the parents dreamed of. But it’s better than it was,” Chase says.

Buffalo Bill's defunct

2007-11-04T03:26:00.001-05:00

and what I want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

We're on to you, Rudy

2007-11-01T11:10:00.000-04:00

Can anyone photoshop an Indians hat onto a picture of Hillary?

Apparently, Rudy Giuliani is getting his ass kicked in the polls in New York right now by the woman who was all set to kick his ass in the 2000 Senate election, Hillary Clinton.

Awwww, too bad we know all about what a douche you are, Rudy! Also, your beloved Yankees just drove their Hall of Fame manager and ~~shortstop~~ third baseman out of town after a loss to the Cleveland Indians. The Hall of Fame closer may yet follow. Bow before my hometown.

Bow before the enlightened electorate of the Empire State!

Metaphysics of presence

2007-10-28T17:00:00.000-04:00

Michigan started the 2007 season ranked No. 5 in both the Associated Press poll and the USA Today coaches' poll. Set aside that many of us considered that position exceedingly generous, even before the inglorious losses to Appalachian State and Oregon -- there they were at Number 5, the most overhyped team since 2006 Notre Dame.

But those inglorious losses happened, Michigan clawed back, and as of today, the team is ranked No. 14 in the USA Today poll (one spot ahead of USC) and No. 15 in the Associated Press poll.

As someone who loves the program, the team, the coach, and is deeply impressed by this season's recovery, it's still difficult to reconcile the No. 15 ranking with life as we know it, except that you glance up the ladder and see Hawaii, Virginia Tech and Texas teams ranked ahead of Michigan, and are reminded that this is the year Derrida and Foucault have made their way to big-time college football. There is no longer such thing as truth. Glance through the polls, and there are fine arguments on behalf of ranking Michigan at 11, or placing them in the low 20s.

Now consider this: instead of I-AA Appalachian State, Michigan might have scheduled I-A Buffalo. Instead of scheduling Oregon, they might have scheduled Florida State. (Keep in mind that the Oregon game was scheduled early in the century; Florida State would have been a more respectable, even fearsome, pick back then.) Michigan would have won those games. The exact same team, with its flaws and paradoxes, would be undefeated and ranked No. 1 in the nation. Ohio State would be No. 2. That No. 1 team would literally be no different than the present No. 14/15 team, except that Mike Hart would be consensus Heisman frontrunner and the hordes of breast-biting banshees calling for Carr's head would be forced to be more creative in their bloodlust.

I've been adamant in my opposition to installing a playoff. It's more trickery disguised as science, with a selection process no less arbitrary than the BCS. Worse, the media hype, money and distortion coming from a playoff would be unbearable.

Yet with scheduling tweaks, Michigan would be the consensus No. 1 team in the country. That's an excellent argument for a playoff.

Ozymandias

2007-10-28T03:29:00.000-04:00

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

To our Iowa friends

2007-10-27T13:02:00.001-04:00

I know it's been a tough season and that in the larger scheme of things, Tom Arnold playing your "celebrity" spokesman on ESPN is a small matter.

Still, talk about adding insult to injury. Thanks to the same people that brought us Big 'N Rich and Perry Ferrell singing about football while dressed in glitter pants, we just watched an entire quarter of football subsumed by an analysis of Tom Arnold's career, including praise for True Lies.

I guess Jane Smiley was unavailable.

The New Pornographers, Now Starring Dan Bejar

2007-10-25T23:35:00.000-04:00

Found on Galenh's photostream.

They've always been a better studio band than live band. The live performance traditionally have been perfectly adequate, with good moments but a ramshackle feel. They've felt makeshift, like everyone was winging it, sometimes a half-step off, with Carl Newman running the show and everybody else trying to keep up.

Something has happened. At Webster Hall last night, they performed as a great live band, for the first time in the five shows that I've attended. They were backed by a cellist, a violinist, a flute and accordion. Neko asserted herself as a bigger stage presence. They sounded perfect, fuller and deeper than the albums -- a development that stands in contrast to old performances, where it almost felt like they were a cover band trying to cover their own studio albums. Not anymore. The Pornographers, it's great to see, are now a live band, not a loose collective that puts out superb albums and occasionally tours.

It was somehow even better than that, though. Challengers seems to have baffled some fans, with the band sounding less like an Edison Lighthouse/Mungo Jerry hybrid, going for more mellow and even-paced. As an album, though, it's their most complete and successful output. There aren't the rousing pace-setters like "Sing Me Spanish Techno" or "Letter From and Occupant," but there's also nothing to skip -- no "Bones of an Idol," which sounds terrible crammed between "Twin Cinema" and "Use It." Challengers was a creative leap, and a complete success, and the performance of its songs was kind of moving.

There was no other word to describe Neko Case, Carl Newman and Dan Bejar, together on stage, lined up evenly at the front of the stage, triple headlining, when they sang "Adventures in Solitude," a beautiful song, a far cry from Pornographers classics like "Slow Descent Into Alcoholism," but so pure and pristine.

Balancing on
One wounded wing
Circling the edge
Of the neverending
The best of the vanished marvels have gathered inside your door

More than begin
But less than forget
But spirits born
From the not-happened-yet
Gathering there
To pay off a debt brought back from the wars

We thought we lost you
We thought we lost you
We thought we lost you
Welcome back

The three of them harmonizing on the refrain, singing to a silent room, was a moving thing. You hear those lines and it's like they were singing to each other. It's the height of geekdom to watch Neko, Newman and Bejar and think of something like The Last Waltz, and how amazing it was that there was a time when Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson and Bob Dylan routinely shared stages together. The analogy is imperfect, but there's this thrill of the glamorous Neko, Newman the likable frat boy, and the nervous disheveled Bejar, who've now done very well for themselves outside of this supergroup side-project, assembling something magical that they've never approximated in past shows. It was the kind of show where you wished you could thank them afterward.

I'd be curious to know the Carl Newman-Dan Bejar creative process. Bejar's own band, Destroyer, has a cult following among critics and music nerds. Destroyer's Rubies was much loved and wildly praised. Bejar's Destroyer tells its stories in incredibly elaborate, interlaced songs and lyrics, but Bejar's output is never so accessible or lighthearted as it is when he's with the Pornographers. On Challengers, Bejar has his best Pornographers product in a song called "Myriad Harbor." "Myriad Harbor" starts with a guitar that sounds both restless and impish, almost smartassed. And then its lyrics kick in, a kind of running dialog that Bejar has with himself as he wanders New York:

Bejar: I took a plane, I took a train.
Newman/Case/Bejar: Ah, who cares you always end up in the city.
Bejar: I said to Carl, look up for once.
Newman/Case/Bejar: See just how the suns sets in the sky.

It's about wandering and restlessness, but being comfortable in your own skin at once, hitting the peak with the line, "All I ever wanted help with was you." "Myriad Harbor" has all the Bejar landmarks, the phrasings and the great bouncing falsetto, as if someone had taken Frank O'Hara's poems, Blood on the Tracks and a dash of Tiny Tim, added a bottle of Corona, and cobbled together an artist.

It would go too far to say that Bejar stole the show. He wanders in and out of songs, never looking at the audience as he sulks across stage to take his spot at the microphone, appearing disheveled and out-of-place next to glamorous Neko and All-Canadian Carl, and then pow! his song starts and the beer is down. Whether they made more use of Bejar last night than they had in the past is tough to say, but he sort of stole the show.

And I think that he steals Challengers. Neko and Newman owned past Pornographers album, but the best stuff here is all Bejar.

This is why I'd love to know the process between Bejar and Newman, both of whom sound better when they're collaborating than they do working individually. Bejar is more accessible and joyful when he has Newman's influence; Newman is less sugary. And you think a little about what people said about John Lennon and Paul McCartney, that The Beatles magic worked because Lennon tempered McCartney's pop and McCartney countered Lennon's seriousness. You get the feeling that as Bejar and Neko become more prominent in their own rights, that economics and schedules are going to make the Pornographes an infeasible proposition -- when they sing, "We almost lost you. Welcome back." you wonder whether it was written from Newman to Bejar, and you hope that they keep working together.

Ending Floptober with a bang

2007-10-23T14:29:00.001-04:00

Yes, I'm back. I traveled across the country and back, and even gazed upon Niagara Falls and Toronto, but never crossed the border. Some things I learned along the way:

Nothing in the sports-fan world is more stressful than watching postseason baseball. But really, nothing is more stressful than being three time zones away from the game, with the sun shining outside while your ace pitcher struggles with his control.
Going to In-N-Out burger before you even check into your hotel in southern California is always a good move. Seriously. Apparently there's even one you can walk to from LAX.
It actually can rain in southern California. And the next day, the views from Mulholland Drive will be incredible, even if they're just of the freaking San Fernando Valley.
When holding up the bride or groom to dance the Hora, tipping the chair slightly backward is a good idea. Just trust me on this one.
Photo booths should be at all wedding receptions. Failing that, a Polaroid works pretty well.
You know what else is stressful? Watching through the window of the restaurant while the valet gets your car as a dangerous hitter keeps fouling off pitches with men on base. Especially when you have to leave before the at-bat is over.
Contrarily, nothing is easier than sitting on a transcontinental flight, reading the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal cover to cover and getting the occasional scoring update from air traffic control. Until you see Jacobs Field out the window, and hope for fireworks or some sort of sign that the Indians won, dammit.
If you're going to take your dog outside to run back and forth between you and your father, you'd probably better make sure there's no rabbits hiding in the bushes, or she'll be off like a shot, and you'll have to run her down while holding your Great Lakes Dortmunder Gold or Bell's Two-Hearted Ale. Although you'll laugh your ass off anyway.
If you're standing by a craps table and two cute women who don't really know the rules are rolling the dice, for God's sake, put your money down asap.*
If you're holding your friend's three-month old son in the crook of your arm while wearing a tuxedo and giving him a bottle at a wedding reception ... yeah, people are going to take a lot of pictures of you.
Michigan apparently ran a trick play for the winning score on Saturday night, probably while I was drinking Canadian beer and dancing like an idiot. Who knew?
There's nothing quite so sad as a missed opportunity for joy. But going to In-N-Out burger would probably salve the wounds nicely.

* Strangely, if she's the wife of one of your best friends in the world and still wearing her wedding dress, you'd think this would count triple. But apparently, no. No, not at all.

The skinning of the Dillon Panthers

2007-10-22T00:22:00.000-04:00

The first two scenes of this week's Friday Night Lights showed everything that's gone so wrong with this formerly great show.

First it's Landry waking up in bed next to Tyra. He's shirtless. They fumble awkwardly. Landry does his Landry bit that worked wonderfully when he played sidekick to Matt Saracen but feels painful when he's the center of attention. (Landry being the center of attention -- it would be like if halfway through Boogie Nights, the movie turned focus to Philip Seymour Hoffman's Scotty. It hurts.) Tyra clumsily dresses and jumps through Landry's bedroom window. In the back of the shot is Landry's dad, doing some kind of yardwork. Folk emo plays. We note that Landry's bedroom wall has a chart of the Periodic Table, the kind of telling detail to expect from this show, but not nearly enough to redeem the sitcom-quality opening sequence. Cut to Landry's dad, having spotted Tyra jump out the window of his likable but clumsy son. He's taking care of the trash. (Question: Does that signal to us that Landry's cop-dad thinks that Tyra is trash, or that he's going to be the one to clean up the mess? Time will tell.)

Then we segue to Landry's counterpart, Riggins, who's also shirtless and getting out of bed. He looks out the window and see his older brother embracing the same next door neighbor who was the subject of Riggins's affection last season. Poor Riggins!

Next it's Coach Taylor waking in bed with Tami. The new baby is between them. "I've gotta get goin'," he says. "Well that just sucks," she says. We see him in a diner. The local radio station plays overhead. Dillon's sportstalk guys talk about Coach Taylor as a "Judas." Walking out to his car, Saracen approaches him and apologizes to Coach for the fact that he and Julie broke up. Saracen stammers in that earnest Saracen way that made us like him so much in the beginning, and then he walks off.

Riggins is at practice. New Coach is punishing him again. Riggins has been punished by New Coach in every episode. This time he carries a tire overhead while New Coach badgers him with a series of taunts. Riggins staggers, then drops the tire. He's fainted. Poor Riggins! "Get up, Riggins!" screams New Coach. "Get up!" The players gather around him, and the next shot is Riggins on a stretcher, loaded into an ambulance. Pan to Landry, looking ridiculous in football gear; Saracen; Smash; and Street. All are concerned. Poor Riggins!

Roll credits, playing the theme music that once made me tingle but now makes me recoil.

More melodrama and nonsense has happened before the credits than we'd expect in three episodes last year. We've already had reminders of why everything has gone so bad.

Poor Landry, and poor Jesse Plemons, the actor who plays him. Last year Landry was a touch of comic relief and purity in a pretty dark show. A smart kid, he laid low. He was friends with Saracen. Saracen was a functional orphan at home. Landry was unloved at school. They looked after each other. It wasn't more complex than that. Their relationship was recognizable. They seemed like real high school kids. Three episodes into Season 2, and Landry has killed a potential rapist by bashing his skull. Now he's waking up shirtless next to Tyra. The window-hopping hijinks ensue, the dad spots this, and we're off to sitcom city. I'm sure Landry was pleased to get laid, but the mangling of this morning was bad for the show, and hence bad for us.

The Riggins collapse was another piece of farce that shouldn't have any place in the show. Guys collapse in football practice; every August there are a couple stories about kids dying this way. But now the show is just playing with us. This is not how it's supposed to be done on Friday Night Lights. We saw Jason Street taken down and paralyzed in the pilot episode. A year later, they're practicing blatant manipulation, filmed in the most dramatic way possible, his body tied to a stretcher and key character kneeling down, looking concerned.

Not to worry, though: It was just a close call. The writers were only manipulating you. Riggins isn't dead! He was just dehydrated, as we learn when we get back from commercials. Lyla Garrity happens to walk past his hospital room, where she stops in to see him. Awkward exposition follows, and then Lyla invites him to church. Minka Kelly overacts via facial expressions; she suddenly seems like she belongs on the CW. "You can be lost in Dillon, you know," she says.

And then we find out that Street is going to go to Mexico for stem cell treatments. And then things really start to go downhill.

The episode features Tami slapping Julie when she finds Julie frenching the Swede in his car. Landry fears that a lost watch is going to tie him to the murder, and that the police are going to find him. (A moment of silence, as we reflect on the horror that such a setnence exists.)

In the middle of the Friday game, Saracen punches Smash on the field. Bedlam breaks out -- what in the heck? Looks like New Coach can't keep the team together!

Then there's the hideous relationship between Saracen and the caretaker hired to tend to his mentally ill grandmother. I shudder to think about where this might be headed. Last week she found titty magazines under his mattress. This week we learn that she's from Guatemala, where her father is a teacher and her mother runs an insurance office. She's only in America to get a nursing degree and to help people. Hence, she can't ... do Saracen's laundry.

But she can give him a massage and sing to him in Spanish. It's a song she learned from her grandmother. By now it's only a matter of time before Saracen and the Guatemalan home healthcare worker share a tender moment, make out, and probably bang. Then something will happen and Matt will be confused. Based on the writers' decisions so far, she'll probably get harassed by the Minutemen or some kind of anti-immigrant group, and then Saracen will punch and/or kill them for being mean to her.

It's off the rails. Stick a fork in it. The writers and producers are murdering this show, but it's slow death. They keep toying with us, throwing in a handful of moments reminiscent of what made Season 1 special, only to bastardize it a few minutes later. The good FNL sneaks in when Buddy Garrity meets Riggins at the hospital. Someone over 18 needs to sign Riggins out, and luckily it's Buddy. This is appropriate because Buddy's now alone in the world, just like Riggins. They've alienated the women in their lives, and both like liquor. You get the feeling that Riggins could be Buddy Garrity one day, if only he had some polish and social grace.

They drive past fields. Garrity blames Riggins's collapse on New Coach. New Coach has been pushing the guys way too hard in the blazin' sun, showing no mercy, practices running over 15 minutes. "It's no wonder you passed out," says Buddy. "Actually," Riggins says, "I think I passed out cuz I was hung over, Mr. Garrity." Buddy pulls over. He turns deadly serious. He doesn't ever want to hear Tim Riggins say that again. "I've seen you play with a hangover many times, and you played like a champ. This is because of that coach. This is all about McGregor, and I don't want you to put any of it on yourself. Okay?" "Okay." "Okay."

That stretch was sterling stuff. The writers have put Buddy in a quasi-physical confrontation with his wife, but otherwise, Buddy, Riggins and Coach Taylor are the only two characters not yet betrayed by the show's writing staff. Among most of the principals, the performance remain flawless. There are some Minka Kelly problems, but the writers haven't been helpful to her. She's born again, after all -- one of the only new themes that I find convincing. The problem may not be her performance so much as adjusting to the newfound righteousness of her naive, entitled character. I still can't help but feel like she's underwater. Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton and Zach Gilford are as good as ever. The show might be better if we just put the three of them in a diner, talking for 60 minutes.

I might need to quit this. Tonight I dropped in a DVD of Season One, which I bought back in August, when I was looking forward to Season Two in a way usually reserved for Michigan football and Hold Steady albums. Watching series' the first two episodes was a reminder of what made the show so special in the first place -- the way that all the drama unfolded in conversations on front steps and smoky restaurants. Everything was between the lines. The show knew how to use silence. There was a meaner edge, one that didn't need to be communicated with slapping and fistfights. The drama was all about adjusting to the threat of failure, and a very real sense that when these people were away from the escape and promise of high school football, they lived in a very unhappy world. There wasn't room for error. The terror was failure and alienation, not being caught by the cops for killing a rapist. Season One hardly made a false move.

Twin Peaks suffered the same fate. It had a fanatical but small fanbase and critical acclaim. It wasn't a commercial success, so the plots shifted. They became tidier. The viewership didn't grow with the show losing its soul.

This may have been unavoidable. Fans rallied against a likely cancellation by NBC, and renewal followed. Sometimes it's bad to want more, though. Season One gave us perfect closure. Good novelists know what to leave out and when to end the story. The Office (the real version) had just 13 episodes and didn't waste a second. Now I'm stuck with the memory of Landry as a murderer and Lothario, Tammy punching Julie and Saracen starting on-field fights before getting a neck massage from his grandma's home healthcare provider. It wasn't meant to be like this.