New York as a college football town

The closest comparison to college football season in New York is New York during the World Cup. The rest of the city is oblivious to the passions of small, provincial sects. Saturdays on the Upper East Side and in Murray Hill, you pass groups of strangers walking together in team attire, getting together in bars and watching something that reminds them of home.

Most Michigan games air nationally so the bars aren't an issue. Much better to get together in a friend's apartment with people who actually understand the game and watch it the same way rather than cram together in a bar with fellow alumni whose knowledge, intensity or agenda don't quite match.

The Saturdays still have the feel of a secret holiday. Walking around the East Village or the Lower East Side, there's a scattering dressed in shirts for Texas, Notre Dame, or Michigan, all of us headed for a more football-appropriate part of town.

After last week's Penn State game, a group of us passed a collection of Penn State fans standing together outside a Murray Hill bodega. Being friendly, sympathetic types (I've never met a Michigan person who doesn't like Penn State) we didn't say anything. An angry Penn State guy saw us and screamed, "Fuck Blue!", with the rage more appropriate to Columbus. I look back and smiled. "Yeah, why don't you fucking go on and lose three more games this year!" he said, in a way that was indicating fistfight more than trash-talk.

We went to a neighborhood bar where three girls in Arkansas shirts screamed at a TV and a table of Wisconsin fans watched their school edge past Iowa.

In 2003 -- the last time Oregon defeated Michigan -- we watched at Blondie's on the Upper West Side, none of us knowing that it was an Ohio State bar. The Buckeyes finished up just before the Michigan game. I had a beer and waited for my friends. One of the Buckeyes struck up a conversation about how much he hates to see Michigan lose, and how his ideal season is Michigan going undefeated every year until they play Ohio State. I had the same philosophy. We commiserated about the problems with our respective fan bases.

This phenomenon isn't limited to national powers with huge alumni populations in the city. Murray Hill and the Upper East Side are alumni central. Last year, after Michigan beat Indiana, a group of us ended the night in a bar on the Upper East Side that happened to be Manhattan's unofficial Kansas State bar. It was the most fun I've had watching a football game that didn't include Michigan, that Kansas State upset over Texas last year. There was happiness and surprise in the mere fact that the Upper East Side has a Kansas State bar, and the experience of being swept up in the euphoria of fans from a school utterly foreign to you.

The front of the bar hosted Texas Tech alumni that night. Every so often I'd walk up for a beer, past the table of Texas Tech fans, who watched on one mounted TV. There they were, the Texas Tech fans and the Kansas State fans, all of us stuck in a sports town mostly distracted by baseball, the credit markets and other frivolities.

Discrete Northwestern-bashing

It's a glorified vocational school. Smart people go there, true, but a couple months ago, when posed the question of which school in the Big 10 I'd least like to be affiliated with, the answer was Northwestern. It's good at engineering, business, theater and journalism. Hence, it's the world's most selective and respected community college. Only Gary Wills classes up the place. As a college town, Evanston makes Cambridge look like Ann Arbor or Madison, because Northwestern is boring and the locals hate the students. It's limited and suburban. Also, they have dry frats; for awhile, I lived with the former president of a dry frat at Northwestern. His enthusiasm was sincere, yet without exception, everyone I know who went there for undergrad speaks of their school with the grim, supporting fortitude of an Amish elder defending his sect's way of life against the encroachment of internet porn and electric hair dryers.

Boycott Gillette

I've now shaved for more than half my life. Because Gillette has hired Brady Quinn as a contest spokesman and infected my Saturdays with his stilted, barbering retardation, I will never again buy Gillette. It's like Katherine Harris ruining my morning with Gatorade or Tressell praising his Weber Grill. I hate them all.

Fuck you, Gillette, for subjecting us to this. Brady Quinn must stumble into anonymity and irrelevance.

Ross Ryan Field*

Two years ago the Michigan Athletic Department elected not to send the marching band to Evanston, prompting the band to travel en masse to Northwestern. They took a couple hundred seats around us.

They were great fans -- smart, loud and drunk. Michigan won, 33-17. I snapped this at the end of the night. I've always liked the two dudes in front, grim and uninterested in the Michigan kids around them.

Tomorrow's Michigan-Northwestern game is on the Big Ten Network, which means that we're damned to the same unpleasant bar that played host to Michigan's season opener. It's the first time in 28 days that I'm going to bed confident of a win. We know how that turned out last time.

* The band kids rechristened Northwestern's Welsh Ryan field in honor of Michigan's then-punter.

Broadcast News is one of the great movies

They're at a D.C. cocktail party, one of a handful that drift in and out of this movie, and these parties, they seem romantic and unbearable at once.

Tom is feeling confessional and reflective, but he has the bad luck that the mood strikes him when he's next to Aaron.

"What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?" Tom says.

"Keep it to yourself," Aaron hisses.

In Broadcast News, every character upsets our expectations. The good-looking, shallow anchor played by William Hurt is sincere and decent. Tom's in over his head, but at least he knows it. He spends the movie mystified by his good fortune, unsure of how he got so far on a head so empty. Tom probably would have been happy as a sportscaster in Tampa, but instead finds himself anchoring live during the latest crisis with Libya, pulled into the D.C. cocktail-party circuit, subject to feuds and vendettas that weren't his own doing.

Holly Hunter's character proves the adage about all cynics being failed romantics. She argues with the boss on a staffing decision; he practically rolls his eyes, with the weariness of a man who's been down this path before. "It must be nice to always believe you know better," he says, "to always think you're the smartest person in the room." She pauses, her voice almost cracking, and says, "No. It's awful."

Poor Jane. She can't turn the switch to off. She observes out loud that she's repelling the men that she's trying to attract, but that's the perfectionist's burden. She holds herself and her profession to standards that are unattainable. When other people can't meet the criteria she imposes on herself, she's furious and mystified.

Lastly, there's Albert Brooks. In most movies, the earnest smart guy is the anti-hero and the sympathetic one. Aaron is anything but. Smug and insecure, he can't help but show off. He resents Tom because Jane is attracted to him, and then he resents Tom for his superior on-air presence, but without these tensions he'd belittle Tom just the same. He can't stomach the stupid, and when his desperation to be liked doesn't yield dividends, Aaron lashes out.

Broadcast News can be minimized as a romantic comedy, and it's been reviewed as a critique of its title subject, but ultimately it's neither. It's about people who can't reconcile their goals with their personalities. Hard news as a concept is quickly dying: People want domino rallies and stories about date rape, not reporting on nuclear arms reduction. Jane has devoted her life and her intellect to substance, but then has the bad fortune to fall for Tom, a man who embodies everything that she hates. For his part, Tom ambles on, doing what he's told, and in the rare moments where he exercises independent judgment, he does what he believes is expected of him, cutting small corners to get ahead. Bewildered Tom, he's like a stupid pet trick: He says and does things to play the part of newsman, but there isn't any more thought behind it than a dog barking, "I love you." His ethical lapses are startling in their lack of cynicism. Aaron yearns to climb the ladder, but he doesn't have the looks or charisma. From the start, he seems to know that he's doomed. When he stumbles into reasons for hope, he fumbles them, and the despair gets worse.

Not many movies understand the Type-A, and this one doesn't hit a false note. There's an alchemy to these performances, and the way these characters get along. The three leads work as well together as any ensemble cast -- in the realm of Godfather quality and Casablanca quality. William Hurt's oafishness never becomes unlikeable or pandering. Holly Hunter could have played the standard hard-assed single professional, but instead there's something more subtle -- her vulnerabilities never seem weak, and her tantrums are human. When she eventually decides not to tell her cab driver which route to take, it isn't because she's grown up and let go: it's because she's defeated. Albert Brooks's bundle of neuroses and tics don't have the quirky affectations of (for example) the characters that Woody Allen or Noah Baumbach do so well. He's not self-aware enough; when you think you're the smartest person in the room, it usually doesn't occur to you that you're being an ass, you merely want to share your special brand of genius.

Broadcast News becomes one of the great movies, a likable love triangle like The Philadelphia Story, made even better than that for its undertow. The Philadelphia Story, too, knows how smart people fight with each other, how pride and the fear of failure creeps into their personal lives and body language. But that movie is limited by its setting (a long weekend centered on a society wedding) and its gentler spirit.

In Broadcast News, no matter how impressive their job titles and resumes, they're in a world they don't understand anymore. This agonizes the control freaks like Jane and Aaron, but allows a loose leaf like Tom to be content no matter what direction the wind blows. There are sweat glands, hormones, emotions, job cuts coming from corporate, and isn't life a bitch when distractions like these lay waste to your well thought plans?

A slice of life

One of the minor joys of living in a city like New York is all the different people you come across. Each person has his or her own story, a tale to tell. Everyone has someplace they're going.

Like the nice lady I saw sitting on a bench in Madison Square Park this morning.

She was sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette with a determined air about her. Within reach was an open can of Red Bull. So clearly, she felt the need to ingest a quantity of stimulants sufficient to get Diamond Jim Brady up and at 'em again, calling for malpeques and ale. Why? I can't say for sure.

I do, however, have a few guesses:

• She has been awake for six and a half days, and needs to make it 12 more hours to win a bet with her know-it-all older sister, Lisa.
• There's yet another a goddamned soldering prodigy she has to compete with down at the hummingbird-feeder factory.
  
• Or maybe she has to fill in for resourceful, yet alcoholic friend, Cheryl, who leverages her DTs into a sidelight as Jitters, the Friendly Clown. But fucking Cheryl's on the sauce again and if she misses this gig, she'll have to move back onto the couch.
  
• Maybe Parliament-and-sugar-free-Red-Bull lady is a TA for some English professor who has scheduled guest speaker Chris Tucker to participate in a poetry slam for a class he's teaching at the New School entitled "Everyday Bards: Poetry found in Quotidian Life." And she'll be damned if she gets shown up by fucking Ruby Rod.
• It's possible that she told her good friend Kelly Ripa she'd join her for first annual "Pogo 'Round the Park" charity bounce-a-thon, but then remembered what a fucking disaster that would be.
• It could be Rimsky-Korsakov Day at her Pilates studio and she doesn't want to lose her status as the hardest worker in the eyes of Horst, the instructor with the chiseled arms and smoldering Teutonic eyes who is always just a touch more hands-on than he needs to be.

Carol Jantsch -- a.k.a. the Mike Hart of the music world -- will spot you a trough of Mountain Dew and still do anything you can do, only faster. And better. Especially if it involves playing Rimsky-Korsakov's most famous piece -- on the fucking tuba -- while wearing a bumblebee costume. Now BUZZ, bitches! BUZZ!

Policy Roundtable

This site occasionally summarizes the world wide web's most important and sophisticated developments.

• Cole Slaw favorite Jebus H. Christ is now co-proprietor of an Iowa-centric football blog, Black Hearts Gold Pants. Iowa's in soft focus (as I guess should be expected in a season that's been uniquely cruel to everyone) thus leaving Jebus and company to chop it up about college football more broadly. This is our gain. It's quickly become a daily stop, alongside such staples as MGoBlog and EDSBS.
• Also, he recently made a nice girl cry on a date. :(
• I've never said anything nice about Notre Dame. Its suffering completes me. Still, the pluck and deluded optimism shown by the school's fans in light of a historic collapse have been touching. At Michigan, half the alumni want to scrap the entire university when there's a minor fuck-up on special teams. Notre Dame becomes Temple with a history, and their fans just look forward to a brighter tomorrow. Neither approach is sensible, but I'd rather think like them than think like us. This post at Blue Gray Sky and the subsequent comments made me like the school, if only a little bit and only for a couple minutes. (Bonus points if you can spot the grammatical error in my comment.)
  
• Bee-Spot Blythe and dmbmeg (more on her in a second) are running some weird-assed tournament wherein they decide which bloggers they'd like to accompany on an imaginary date. Or perhaps marry. I can't tell. Nothing about it makes sense. I started out as Blythe's No. 1 seed, and apparently haven't been eliminated yet. Personal highlights include all hell breaking loose in the comments, prompting me to drop Carrie allusions like tenth-grade me, adding to the confusion (embrace the pig blood, fuckers) and inspiring me to fall back in love with the work of Brian DePalma. I also tried to bait Jeff Weiss into a fight, but he's too much of a man to respond. It's like sixth grade, but less sophisticated.
  

They're all going to laugh at you!

• Contrary to popular belief, dmbmeg is not short for "dumb Meg," though it's easy to see how some could make that mistake. But whether Dave Matthews Band or just ordinary dumb, she recently posted the most repelling vomit story since Davey "Lard Ass" Hogan woofed blueberry pies.
  
• Midwesterner in the City pulls the plug. God speed, sir. Your, uh, candle burned out long before your legend ever will?
  
• His passing is made easier by the apparent return of Pissed & Petty. Look out, North Brother Island.
  

Pictures that make my heart happy

If you really did sell your soul, I hope you have more of these coming. Three, to be exact.

Jesus.

Both pictures from Yahoo! Photos. Which is an incredible site on which to waste hours of valuable work time while also informing yourself about the world.

My hands work just fine

That's OK, I don't need a bag. Really. I'm not kidding.

Seriously, I don't want a bag. Stop looking at me like that. I said "I don't need a bag" not "Bend over so I can see your sweet Asian tush" so there's no need to make this awkward. Well, from the look you gave me, I might as well have. But all I wanted to convey is that I will not be requiring the services of a bag today. Yes, I do know that they are free. I just don't care for one. I would like to carry these items I have just purchased home with my bare hands. Or, should I tire of that, I will place them in my backpack. What do you care, anyway?

I do realize a bag offers many conveniences, such as easy-to-grip handles and the ability to carry many things in one hand, while leaving the other one free to do whatever it likes, such as unlocking my front door, twirling the thumbwheel of my iPod or carrying another bag. That's OK. I'll take my chances with gravity. Seriously, I just don't see the need for a bag right now.

Well, since you asked, yes, I do think it helps. OK, no matter how many times you use one to carry your lunch to work, eventually, these bags wind up in the trash. Well, we produce a lot of trash -- doesn't it make sense to take, you know, a really easy step to cut down on that. OK, so your convenience is more important to you. That's fine. I'm not preaching here. I'm just trying to get myself some breakfast.

I am totally not being judgmental. I just prefer to not use a bag when I don't have to. It's that simple. Eventually, oil won't be cheap enough for this shit. I think they'll have higher priorities for the coal-to-liquids stuff. Look, you started this, not me. I just want to take my egg and cheese on a roll, my Coke zero and my muffin back to my apartment. Without a bag. Please don't be offended.

No, I don't need a straw either. Christ ...

I believe that our young white Texans will lead us to a new era of happiness and prosperity

Take it away, RyanMallett.org:

Ryan Mallett is a drop back passer with arguably the nation’s strongest arm. When Ryan Mallett sets his feet he can throw with unreal velocity. Sometimes, he’s all arm and tends to forget some fundamentals. Ryan Mallett shows good accuracy. Ryan Mallett arm allows him to make those hard throws over the middle look so easy. Ryan Mallett throws the deep ball with good touch. At 6-6, Ryan Mallett shows good mobility and he makes good decisions with the football.

In addition, Ryan Mallett arm is so accurate that doctors trust Ryan Mallett to insert heart stents using only his arm and a little artery-sized football. Sometimes, he's all leg and tends to lumber into the end zone like the Jolly White Giant at speedwalking club.

Susan Sarandon taught Ryan Mallett to wear garters. Susan Sarandon like Ryan Mallett for the sex. Chad Henne is the one she truly loves.

Also, Sam McGuffie? He only wants to be with us. Detroit Free Press says:

McGuffie, who plays at Cypress (Texas) Cy-Fair High, said he's still 100% committed to playing for the Wolverines.

"Definitely," McGuffie told the Free Press before the game. "This is where I needed to be. It's kind of simple."

***

Standing on the field during pregame warm-ups, McGuffie took it all in.

"I love the campus," he said. "It's beautiful. It's perfect."

One more time, for good measure and all-around happiness:

Bonus Round

University of Michigan Provost Teresa Sullivan and her husband, renowned legal scholar Douglas Laycock (author of "Introduction: International Litigation Symposium Honoring the Distinguished Career of Professor Russell J. Weintraub." Tex. Int'l L.J. 38, no. 1 (2003): 1-10) relocated to Michigan after long and impressive careers at the University of Texas.

Sources close to the program credit Provost Sullivan for Michigan's success in recruiting white Texans.

Suck it, Charlie Weis.