There is a famous saying of Aristotle which I'll paraphrase: call no life successful until it is over. The idea is that you cannot fully appreciate a life until it is complete, and you can look at the whole thing. Standing here at the end of my grandfather's life, I know that every person in this room, all of his beloved brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and his children and grandchildren have all had the same the same thought about this life, which we all express in different ways. I have heard it a thousand different ways over these last weeks: I hope in I have the kind of life that he had. He led a full life. He was ready. He was so proud of his family. This is what I think Aristotle had in mind when he thought about a successful life.
Our grandfather was the kind of man that when he decided to do something, he did it with a passion and excellence that had left him no option but success. When he decided to serve his country he gave them everything that he had and it was recognized with the list of awards sitting here before you. He decided to have a family. I think the evaluation of how he and my grandmother did on that score can be measured in my cousins, and my siblings. They did such a tremendous job with their children that those kids could not help but raise a terrific collection of grandchildren, which brought a shine to grandpa's eye that I swear could have lit this whole room whenever he thought about his grand kids. Which is a direct reflection on the job he and my grandmother did, and as he sat there in the hospital last week this is the thought that he kept coming back to, thinking about his kids and his grand kids, as he'd say to my grandma, "I did good, didn't I?" To which she'd respond, "Well, I think I helped."
We loved watching the two of them together. I don't want to go on to long, I'll let us go so we can all go tell more stories about him to each other, but what we always admired the most about my grandfather was the complete, passionate and absolutely shameless love that he had for my grandmother. He decided to love a woman, and just like he did with every other part of his life, he did it with such energy and excellence that it was an absolute joy to witness. My grandfather didn't have any regrets at the end of his life, because when he put his mind to something, he did it, and well. This is what a great life looks like.
We should be so blessed as to live as he lived, to love as he loved, and to be loved as he has and will continue to be loved. We all should be so blessed.
This was supposed to be finished and posted last night, but due to artistic differences with my editor we couldn't get it out before the release of the selections. As a result, there will be a short addendum at the end addressing the selection.
First and foremost, I would like to relate that the illustrious and
redoubtable Bill Simmons , that paragon of virtue and humor, the height
of internet sports writing, has made it very clear that he has never
been to our blog, that he has no intention of going to our blog, that
he has been writing his stories such as the Super Bowl Diary for over a
decade, that he would not deign steal such puerile and trivial ideas as
may be portrayed in such a blog, and that the suggestion that any of
the above should not be the case is neither absurdly humorous, nor
grounds for interrupting his precious work hours with a facetious email
in that vein. I would at this point apologize, but given his avowal of
non-readership it would seem to be supererogatory. Plus, I seem to have
gotten my tongue stuck in my cheek. On to the thoughts of the hour.
The University of Arizona's basketball program sits balanced on the edge of a quarter. Quarter? As in 25? As in consecutive tournament appearances? Just wanted to make sure everyone at home was playing along. For the last few years the program has been mired in mediocrity, making headlines only when a coach got divorced, had a stroke, was announced as the successor, was fired from being the successor, retired, came out of retirement or was filmed naked running through the campus. Ok, maybe that last one didn't happen. In any event, almost all of the news coming from Tucson has been underscoring the demise of a truly great basketball program. I have already gone over what that feels like for us fans, here. One of the things that I think is sad about this slow and painful descent into obscurity is that we forget exactly how great the Wildcats have been.
So I bundled up in my favorite UA sweats and forayed into the World Wide Web to quantify our greatness. 600 wins over the 24 seasons, more than UCLA, less than Duke... Why doesn't UNLV have their record posted anywhere in the whole of the internet? 14 All-Americans, more than UNLV and UCLA added together, double what UConn had... How did both Richard Jefferson and Gilbert Arenas not make even a third team? Only the one title... Blast it all, this confounded interweb is like the mother of all haystacks and I'm trying to find a whole bunch of needles to compare thier lengths. Why couldn't someone just bundle all the information I'm looking for together in a neat and tidy package?
Oh wait, they did. ESPN has given us an accounting of the relative brilliance of all of college basketball by counting down the most prestigious programs in the country since the 84-85 season. They picked that year because it was the first season that the NCAA tournament field expanded to 64 teams, but by happy coincidence it is also the year that the Wildcats began their Streak of tournament appearances. Behind such gaudy numbers as 21 conference titles, 22 20-win seasons, 24 NCAA berths (the only school to make it every year since the expansion), 5 No. 1 seeds, 11 Sweet 16s, 4 Final Fours, 1997 national title, 39 NCAA tourney wins,
14 All-Americans, 7 NBA top-10 picks, with 0 losing seasons ESPN rates UA as the 5th most prestigious school in the country. Ahhh, that's about right. We are far enough behind Kentucky that even if the refferees weren't wearing Devil Blue in '01 and if the '05 Elite Eight game had been played on a nuetral court we would still be sitting at 5.
While such hypoteticals as exactly how much Duke boosters paid the referees, or how many generations of their descendents were promised tuition waivers, are academic and fruitless, There are some hypothetical conversations that serve to nurture the memory of these great teams, of all of those years that everyone in Tucson eagerly awaited the printing of the brackets every March so they could write ARIZONA in the center box and then fill out the rest of the minutiae. I had one such conversation while sitting in a bar with a friend of mine over a year ago. The gist of the conversation was a spin on the classic question of which of these teams was 'The Best' to wear the red and blue, but more particularly, in a single elimination tournament which team would win, as head to head is always the standard for true comparison. How would the the brilliant backcourt of the '97 team fare against the size we brought to the court in '03? The buddy I was having this conversation with happened to be with one Steve Rivera, sports writer for the now defunct Tucson Citizen paper. He put the idea together in a brilliant, interactive online article which everyone enjoyed and for reasons that escape me is no longer on their website. Kinda like the way that Fox cancels only their most popular shows. Given that I can't redirect you to his more thouroughly researched and professoinally written article, I am going to attempt to not recreate it, but rather creat it anew here for you, in the spirit of celebrating the fading light of the Wildcats as we stand on the brink of the end of an era, with Selection Sunday looming ominously on the morrow.
The seeding of this Streak Tourney was established first by NCAA finish, making the '97 team the first overall seed, and then by record making the '87 team the bottom 6 seed. as 24 doesn't break as evenly into a tournament bracket as you might hope, 1 and 2 seeds got a first round bye, with 3-6 and 4-5 being the opening matchups. We will deal with the line up that played in the most games, so Gilbert Arenas would be in for the '01 team, but Steve Kerr would still be out for the team in '87 after blowing his knee in the summer. So, with no further ado:
1 Seeds -
1997 - The team that failed to string together 6 consecutive victories all year burned through the tournament, famously being the only team in the tournament's history to best three 1 seeds en route to the title. Mike Bibby and Miles Simon, All-Americans and future NBA and Euroleague stars, respectively, featured prominently in the team's success, and Michael Dickerson led the scoring, averaging almost 19 points a game.
2001 - We got robbed. I refuse to accept anything other than horrendous bribing, blackmail, or dark satanic magic as the explanation for the officiating in the final 3 minutes of this game. This is the roster we put on the court that year: Loren Woods (All-American), Richard Jefferson (NBA All-Star), Gilbert Arenas (NBA All-Star), Michael Wright (All-American), Jason Gardener (All-American), with future All-American and likely NBA champion Luke Walton coming off the bench.
1988 - The class that thrust the Wildcats into the national conversation for the next 20 years built around Sean Elliott, with a supporting cast that included future NBA players Steve Kerr and Tom Tolbert, breaking the 30 win mark for the first time in program history.
1994 - Before becoming NBA Rookie of the Year Damon Stoudamire and All-American Khalid Reeves highlighted the second team from Tucson to make it to the Final Four.
2 Seeds -
2005 - The last great Wildcat team featuring Salim Stoudamire and Channing Frye broke the 30 win mark and played in one of the most painful games in UA sports history. Would have been a great game against UNC for the championship had this game been played anywhere outside of the state of Illinois.
1998 - Mike Bibby returned to lead the Cats to thier 2nd 30 win season and a 1 seed in the tournament before getting bounced in the Eilite Eight.
2003 - On the back of the Tucson Citizen there was a full page color photo of All-Americans Walton and Gardner with fellow senior Rick Anderson lounging in the back of a convertible under a caption reading big and bold: NATIONAL TITLE OR BUST. Kirk Heinrich's block of Gardner's three point attempt in the last seconds of the Elite Eight matchup with Kansas meant bust.
1989 - In his senior year, sans Kerr, Elliott won the Wooden Award for being the nation's best player, taking the Wildcats with him to the Sweet Sixteen.
ROUND 1 -
(3) 1991 v (6) 1987 - With Kerr out for the year, a young Elliott and the only tourney team of Lute's to not make it to 20 wins face Brian Williams, Sean Rooks and Chris Mills.
(4) 1990 v (5) 1999 - This iteration of the Williams/Rooks combo take on a senior All-American Jason Terry accompanied by Michael Dickerson and a young Jefferson.
(3) 2002 v (6) 2006 - Following the devastating crash of the Illinois game in '05 and the loss of Frye and Stoudamire to the NBA, Hassan Adams leads a young team against the equally draft drained core of Walton, Gardener and Anderson.
(4) 1995 v (5) 2007 - Lute's final team with Chase Budinger and Marcus Williams (affectionately known as the Cancer) meet senior All-American and Pac10 Player of the Year Damon Stoudamire.
(3) 2000 v (6) 2004 - Andre Igoudala and Hassan Adams spent most of the year fighting for who would be higher on Sports Center's Top 10, and with Stoudamire and Frye learning the inside out game the '04 Cats go up against Arenas, Jefferson, Wright and Woods in a match up of two of the most athletic teams we have seen come through Tucson.
(4) 1993 v (5) 1985 - Lute's first Pac10 title saw the welcoming of a young man named Sean Elliott to McHale, joining Tolbert and Kerr here to challenge Stoudamire, Reeves, and Mills.
(3) 1996 v (6) 2008 - Kevin O'Neil's lone entry into the foray featuring freshman sensation Jarryd Bayless and an unrefined Jordan Hill take on freshman Jason Terry and Miles Simon.
(4) 1986 v (5) 1992 - Elliott, Kerr and Tolbert win Lute his first conference title and here meet up with Rooks, Mills and Reeves as a freshman.
So that's the first round. Who do you like? Leave your picks in the comments, and check back to see how the tourney goes. Here are my 3 quick thoughts on this year's tournament selection:
1- We earned it, with wins over quality teams like Gonzaga, Kansas, Washington, and UCLA to put us over the edge.
2- As long as we let you put us in, you put us in. To break the Streak we have to make it definitive, like UNC did by going 8-20 in '02, or when Duke went 13-18 in '95, or when Kansas went on probation in '89, or when Kentucky went 13-19 before their 2 year probation from '90-92. And yes, I did just call out the 4 programs ranked higher than us according to ESPN.
3- Here is your 12-5 upset, all wrapped up in a neat little bow. Don't say I never gave you anything.
First of all, for all of you who had any doubts, the movie was fantastic. Not a kids movie, by any stretch of the imagination, but fantastic. I encourage all of you to go see it as soon as you have finished reading the comic, this weekend. Don't get caught up trying to find inconsistencies, and just enjoy the movie. And the comic.
All of the midnight showings here in Tucson sold out, which is perfectly appropriate. If this movie does even half of Spiderman's opening weekend then it will be a testament, in this economy, of the greatness of this movie. Especially given that Spidey opened on a Wednesday and Watchmen respectfully opened on the traditional Friday. I can not encourage you strongly enough to go see this movie. And when you do, I pray your experience does not immitate the following:
We get there, fortunate to secure seats together because the courtesy of squeezing to the middle during a sold out movie does not seem to overcome to unwillingness to sit in the seat directly adjacent to a total stranger. The previews took a while to get started as the highly skilled and probably not at all impaired laborer running tprogector needed seven tries to get the sound, screen alignment and focus all working simultaneously. Which makes sense, because if you have a movie that is selling out, a completely common occurance these days, you would want to make sure your least competant employees are in charge of that sort of thing. Can any of you even remember the last movie you went to see that was completely sold out? Lord of the Rings? Way to put your best foot forward El Con. I am totally not going to go the Foothills theater for the next movie I am excited about seeing.
On the bright side, when the previews did get running they were in danger of batting a thousand until they threw the newer and dumber Seth Rogan movie in at the end. Public Enemies, the John Dillinger story with Depp and Bale, Star Trek, which looks great despite J.J. Abrams' involvement, Xmen Origins: Wolrverine where we finally get Gambit, Bale in Terminator: Salvation, and the Hangover which looks like we might actually get the Vegas movie we always wanted, and Pixar's UP, having finally seen a preview thatconvinced me to go see it. Well done there. That's how we get people back into the theaters.
Another pleasure in going to the midnight release is the joy of sharing a theater with all the super cool kids who pregame at the bar and then are incapable of following the plot so ask questions to each other loudly during the course of the movie, offering a pleasing running commentary that helps keep the rest of us engaged. Then there were the two Rhodes Scholars who couldn't find their seats so seated themselves on the step next to me and proceeded to make phone calls during the movie until passing out in the ailse. Literally.
None of that was enough to overshadow the film, which was everything I could hope it would be. Let me know what you think.
*This post was sent from my Blackberry Mobile device.
Here is the update on our Biggest Loser Coaches Challenge. I began the competition at 210 pounds with a 27% body fat percentage. At our half way point I am Now 190 pounds with a 19.5% body fat percentage. The math on that works out like so: 27% of my 210 pounds was fat, which is about 57 pounds of fat; currently 19.5% of 190 pounds is fat, which is about 37 pounds of fat. That means that in four weeks I lost 20 pounds, all of which was fat. Kind of like this guy. I am going to tell you what I did, so you can have the fun of losing too!! Sorry, I was reading one of those self help books, and they always get real excitable. But I am going to tell you.
On the dietary front I kept things pretty simple, followed a few simple rules which are not earth shattering. It was easy to keep, so easy in fact that for the next month I am going to ratchet up the strictness of the diet to see if I can be more efficient about losing. These are the rules:
1 – Don’t be American. By this I mean get rid of the steak and potatoes and your hard earned beer. Red meat is loaded with saturated fat, having 20 times that of a chicken breast. In addition to that the grains they feed cows lead to a higher, hidden caloric/carb content and sucking down the antibiotic cesspool they toss in to keep them from exploding cannot be all that good for you. The potatoes are a fast carb that that is harder to use in exercise, turning more easily into fat. There are potatoes that when eaten with their skins provide a slow burning carb, but I generally don’t pay attention to my potato types, so I just got rid of them. Which was hard for me, as I would eat potatoes for every single meal if I could. I also threw out these All American foods: mayo, white bread, and any breading that you fry. Seriously, it is just an already sketchy food that is used to soak up fat, directly. What are we doing eating it anyway? Why not just get a high fructose I.V.? This is easier than it might seem at first. Almost any real restaurant has a chicken and veggies, or fish option. And whole grain bread is easy to find, and in my opinion tastier anyway. Alcohol of any sort by nature is an empty calorie, as in your body will not use it. I’ve heard rumor that red wine has some fat burning qualities, but not from anyone with letters after their name.
2 – Eat more. Don’t skip meals. I know that at this point it is no great secret that having six to eight meals a day is a better food processing system than doing the one meal a day plan, but it always struck me as kind of annoying. I don’t always have the kind of schedule that allows me to eat that often. This was the one more difficult aspect of the plan, but I managed by convincing myself that things like smoothies, a handful of almonds, or a sizable piece of fruit counted as a meal. I’d go to work after breakfast with some almonds, a turkey sandwich, and a banana and bingo. Three meals down. And skipping meals can either lead you to over snacking, which isn’t a real big issue if you snack the right way, or it can trick your body into starvation mode which will lead to a counterproductive storage of fat.
3 – Take a night off. When I was settling myself into this challenge I was taking advice from any number of sources. I was standing on my head for 5 minutes a day, bathing in salt water, eating only raw meat… Well, while I decided to limit my sources of advice, one thing that kept popping up is the benefit of giving yourself a night off, relaxing and eating and drinking as you like. I have heard plenty of reasons for this that are sometimes scientific, sometimes ephemeral, sometimes metaphorical, and in one case ecumenical, but I think the brunt of it comes down to most of us just not being able to deprive ourselves on a truly dedicated basis. With which I agree. At the end of the week I want to sit down with my friends and enjoy a taste beverage or 12. So I took a night off.
That really is about it. I did exercise, but I don’t really like running, so I didn’t do much of that. I worked out at a gym 4 days a week, doing ridiculously light weights, as in the kind that get girls looking at you sideways because you are lifting less than they are, and did 3 sets of 20 reps for everything. That means that I would lift the weight 20 times, take a 30 second break, and then repeat twice for those of you not fluent in gymgeek. The point of this was to be burning more weight while not putting on the pounds or bulk that comes with muscle. Which has worked out fairly well.
Which brings me to Phase 2. I have currently 37 pounds of fat hanging on my frame. That means that if I jack up the number and intensity of my workouts, and buckle down on the diet, I should have plenty of fat left to work with. My ambition is to cut another 20 pounds of fat in the next month, which would leave me at 170, with 10% body fat. I promise to let you know how it goes. For any of you who took up my challenge a month ago, I am currently winning our coaches challenge, so whomsoever of our readership wins the readers challenge will have our prize money to give away to a charity of their choosing. Best of luck!!
I didn’t read comic books as a child. Chalk it up as a number of things that I didn’t really do that seem to be a bit out of the norm. I didn’t go to many movies, or watch TV, play video games, listen to music… My idle recreational pursuits we limited to petty acts of violence, burning, breaking, blowing up and killing just about whatever I could get my hands on. I balanced this latent sociopathy with a heavy diet of the written word. Given that I grew up in that now archaic age before the profusion of cell phones to any 10 year old with opposable thumbs, that Dark Age before the glorious wings of the internet lifted us all up into shared illumination this meant that I read actual books. For those of you unfamiliar with the media a book is a collection of paper covered with words on each side and bound together at one end. This bound end is called the spine, as it is usually hardened by the glue or the stitching that is holding the paper together. The individual pieces of paper are called pages and are protected by a thicker piece of paper, sometimes a piece of leather, which is called a cover. The height of popular book making as an art form was reached toward the end of the 1800’s where the stitched spine was covered leather with the title embossed in gold leaf, and the front and back covers a piece of marbleized wood with leather again protecting the corners and all the pages were trimmed in gold leaf. You can see some of these marvelous books if you watch period pieces like Pride and Prejudice. Or you can Google it. Since then we have economized our books into paltry things that are printed on cheap paper and bound together with whichever glue is cheapest at the moment, scarcely worth reading let alone keeping in a prominent position in your house. All the better, though, as it creates more room for your DVD collection.
As I was saying, I did not read comic books as a child. While my peers were enjoying the wonders of Superman, Spawn, the X-Men and the like I was burning through every western ever written, Hopalong Cassidy, the Sackets, Zane Grey, Max Brand… You name it, I read it. Middle school saw the introduction of Tolkien and the marvelous world of all things scientific and fantastic. Intermittent sprinklings of historical texts popped up and then it was everything Shakespeare which led into the romantic poets and so on. I disdained comics as juvenile. The point of reading was the writing, not some goofy pictures of scantily clad women who were serving as much as anything else to ease the sexual tension of pre-adolescence, post-adolescence, and all those beautiful years in between.
A series of interactions, none of which had to do with the scantily clad women, opened my eyes to the value of comics as a legitimate genre of literature. The first of these was a graphic novel by Craig Thompson called Blankets. I am not being a nerdy elitist, well I guess I am, but not about calling it a graphic novel instead of a comic. There is a difference. The same way that there is a difference between Saturday morning cartoons and Toy Story. So when reading this graphic novel I was struck by the depth of the story, the occasionally florid prose and the constantly florid drawings. I went out and bought his next book, which was a graphic diary of his trip to Morocco. I was hooked. I started reading all sorts of comics and graphic novels and quickly discerned that the ratio of quality to drivel in the genre was much the same as in literature in general. For every Tolkien you have to suffer through Harry Potter, Twilight, Dragonlance, and the rest. For every Robert Bolano you have to put up with Grisham, Clancy, King, and on down the list.
Just as I was beginning to despair I ran into two authors who saved comics for me. The First was Neil Gaiman, in the Sandman series. The stories of the God of Dreams, and his travails conveyed so much of the power of dreaming, of hope, of stories that it carried me away, bringing me into their world in a way that only literature had ever been able to. The second was Frank Miller, but not the Miller of 300, and Sin City. His graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns was a landmark of emotional commitment for me. If you have ever idly wondered what happens when Batman fights Superman, one of the possible answers is put forth here. Better is the question of why would they fight. After this I more frequently came across the quality work, the Alan Moore, Brian Bendis, and I realized why they had managed to cross the line from sheer pulp to literature.
I know that comics are becoming trendy and cool in pop culture. I mean, there was an entire plot arc of the now defunct OC given over to the creation of a graphic novel. I would caution you against letting that color your opinion of the genre. As one who regularly dismisses things for no reason other than that they are popular, I understand the desire completely. But you would be missing out on one of the most creative and versatile means of literature our society as come up with.
Joseph Campbell has a theory that every hero’s story is the same story, that it goes through the same path, the same challenges, to the same end. Each new hero is but his particular society’s understanding of a different face of this same hero. Comics have been the face of that hero through the development of America’s modernity. We don’t have a predominant religion, mythology, no meta-narrative that we carry with us. We are too broad, too diverse for any common story. So we have born a thousand smaller stories, our own American mythology. For those of you who have never deigned lift a comic, here is a list of the cream of the crop. Most of them are available in a single collected form, but you can get them in the original single issues if you prefer, but please. Read the comic. Don’t let a movie maker steal your right to enjoy your own mythos.
- Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. For reasons listed above, and the fact that one of the true modern instantiations of the ancient hallowed vocation of the storyteller expresses himself best in this media.
- Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Moore does the best job of anyone in the business of letting the superheroes be human, have doubts and conflictions. Before going to see the movie, read this epic retake on the classic American superhero.
- Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. For the reasons above, and because Miller’s vision of Batman is the foundation for the rebuilding of the Batman movie series. And because, seriously, Batman fights Superman.
- The Death of Superman. For all the obvious reasons. Because people would stalk the writers threatening to kill them if they didn’t bring him back. Because The death of the hero is the most central fulcrum of the plot of the hero. Because it isn’t just a clever name.
Now I am not saying that any of these make it into the Canon, the sacred collection of texts that are an imperative read for their quality and importance. Tolkien alone of the fantasy genre has made it in, over the frequent and vehement objections of the literati. Eventually the art form might produce a work that will be granted admittance to that hallowed hall, but for now, it is at least in the yard. If not knocking at the door.
National Virility Week!! [subtitle: Valentine's Day is Stupid]
This is not a rant about the meaningless commerciality of Valentine’s Day. It is not a belittling of the ridiculous historical farce that tries to pull this holiday out of the depths of pagan eroticism to a more sanctified Christian celebration. This is not even me complaining about being poor and having to spend money on something in which I don’t even believe, in order to preserve something else, peace of mind, the relationship itself, in which I also probably don’t believe. This IS an incarnation of mourning, mourning for a time where all the chutzpah has gone out of men. We live lives of increasingly quieter desperation. Valentine’s Day is an embodiment of t hat.
First, most of the meaning of whatever someone does on Valentine’s is negated by the accompanying sense of expectation, or obligation. In fact, if I just stop at Circle K and get you a little stuffed bear and a little box of chocolates there is going to be a fair amount of resentment because I am a cheap valentine who just took the easy way out. Now, if I were to do the exact same thing in the middle of May? I’m adorable and you are walking around with that ‘I can’t believe how sweet he is’ smile on your face for the next 13 hours. This is an example of how the expectations of the day diminish anything that happens then.
Second, everything that we are told to do for Valentine’s is lame. Commercials try to sell us on the idea of buying pretty, useless frivolous things. Well, except for those of you who are buying her that Lexus for a valentine. You guys keep up the good work. For the rest of us, let’s try to imagine what the great men of history would have given their valentines, and by great men I simply mean men who were great at being men. Would Achilles have ever given a girl flowers? He would have shown his devotion to a girl by bringing her heads of slaughtered kings. The value of a gift is in partly in the difficulty of obtaining it. That’s why knights would give their tournament trophies to their lady, or slay dragons in her honor. This is a theme that is as old humanity, risking life and limb to kill something to proclaim your love. Could you imagine Wyatt Earp giving his girl chocolates? He would just look at her over his glorious mustache and she would be thankful that he was alive and with her for one more day. That was enough. Maybe the problem is that we are not men enough to be a valentine all by ourselves.
Third, well, there is no third but you are supposed to do sequences of at least three’s. This problem with Valentine’s day is symptomatic of our societal distaste for danger. This is not a time for great men. This is a time for wearing your seat belt. Waiting for a little white walkman to tell you that you can cross the street. Not carrying guns, telling little boys not to fight in the school yard. Cops carrying mace and batons instead of firearms. We drink light beer and get manicures.
I contrast this with my grandfather. He is a Native American rancher who looks the part so exquisitely that when we would be sitting at a restaurant kids would whisper and steal glances, then when he stood up and put on his cowboy hat you could hear them, “Look! I told you he was a real cowboy!” He was shot by his own sister. He raised 3 great kids, and my uncle Dan. At 65 he was still breaking his own horses, running a ranch, and I would not have put money on my ability to take him in a fight. This was a man.
So this is my proposal: I declare the last week of February to be National Virility Week. Virility is commonly understood to have heavy connotations of sexual prowess, but the heart of the word is just the adjectival form of the Latin word for man – vir. It is all things manful. After giving ourselves a few weeks to recover from the height of emasculation that is Valentine’s Day, we need to spend a week rediscovering what it means to be a man. Every day of National Virility Week take specific focused action on asserting yourself as a man. Start small. I am not saying that you should go wrestle a mountain lion and wear it’s pelt home as a trophy, but if you do you are the immediate spokesperson for the holiday and I will forfeit all proceeds to you. Go hunt something. Sleep outdoors. Be chivalrous. Shave with a straight razor. Drink whiskey straight. Grow a mustache. Risk something. If you run out of ideas, watch a Steve McQueen movie. Google Burt Reynolds.
For one week come join me as we celebrate a time in which we no longer live: the time for great men, great risk, great audacity. Live bold! National Virility Week!!
Labels: Society
The idea behind a holiday is one of celebration, gathering together with loved ones and getting to know strangers while pouring back a few dozen of your favorite tasty beverages in homage to a religious idea, commemorating a social progression, or honoring a governmental position or ideal that you neither fully understand or agree with. This theme of celebration spans across cultures and continents taking different forms and gathering different traditions along the way. Everyone on the planet has their own special days. The average culture has 23 national holidays, the Israeli calendar, to take one, has over 40, and there are over 80 international holidays. The United States has 10. The challenge with the US is that there are so many different cultures that each little subculture has their own high holy days, and you don’t want to preferentially show favor to any of them. Christmas is sketchy enough. But I have a suggestion for two holidays that are so utterly American in nature that they might even piss the rest of the world, which seems to be what we are all about anyway. The Super Bowl and the first two days of March Madness. Don’t these fit any kind of definition for a holiday that you could want? The gathering, the drinking the raw celebration… The Super Bowl is the most watched event on the planet, and there are hundreds of studies showing how during the first two days of the Madness work place productivity drops to nearly sub human levels. An entire genre of programming has been devoted to coming up with ways to let you follow the Madness covertly from your office. Just make it a holiday. Give us the Monday (today) off, and half of a week in March. Call it a spring break.
With that said, today I will be doing a running diary of my experience watching the Bowl, evaluating the commercials, and generally just saying whatever comes to mind. Here we go:
330- tuning in to the pregame show, just in time to see Tiki Barber interviewing Larry Fitzgerald. Logging first reference to Fitz Sr. being a sports writer, and anticipating at least 43 more over the next five hours. I do love the irony of Tiki interviewing Fitz Jr. Could we start a tradition of Tiki interviewing players in their first Super Bowl and Dan Marino doing the postgame with the winning quarterback?
340 – Am I the only one who wonders what Matt Millen is doing offering any sort of opinion on organizations and coaches who manage to make it to the Super Bowl? Detroit, can you hear me?
345 – Taking advantage of the low standards for pregame commercials to stock up on supplies: water, V8, almonds and a banana. No, I am not envisioning mini chimis, chicken strips, sliders and fountains of beer. This is totally what a Super bowl experience should be.
350 – Wondering why no one calls out Big Ben for just not being that good of a quarterback. He throws interceptions as often as he throws touchdowns, and for all the talk about him being hard to tackle and moving well in the pocket, he was sacked 51 times this year, which is 5th worst in the league, in company with such illustrious company as the Chiefs, the 49ers and the Lions.
355 – Need to call my bookie immediately. Matt Millen just picked the Cardinals.
400 – Text from my friend who is a Baptist pastor: What’s the difference between a Steeler and a Catholic schoolboy? Nothing. They both get screwed by Cardinals. Yup, slamming both the Steelers and the entire Roman Catholic Church.
405 – Text from one of the few people I know who actually owned a Cardinals shirt before three weeks ago: Son of a b (yes, he did just use the first letter. I love evangelicals) Let’s hope that was Super Bowl winning linebacker Matt Millen making the pick, not talent evaluating guru Matt Millen
410 – I cannot get enough of Matt Millen. He said that the reason that the Cards are here is because Denny ‘They Are Who We Thought They Were’ Green had the courage to draft Fitz with the third pick. Is he just trying to justify taking a receiver with his first pick three years in a row? Matt, you’ve already been fired for killing a franchise. There is no redemption.
411 – Lebron James would be a phenomenon in football. Other athletes who would be devastating on the gridiron: Cristiano Ronaldo, Gretzky, D-Wade, Andre the Giant, and the Williams sisters.
415 – Kurt Warner is named NFL’s Man of the Year, strengthening the God and puppies argument, despite the vicious rumor that he plans to renege on the agreement, which I am convinced was started by a coalition of cat loving Steelers fans hoping to convince God to punish Warner for his infidelity.
417 – Text from Como at Harold’s Cave Creek Corral, home of Steeler Nation in Phoenix: 3800 people here, so much black and gold I feel a tear coming on.
420 – The close up of Fitz reminds me. This is my theory on Larry Fitzgerald’s super human ability: Are you familiar with Ronaldinho? Brazilian soccer phenom? He defies the laws of physics. You can go to a frame by frame close up of his signature move and in one frame his foot is on one side of the ball and in the next frame it is on the other side. Beyond that, he looks like an alien. Well, he is. As it happens he had an extraterrestrial sister who married a sports reporter in Minneapolis and gave birth to a half human son who now inhabits the #11 for Arizona.
425 – First round of Super Bowl commercials very underwhelming. Hoping that they are just pacing themselves.
426 – The NFC has won 11 straight Super Bowl coin tosses, which make the odds of their winning this one exactly same as the odds of Jaime Lee Curtis running on stage and tearing her shirt off during the half time show. They won. I can’t wait for half time.
429 – Andrea Kramer just got completely shown up by Alex Flanagan on the Cardinals sideline. Not only is high definition much kinder to Flanagan’s still young skin than to Kramer’s oddly disconcerting bug eyes, but the F. Scott Fitzgerald inspired Warner story is more compelling than the Steelers doctors injecting Hines Ward with the blood of a sacrificial steel worker.
433 – Apparently the Cardinals didn’t get the memo that Ward got the new blood. Isn’t that same blood doping technique used to cheat in bike racing?
438 – Big Ben runs over a defensive linesman and gets dragged into the end zone by his center, prompting Wisenhunt’s ill advised challenge flag.
440 – The second round of commercials are much better. Any defenestrating automatically improves a commercial series. What is the official term for a commercial block? When we get back the challenge is overturned! The good challenge by the Cardinals brings relief to everyone at the idea that we could have had Andy Ried here. Andy would have probably over looked this challenge opportunity while waiting to throw the flag when Boldin catches a pass in the stands. 3-0 the Burgh.
446 – The first big hit of the game is laid on Breston, the other 1,000 yard receiver. The second is when James Farrior knocks out Polamalu’s contact.
450 – John Madden, thank you for letting us know that swagger, 1) is not actually an institution of higher learning, and 2) that it is pronounced shwagga. The future ghetto youths of America thank you.
453 – Early commercial count : 3 movie previews, 2 Bud Light, 3 cars, and 2 NBC shows that don’t know the difference between one and two dimensions.
454 – Nate Washington is wide open in the end zone and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie shows up out of nowhere to nearly pick the ball. Looked like an easy touchdown, and probably was closer to being a turnover. That kid is quick. My money says he gets at least one today.
456 – Ben does exactly what everyone says he does and avoids 3 sacks by running around cluelessly and being huge, then finds the tight end for a first down, prompting a series of ‘I told you so’ texts from my Steeler faithful. The Steelers are moving with ease, eating clock like candy on Christmas, and making my projection very shaky.
503 – The Potato Head commercial is cute, but the guy making out with a monkey in a mechanic’s suit is more than a little disturbing. Coming back to the game, Ben R. has already had a better day than his last Super Bowl, which was the worst performance ever by a winning QB. And Madden has said that if he were choosing to do something he would choose Hines Ward. Thanks for that.
505 – The new Jack Black movie, ‘The Year One’ and the new Will Ferrell movie ‘Land of the Lost’ both look like they aren’t actual movies, but rather like both of those guys just made spoof trailers. And Russell makes it 10-0 Steelers. Not looking good for the boys in red.
510 – 6 preview, 5Bud Light, 4 cars, and 4 NBC commercials. And from Como: 3800 dislocated shoulders from Terrible Towel waving. Towel shoulder is the new tennis elbow.
516 – Through the first 19 minutes of the game the Cardinals have not even thrown the ball to either Fitz or Boldin. Daring move. Take your 2 best players out of the game.
520 – Guess it was part of the plan. Boldin for 45 yards sets up the first Arizona score. 10-7
523 – Four commercials into the series and we finally get told that G is a Gatorade commercial. And cars.com takes the early lead for commercial of the day.
526 – DRC comes close to getting another pick. He is now 1.5 inches away from having two interceptions on the day. Why would you even throw at him?
528 – The fat cat tries to help me type. It is less helpful than he might imagine. The Cards manage to get their first stop of the day leading to a HUGE 39 punt return by Breaston!! You can almost feel the momentum shifting. Which is immediately killed by a chop block penalty. Momentum back to normal.
533 – First sack of the day leads to 3rd and 22.
539 – Great punt coverage keeps the Cardinals’ spirits high. Ball batted up and INTERCEPTED!! This is the defense that has twice as many takeaways in the playoffs as the legendary Steelers D, giving Warner the ball on the 33. If the Cards can just manage to get two of these bounces to bounce together then they might start to roll.
544 – But that won’t happen as Warner throws it away after another break. I have been informed that the collection of commercials during the break is called a cluster. This cluster brought our totals to 8 previews, 6 Bud, 6 NBC, and 6 cars.
547 – 29 minutes without even throwing the ball at him comes to an end as Fitz catches the ball for a 1st at the 13.
550 – NFL Defensive player of the year, James Harrison with the T.A.Int!!! Picked at the goal line Harrison takes it 100 yards for a touchdown as time expired, making it the longest play in Super Bowl history, stealing any momentum the Cardinals were building and giving Pittsburgh a 17-7 lead! This is the kind of thing that you knew had to happen, the Steelers had to score points with their defense. John Madden thinks that regardless of whether he got into the end zone you should give Harrison the score because of how good of a play it was. Thanks, John.
555 - The replay is politely inconclusive, the score stands. That magnitude of that play cannot be overstated. A 14 point swing, right as they go into the locker room. Harrison is huge.
Halftime. I’m taking a break to make dinner, walk about and be sociable, use the facilities, and play with the animals.
630 – And we are back. Quick throw to Boldin and he leaves the field with a limp shoulder after a hit by Ryan Clark, who leads the league in Hits that Left a Player to be Carted Off.
635 – Warner gets hit by Farrior losing the ball to none other than the Defensive POY Harrison. The Challenge flag is down. Does Wisenhunt go 2 for 2?
640 – He does and the Cards punt. This commercial cluster brings the count to 13 previews, 11 Bud, 9 NBC, and 8 for cars.
643 – New stat just in: Warner has thrown to Cuba Gooding Jr. as often as he has to Larry Fitzgerald Jr.
646 – From Como: Cuba is easily the most famous Cardinal. And a late hit give the Steelers a 1st.
650 – Is Mike Tomlin the baddest coach on the planet? Can you think of a coach you would rather not get in a fight with? Don’t you get the impression that he hangs out with Samuel L. Jackson on the weekends? And Parker breaks it to the outside and you can hear the nails going into the coffin…
653 - Terrible call! Adrian Wilson gets flagged for unnecessary roughness, because he tripped and fell into the holder. He clearly has his head down and just stumbles into the guy. What a ridiculous call. The Cards are having a hard enough time holding themselves together without the referees donning the black and gold. They manage to make the stop, again, and here is another go at the kick. 20-7 Steelers.
657 – Transformers 2 preview followed by the new nominee for commercial of the day from careerbuilders.com. And we have a favorite for cluster of the day. Highlighted by the punching the koala in the face. Can’t wait for that to show up on YouTube. In the cluster following the kick, Coke enters the fray with a fun forest commercial, joined with a slightly awkward Conan ad.
703 – Kurt Warner has 7 kids. He’s not a man, he’s a machine. Third quarter ends.
707 – Hah. Jack got hit by a bus. I’ll allow it. Strong work Jack in the Box.
711 – Stupid allotment of local commercial shots. Current score board: 15 previews, 12 Bud, 11 NBC, and 11 cars.
715 – After chasing all afternoon, the Cards finally get to Ben, and this is a critical possession. Nothing on the punt return, and if the Cardinals don’t put points on the board here, ball game. Coke is stepping up their game with a play on the classic Mean Joe Green commercial.
719 – 20 minutes after his first catch Fitz gets thrown to again, and makes the catch. Picking up the pace, the Cardinals look like they might believe they are still in the game. A big one to Arrington and they hit Fitz again. Great high catch, and nifty move after. He catches the next pass, too, and they are on the 5.
725 – Fitzgerald grabs the fade for the touchdown, giving him 4 for 31 on the drive, which was entirely through the air. In the next cluster Hulu joins the now completely website dominated contest for the commercial of the day. Opening a new category for non internet entities. Coke is favored for their body of work. 20-14, still Pittsburgh.
730 – Dockett breaks through for his second sack of the quarter, and the Cardinals second of the day. Steelers punt and this is setting up for Warner to go out as the greatest hero ever. Did that Pepsi commercial just imply that drinking Pepsi will kill you?
735 – A rare penalty on the Steelers brings the Cardinals to midfield, where they bewilderingly decide to run before a 23 yard strike to Breaston. The subsequent holding penalty, 3rd of the night on Mike Gandy trying to block Harrison, puts the Cards over 100 penalty yards for the day, more than they had in the rest of the post season combined.
738 – Camera guy waits until now to show us that Warner’s daughter is ridiculously good looking? And the hero moment will have to wait as Warner misses the throw and the Cards punt and down it inside the 2!! Flag - James Harrison has just lost all of my respect for punching a Cardinal player while he was on his knees. The lost respect will probably be made up for by the increase in fear, as he hit the guy so hard that he flipped almost all the way over onto his shoulders.
743 – After narrowly escaping a safety Ben hits Holmes for a 24 yard completion, but there is a holding flag in the end zone! Safety! Cards get the ball at the 36, and the tension is mounting.
747 – Fitzgerald!! Splits the field right down the middle for a 64 yard touchdown! Warner goes to 344 yards, most allowed by the Steelers all year, Fitz has 100 yards and two touchdowns against them, the defense has a chance to seal the largest comeback in Super Bowl history!! They might have scored too quickly, though. Over two minutes left in the game.
751 – Ben avoids another sack and gets the ball to Holmes. If the Steelers are going to pull this out, it is going to be on his arm. If he does it, I will take back everything I ever said about him being a mediocre game manager disguised as an NFL quarterback. GoDaddy.com wins the award for most sexually appealing commercials.
756 – Only downside to the recent turn of events is that the onus being on the Steelers means more of Andrea Kramer, Holmes gets loose and the defender falls down! Steeler ball inside the 10 with 49 seconds left!
759 – Holmes drops the first TD and catches the fade in the left corner of the end zone. The only question is whether the right foot hits the turf… Madden says there isn’t any doubt. The officials concur. I disagree. I think the right foot just hit his other foot. The right heel is clearly higher than the left, the one that is on the ground. Replay camera angles seem like they are designed by a director whose sole ambition is to amplify ambiguity. The PAT makes it 4 points. 27-23 Steelers.
804 – 77 yards, 29 seconds. This is where God, the puppies, the karma, this is where that all comes in to play. Is there enough? Is it enough to overcome the Millen pick? Fitz catches again for 21. 45 yards left, 15 seconds, no time outs.
809 – It isn’t. There is no power on Earth that can subdue this Steelers defense. Warner is sacked while trying to throw the ball, the call is a fumble and that is the game. From Como: Sixburgh. 27-23, Steelers. Madden: the gap between winning and losing is the biggest gap on earth. Thanks, John.
As this was my first go at a diary style blog, a few thoughts. Yes, the people I watched the game with were annoyed that I was doing this, asking if anyone even read my crap, anyway. Which I don’t know, so if you do happen to be a regular reader, feel free to join the conversation by leaving comments… Movie previews ended up being the most common commercial, .coms took one, two and three for best in show – careerbuilder.com winning for punching a koala, cars.com takes second, and Hulu third, for confirming the long suspected notion that Alec Baldwin is in fact an alien. GoDaddy.com gets honorable mention for two suggestive commercials that sent every male age 15-35 straight to their website. And Coke wins the award for best commercial not advertising for an online company. Pepsi gets the dunce cap for the MacGyver rip off that seemed to indicate that if Mac drank Pepsi he would have been blown to bits… I owe Ben an apology. He is a man, and a more than adequate NFL quarterback. That last drive was a whole mountain of clutch buried in an avalanche of composure… This game was truly a matter of inches. I cannot for the life of me understand how they can have so many cameras and not get one conclusive replay shot of either Holmes or Harrison’s touchdowns. They clearly need some sort of ground eye view camera to tell whether Harrison’s knee or Holmes right foot touched the ground. If those two calls based on terrible camera angles are wrong, then the final score is 23-13, Cardinals. Which is pretty dang close to what this guy predicted. Because what if's matter.
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