Numbers Don’t Lie

This week the Bengals travel to Minnesota with a chance to clinch the division with a win. The play-off math indicates that we must win one more game to secure the division and our berth in the 2009 play-offs. It is the biggest game since Pittsburgh and certainly, given Pittsburgh ’s performance to date, a more worthy opponent. The Vikings are loaded with talent. They have an awesome defensive line. They have playmakers all over the place, with big time names like Percy Harvin, Adrian Peterson, and Jared Allen. Brett Favre is having an MVP caliber season. To make matters worse, their head coach, Brad Childress, has a special head set that makes him look like a telemarketer. What’s that all about? Is that an unfair advantage?

But, fear not Bengal fans, for this week reason is on our side. Reason encapsulated in the pure, distilled form of Math. Numbers don’t lie. If we win Sunday, we win the Division. Numbers will also impact the game in other ways. If you watched last week’s Sunday night game you saw the announcers go on and on about the season Brett Favre is having and, in particular, the incredible decrease in interceptions against his career average. Of course, he went on to throw 2 INTs that night. The fact that he threw 2 picks is key to my point. Football may be a game of inches, but it’s also a game statistics. Maybe not to the extent of baseball, but in general a player’s performance is measurable. If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t care about Peterson’s 40 time or his average yards per carry. Granted, the season and the player’s shelf-life is much shorter which makes football statistics less meaningful than baseball. But, I argue that Brett Farve and his Ripken-esque streak of consecutive games played gives us a tremendous body of work to review and make projections off of.

Based on his career stats, he throws about 20 interceptions per year and he averages 34 attempts per game. How many passing attempts per game does he have this year? The answer, 33.6. Sounds pretty consistent to me…

But wait, you say, “He only has 5 picks so far….”

I answer with “Balderdash! There is plenty of football left. Statistics will prevail!”

A zebra doesn’t change his stripes. Although a 40 year old QB can change teams and vacillate more than Hamlet, he cannot change who he is. The immutable laws of math dictate that inevitably Brett must throw more picks. This Sunday he threw 2 picks. By my calculations, he owes at least 15 more to equal his career average. With 4 games left, that’s 3 or 4 picks a game. The 2 on Sunday night were just a down payment, the beginning of a torrent of interceptions thrown by Favre to close out the year. He may finish below his average, but he won’t finish 50% below average.

Like the infamous Viking pleasure cruise from a few years ago, there are going to be balls everywhere. Leon Hall, Jonathan Joseph, and Chinedum Ndukwe will have a field day. All they have to do is reach up and grab them. I predict a 4 turn-over day, three INTs from Brett Favre and 1 forced fumble from AP. Cedric Benson and company will get their 100+ yards a game, and we will grind away on the ground eating time of possession like Pat Williams at a Golden Corral. Carson will throw at least one touchdown pass. Chad will probably get fined for wrestling with the Vikings mascot. With the math firmly on our side, it all adds up to an AFC North-clinching Bengal win.

VIva La Revolution

In the movie Event Horizon, Captain Miller pilots his ship, the Lewis and Clark, to rescue an abandoned ship. The abandoned ship, named The Event Horizon, was designed to harness the power of the black hole to travel through space. Of course, the engineers who came up with idea neglected to consider alternative possibilities. They learned the hard way that Black Holes not only connect two points spatially in this reality but also inter-dimensionally. You may go into the Black Hole intending to exit at Alpha Centauri, but instead find yourself seeing dead people and hearing Latin phrases while and you and your crew go murderously insane. The Bengals enter the Black Hole that is Oakland Colliseum this Sunday. Will we emerge with an easy road win and one step closer to the playoffs? Or will we be warped to an alternate reality as the Eagles were a few weeks back? A world where a playoff caliber team is destroyed by the unlikely Oakland Raiders.

Jamarcus Russell has been benched to be replaced by Gratkowski. I like the Bengals facing new quarterbacks about as much as the Reds like facing rookie pitchers on the 1st big league start. To make matters worse, we haven’t had much luck in Oakland or against the Raiders in general. We’ve never won in Oakland. The last time we played the Raiders in a game that mattered we lost in the 1990 Playoffs. That game is more known as the game that ended the football career of Bo Jackson. That playoff loss marked the beginning of the Lost Years, also known as Bengal Football 1991-2003. Those of us that lived it, we know how bad it was. Coaches and quarterbacks entered and exited the building in a seemingly constant stream. (Except for Dave Shula who somehow hung around for 4 years.) I think until recently the Curse of Bo Jackson has hung over this franchise like a dark cloud, a specter, a boogie man roaming the halls of PBS. Every bad snap, every locker room outburst, every muffed punt, bad tackle and busted draft pick, somewhere Bo Jackson smiled and thought about what could have been.

But that all ends on Sunday. The Curse of Bo will be banished for good. The Bengals will emerge on the other side of the Black Hole unscathed. Any lingering doubts as to the veracity of this team were trampled into the shoddy turf of Heinz Field by Bernard Scott’s cleats and then further crushed beneath Ben Roethlisberger’s falling body. The Bengals are for real. But last week’s victory over the Steelers goes far beyond simply serving as a bandwagon booster and announcing the emergence of a new national press darling. Last week’s win was a deafening salvo, a volley fired straight into the ranks of the NFL establishment. Revolution has come to the AFC North and beyond. This weekend, we march on to Oakland, but have no doubt about it, our destination is Miami. Prepare yourselves, Comrades, for the long march ahead. Viva La Revolution!

Bold Predictions For Week 9 Against the Ravens

The weathermen predict a beautiful fall day for the 1:00pm kick off at PBS. I predict a wild AFC North cage match with a chance of death and or dismemberment. We go into this game as healthy as we have been all year. I am not sure we will exit the game in the same way. Ray Lewis almost decapitated Chad during their last meet up and that was before they lost and before Chad sent key Raven’s defensive player’s deodorant. Ironic because I would think Chad would want Ed Reed and company to stink up the joint. You don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit in the wind, and I am pretty sure you don’t taunt Ray Lewis. To say the Raven’s are going to try to be physical on defense is probably an understatement as well as a given. (Yet I am sure that will be the pregame commentary from whatever hack happens to have the pregame analysis).

The Bengals haven’t been great at home this year. I’ll give them the Steeler game, but then again, so did the Steeler’s. The Bengals want this game to maintain control of the AFC North, but the Raven’s need this win to remain relevant. And a desperate Raven’s team is a dangerous team. This will be a good game. A low scoring game. It will be a game decided by defense and special teams and a few bizarre occurrences. Below are just a few strange things that will happen this Sunday.

1) Ray Lewis strokes out during his pre-game rant and while he decides to play anyway, his left side is partially paralyzed which limits his effectiveness. Bratkowski takes advantage and runs Cedric Benson off the Right Tackle even more than usual.

2) Andre Smith makes the transition from eating donuts to eating Raven blitzers. For once, the coaches don’t complain about the weight gain.

3) The Raven’s Defensive Coordinator dials up the pressure in an ever increasingly exotic array of blitzes, at one point even blitzing with an angry midget , who slides beneath the arms of an confused Bobbie Williams and actually lays a hit on Carson Palmer. The midget harmlessly bounces off Carson’s knee brace and draws a flag for un-sportsman like conduct.

4) After dodging in and out of the pocket all day, and keeping plays alive with his feet, Carson Palmer gets the game ball and an invitation to appear on Dancing with the Stars. I can only hope that he draws Edyta as a partner. Meow!

5) Cedric Benson, having difficulty staying angry what with all the positive press coverage, when not on the field spends most of his time driving bamboo shoots under his finger nails while staring at a picture of Ed Reed. By the fourth quarter, he just snaps and literally runs through and over top of a screaming Ed Reed for a 40 yard TD scamper. Oh the horror….

6) A record is set for injury time outs and on Monday following the game, both teams list their entire roster as questionable. Mike Tomilin crys foul, while somewhere in Boston Bill Belicheck chuckles to himself, “Amateurs!”


In summation, the Bengals win a wild one : 17-14. I’ll leave you with one final prediction. In the aftermath of this violent struggle, Marvin Lewis , ala Invincible, will appear on local TV and radio programs imploring able bodied men from the ages of 18-35 to appear at PBS for emergency tryouts for the upcoming Steeler game. Given my 9.4 40 speed, I do not make the cut. While initially crushed, I am later grateful when I see Troy Polamalu kill some dude from HR who tries to catch a ball over the middle.

The Costanza

(I have attempted to cross-post this on Cnati, but it appears they may not take it. Hope you enjoy. Who Dey!)


Some of you may know that William Safire passed away last month. Among a great deal many other things, Mr. Safire wrote a weekly column for the New York Times on language frequently dealing with new words or new uses of old words. In his honor, I would like to propose a new word that springs from the crushing disappointment of last week’s game against the Houston Texan’s.

Coats: Kōts verb definition: to make an error, to perform poorly, to self- destruct.


I know what you’re thinking: the loss wasn’t all Coats’ fault. Caldwell had plenty of drops. There were blown assignments and coverages. Stupid penalties again were prevalent. While I agree and do not pin the loss solely on Daniel Coats, I do find his performance crystallizing. So close, yet so far away. Full of potential, but ultimately doomed to fail.

The Bengals have shown a disturbing trend to self-destruct. This isn’t the first Bengal team to Coats it. This trend existed before this game, before this season, but I believe we have the players to finally beat the trend. After all we did cut St. Louis. We can win, in fact we have. But if we are going to make it to the play-offs we have to start playing complete games. To do that, we have to stop self- destructing. The way I see it, in order for the Bengals to fully put their inner-Bungle behind them, something drastic must be done. I think as a unified front of Management, Coaches, Players and Fans, we have to collectively pull a Costanza. As in George Costanza of Seinfeld and DO THE OPPOSITE. We have to break the cycle. This is a call to action. I’m not talking about a rally cap here. This is bigger than that. I’m talking about messing with the very fabric of space and time.

Apparently Katie and Mike are already on board, they were busy dealing with Jerry Jones for a Tight End. They didn’t close the deal but still…when’s the last time you heard of the Bengals trying a mid-season trade? That’s the Costanza, baby!

When Bratkowski is in the booth on 1st down, instead of running Benson right side? He’s got to give ‘em the ole Costanza and throw a pass.

When Carson reads blitz and decides to audible, Carson must Constanza their asses and keep the same play on.

When the play is designed to go to Coats, you guessed it, just go ahead and slip them a Costanza-roo and throw it right to him. It’ll catch the Bear’s defense off guard.

Beyond the team, we as fans can contribute.

If you sit on the right side of couch, sit on the left.

If you normally eat the wings, eat the legs and vice versa.

If you drink Bud Light, reach for the Nati on Sunday.

I am prepared to do my part in this massive effort to un-jinx this team. Instead of watching the game from the comfortably thin air of the 3 deck in PBS, I am going to wake up Saturday and drive to Chicago and watch the game in a dark bar surrounded by men wearing Urlacker jerseys. Broad shouldered men, whose names end in vowels.

When the dust settles Sunday night, I can’t tell you if the Bengals will be 5 and 2 or 4 and 3. But I can tell you that desperate times call for desperate measures, and these times call for the Costanza.

The Black Flag

I stared at him. And he stared right back at me. Insolent and Brooding. Defiantly upright, and glaringly out of place. Again and again, it repulsed my advances with an electric razor. Equal parts of fascination and repulsion forced me closer to the mirror. It was even more disgusting up close. It looked less like a hair than a thorn, and emerged from my face almost parallel to the ground and then turned abruptly 90% towards the sky like a sapling searching for the sun.

It wasn’t there yesterday, but it was here today. With grim determination, I grabbed it with my bare hands fully prepared to physically uproot the abomination. To my dismay, I found I could not grip it. It had some sort of defense mechanism, an oily substance that oozed from it, rendering plucking bare handed quite impossible. I grabbed a pair of tweezers. As I stared at my target, I brought my weapon ever closer. A small but persistent fear began to set in. I found myself thinking of icebergs. Icebergs have the greater portion of their mass beneath the sea. The pilot of the Titanic under estimated an iceberg and people died. A hair that big, that evolved, might rip a big crater in my face coming out. I could bleed out in the bathroom all alone. My resolve shattered and my hands shaking, I put the tweezers down.

How did I come to be here in front of the mirror wrestling with a part of my body turned against me?

We constantly fight a war, ceaselessly suppressing a revolution embed in our very DNA. Oh Deoxyribonucleic Acid! You double-helix’d traitor! Over time, as the rebels cells wear down the established order, we begin to see the effects of aging. It starts small, a hair falls out, or perhaps you tweak your back getting out of the car. As the rebels gain momentum and power, male pattern baldness sets in. Next thing you know, your back always hurts and maybe your knees start to ache when it rains. The war rages on. You eat better, you exercise. You think you might be turning the tide on middle age. Then it happens, the Forces of Decay send up a signal to mock you. A thick black bristle, conspicuously placed. Its message is un-mistakable: We are in control.

What evolutionary purpose could such a growth have? If my whole body was covered in them, I would likely be impervious to assault from most primitive weapons. However, one or two random super hairs offer no protection against my enemies. Perhaps its emergence is intended to signal to females of the species. Stay away from this one, he is too old to be a reliable mate.

No one warned me of long dormant follicles, secreted in bizarre unfortunate places. No one told me they lay in wait as a biological countdown sequence ran down to zero before releasing their boar-bristle progeny. Nobody prepared me for this. Where’s the cute book in the library that warns little Timmy that one day, all his hair will fall out, that his eyebrows will try to merge and his waistline will expand without warning. There are plenty of books that warn Timmy about death and dying. There are no books that say, “Timmy, One day, all of a sudden, you’ll be disgusting. There’s nothing you can do to stop it, all you can do is manage it the best you can. Good luck.”

Its Scary to be a Bengals Fan.

It’s hard to be a Bengals fan even when you’re 3-1. This team is making me a nervous wreck. My heart has been in my throat every weekend. Every game to date has been scary. Our supposed lay-up game last week was a panic attack inducing, possession swapping OT fest. Following this team is like walking a tight rope. I’m afraid to look down, afraid to take another step. Most of all, I am afraid we’ll go from 3 and 1 to over and done before November.

The game in Baltimore is still a few days away and I am already breaking into cold sweats. This game is the test. And that scares me. The Ravens, as a team, scare me. Flacco’s arm scares me. Ray Lewis, I don’t care who you are, is flat out scary. Jesus, even their stuffed Mascot is a little scary – like some ‘roided up Jeckel or Heckel.

Lewis and Bratkowski talking tough about establishing the run against a very stingy Baltimore defense scares me. Larry Johnson was the last back to get over 100 yards against them. He hasn’t been good for years and Cedric, while revitalized, is no Larry Johnson.

Flacco throwing bombs to Kelley Washington scares me. I know he’s their number 4 or 5 threat but who was Massaquoi last week and where did he come from?

Carson Palmer running for 1st downs scares me. He looked like the Tin Man left out in a hurricane, squeaking and creaking his way down field. Ray Lewis will kill him if he tries that this week.

Laverneus Coles’ hands scare me.

I’ll cover my eyes every time the kicking team comes on because with the exception of Huber, they scare me.

The reality is, we don’t need to win this game. There is no shame in losing to Baltimore at Baltimore. We can lose this game and still stay in the playoff hunt. We can lose this game and nobody will care because nobody really expects us to win. But winning this game will signal to the world that the Bengals are for real. It will establish us as real contenders in the AFC North and put us in the driver’s seat going into the second quarter of the season. But more importantly, it will signal to all those long suffering fans that maybe, just maybe, it’s OK to believe. And believing again scares me most of all.

I’ll watch the game, parked on the couch in my Geathers jersey, with my hands half covering my eyes. I might make my wife hold my hand. I know the odds are against us. A win is improbable at best. But as a wise man once said, “Never tell me the odds.”

Somebody hold me....

The Power of the Sandwhich Thin

I walked by a man working on a presentation yesterday. I couldn’t help but notice that the title of the slide was: The Power of the Sandwich Thin. The power indeed. It was in that brief passing moment that I truly grasped the absurdity of my job. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am sure that were I to read the presentation, I would discover that Sandwich Thins don’t get enough credit for the sales they generate. I’m sure they are like the unsung hero of the bread aisle. Everybody just assumes that the standard loaf is the where the action’s at, but they don’t see the numbers behind the numbers. They don’t see the Power.

I work in a field where it is your job to convince others that your Product A, any Product A, is the answer. And it doesn’t really matter what the question is.

Profit not where it needs to be? Have you looked at our Sandwich Thins??

Not getting the right basket ring? Check out the retails on these.
Can’t get Health Care Legislation passed? How about you invite the House and Senate over for Turkey and Cheese Sandwiches, served on our new line of Sandwich Thins. That’ll get them working together.

Can you feel the Power?!

In general, I do a pretty good job of not thinking too much about the industry I’m in. Because on one hand you can argue that it’s all a big meaningless game, and the person who sells the most stuff – regardless of what it is, wins. And in its defense, it can be a very interesting game. Every day in my world, there are millions of dollars in play. It can be very dramatic and very exciting One could also argue that the people who buy and sell these goods are passionate people who care about good retailing and good product. Some do. Others….not so much. And the really good ones enjoy the game and accept it for what it is.

I enjoy the game sometimes, and then sometimes I remember that I am getting all worked up over the equivalent of a piece of bread. A thin piece of bread, shipped in a plastic bag, made in a factory by underpaid workers and focused grouped until some marketing person feels comfortable enough to generate a slide entitled The Power of Sandwich Thins. And when I see that slide, I feel anger and a silent but persistent hunger for something….more. We spend more time on our jobs than most any other developed nation. We’re only given so much time on this planet and we squander it sitting under fluorescent lights designing ridiculous power points for the things that nobody really needs.

I have friends who once stated their goal was to work as little as possible. I laughed at that notion a few years ago. I thought it was both un-ambitious and perhaps a bit lazy. Now I realize they were geniuses, prophets, and visionaries of the highest order. Of course, my enlightenment comes after a large mortgage, 2 car payments, 2 kids and other miscellaneous debt. So it looks like I’ll keep making those stupid power points a bit longer. But someday, someday I will break these shackles that bind me to my laptop. I will crush my mouse beneath my feet, throw my blackberry down the dimly lit corridor and shout to the mottled ceiling tiles “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, free at last!”

Time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet...

Like everyone else, I have a Facebook account. I find it both fascinating and frustrating at the same time. Picking a profile picture is nothing short of an exercise in self-psychoanalysis. What image of yourself do you want to project to friends, acquaintances and random strangers?

Do I go with one with the goofy smile: Hey, look at me! I’m a fun guy!

Maybe me and the wife: Hey, look at me! I’m happily married!

No, me and the kids: Hey Look at me! I know all of you dads got World’s Greatest Dad Mugs for Father’s Day….but seriously I’m the real deal. Your kids/spouses….they all lied.

No wait….Me with my shirt off in black and white: That’s right! All you ladies who passed up on this are so…so…sorry now!

Every picture you post says something about you. What if I say the wrong thing? I recently posted a picture of my kid in a Storm Trooper Helmet. But all you could see was the helmet and the blaster rifle. Which basically says: Yup…still a hopeless dork.

Then there are Status Updates. I wish my life was so interesting that I had something to say that I thought anyone would care about. Mine are usually something lame like:

I just ate a huge burrito.

Or, because I am supposed to be funny I spend 5 minutes composing a 1 sentence witticism that usually isn’t that funny. For Example:

Chris is pulling like crazy…the data that is.

I spent 5 minutes writing that update. It was dumb and mostly gross and didn’t get a single comment.

In the guise of making a page about you and your life and keeping everyone up to date with what’s going on in said life, you come to realize, there isn’t a bunch going on.

And then it hits you. Wait…..I’m boring?

After looking at some other people’s pages, and all of their mundane updates and the little details that make up their specific versions of life you come to the conclusion that all of your lives are kind of the same. You work, you raise your kids, maybe you go out occasionally. My life appears to be just like the lives of everyone else out there.

Then the walls really come tumbling down. Wait…I’m not special?

Facebook’s insistence that I update my status and in turn see other’s updates has left me searching for more interesting things to say about my day than my “friends’” days and I have come up dry. In doing so, it has created a small hole in the insulating balloon that is Chris’s Theory of Inherent Specialness. Which has existed since roughly 1st grade and basically states that I am more special than you or anyone else for that matter. Your awareness of that fact and the veracity of the same are in no way connected. In fact, if you can’t tell I’m special, I’m sorry but you obviously just don’t have an eye for such things.

I’m not sure how to deal with that puncture. It takes years to build a good defense mechanism. I’m not sure I’m ready to abandon Inherent Specialness. This isn’t some moth-eaten teddy bear or a tattered blanket we’re talking about, it’s an integral piece of who I am. No, getting rid of it simply won’t do.

Luckily though, I don’t have to. The fact of the matter is, because of the accessibility and openness of Facebook, the really interesting things, the really juicy things are kept secret. As they should be, I might add. Because you never know who’s reading. Just because I look boring on my Facebook account, doesn’t mean I really am. Yes! This might work! There’s so much going on, you don’t even know! I am so cool, I can’t even write half the shit I’m up to because it’s just too much for the general public. My boss, and two ex-girlfriends are “friends” for crying out loud! They couldn’t handle this kind of intensity. Do I feel bad that I cannot freely share the awesomeness that is my life? Sure. But it’s the right thing to do. I don’t want to make the rest of my friends jealous or feel as if their lives are less meaningful or less fulfilling. What kind of “friend” would I be if I constantly displayed my superiority with killer profile pics and hysterically funny Status Updates? The answer is not a very good one.

The New Guilt

My friend, who greatly enjoys poking fun at my liberal tendencies, tends to send me news pieces that highlight the absurdity of some of my positions on things. In particular, he has seized on Global Warming and the growing hysteria surrounding it. He makes a very adroit observation that popular media and popular media consumption habits tend to greatly distort the facts surrounding phenomenon such as Global Warming. He often mentions disposable diapers as an example. Some of you may remember hearing news reports years ago about what overwhelming percentage of the world’s landfills would be composed of these ecological dirty bombs, and at the time, some of the reporting conjured images of streets in the near future filled with diapers and nowhere to put them because the landfills were already packed full of Pampers. He could very well have also mentioned Killer Bees. In 8th Grade I was ready to move to Canada because I was scared to death that Africanized Honey Bees were swarming my way. His point is valid; we have a natural tendency to make things bigger, more dire than they really are. Maybe it sells papers, maybe it gets attention of research dollars or government money, and maybe it feeds our need to have something to worry about.

The most recent article from him, see link below, deals with the high carbon footprint of eating beef. Due to the energy it takes to feed, transport, and cook and the by-products of all those things, Beef has a disproportionate ratio of pollution to nutrition. By eliminating beef, the article suggests we could cut emissions by significant amounts.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.e36a67d49c1127a8c17cc38ed4a4c27e.211&show_article=1

While the research is interesting, I cannot help but find it tiresome. Does everything have to be viewed now from a pair of Carbon-Value Glasses? How far away are we from buying and selling things in a new alternate currency based on Carbon Credits? The goal of the Environmental Movement should not be to grind eco-responsibility into everyone’s face over every decision they make. All that will do is engender resentment and eventually the worthwhile message of conservation will fall on deaf ears. The goal should be, and it is in fact what is being achieved to date, is a raised awareness of Environmental Issues. Being more efficient, being more conservative of all of our resources is good corporate and good individual philosophy – especially in this economic climate. One could argue that common sense and the environmentalists have finally found common ground. Walk into a Kroger and see the number of people using canvas bags, look at the sales of CFL’s. (Although one could also argue we need a return to robust “Fuck It All” American consumerism – if just to lift is out of this current morass.) Regardless, my point is people are getting the message; let’s not nag them to death!

Academic funding is shifting more and more to “green” topics. Scholars who need papers published continue to find more and more obscure things to study, and the news media will pick up the juiciest ones - the more dire, the more sensational, the better. Polar Bears: Extinct In 10 Years! New Orleans: Melting Ice Caps and A Modern day Atlantis! Killer Bees Nesting In Millions of Disposable Diapers! And we will continue to eat it up, eager to feel shittier about ourselves and our world.

I have been puzzling over what drives this phenomenon. This collective need to feel bad about something. Or more specifically why did we all start caring about the Planet? When did a formally small cause, exclusively the domain of so called Hippies and Tree Huggers, become a middle class obsession? What makes a significant percentage of the population rise up and suddenly exclaim, “Oh we’re so bad, punish us! Tell me more about how bad for the Planet my actions are.” Why did all of the sudden people start caring about the Planet? Why do I see 30-50 year olds using canvas bags and buying Hybrids?

Then it dawned on me. Much has been made of the so called “generational shift.” We just elected a black man to the Presidency; the Boomers are stepping down and making way for Gen X or whatever we are. That ushers in all sorts of new things. It’s more than Obama taking the White House Business Casual. We’re going to put our fingerprints on this era in countless ways. Among the countless things we need, we simply must have our very own Guilt. Our Parent’s had Racism. That was OK, but we’ve always wanted our own thing. Besides, our work there is done, just look at who our President is. No we need something else, a new white liberal guilt for a new era.

I got just the thing…the whole world.

In Defense of Bow Ties

In his new book, David Sedaris disembowels the bowtie by calling it an announcement to the world that you can no longer get an erection. I both love and despise Sedaris because he’s a very good writer, but I feel compelled to defend the bowtie.

I have worn one occasionally. It’s an odd choice, I know. A 80 year old saleman I had the pleasure of knowing once gave me a bowtie as a thank you gift. I wore it in his honor, and kind of liked it. I still wear it from time to time, but I still struggle with it.

It’s geeky to be sure. Certainly I don’t believe it would qualify as sexy. Unless of course paired with a tuxedo. But for daily wear, it’s anachronistic, dorky with a certain Orville-ian under tones. I get a range of responses when I wear one. I get bemused looks, stares. Some will say it’s fun. Some will say, “It’s you.” Which I think might be a back-handed insult.

I’d like to think it marks you a different, thoughtful…the smartest guy in the room. Or perhaps, the geekiest. I remember once in elementary school, at the beginning of my descent into unpopularity, the other kids started calling me a nerd. I was wounded but more so, I was outraged. I thought that secretly I was just as good if not better than any of them. It was ridiculously unfair and innaccurate to call me such a name. I decided after one particularly brutal bus ride home that if they wanted a nerd I would give them one. Clearly they didn't know what a real nerd was. Perhaps I could help them see the difference. And so in deaf to my mother’s pleading, I parted my hair down the middle and spackled it in place with palmful after palmful of mouse until my hair gleamed like plastic. Not satisfied with the effect and eager for more self-inflicted pain, I taped up the nose of my glasses. You want a nerd? You got one.

It was a terrible decision. A classroom of fourth graders is like Lord of the Flies with Erasers and Notebooks in place of Conch Shells. Nobody understood the statement I was trying to make, it only served to cement and justify the original verdict. I never recovered socially and served out my time in public school with the other freaks and geeks.

I consoled myself with the knowledge that I wasn’t really a nerd, that was the label they assigned me. I was much, much more, they were just too blind and stupid to see. In my wildly dramatic pubescent years I would imagine the most popular people in my class realizing the error of their ways in a variety of convenient scenarios. One week it was a terrorist attack at school where I saved the day. Another it was an earthquake or a tornado, always some cataclysmic event that up ended the social structure and created an opportunity for me to shine and recreate myself. To my dismay, the apocalyptic event I fervently wished for never happened. Embittered, I took solace in my own company. While painful at the time, it freed me to some extent from the tyranny of the herd, but also fueled a compensatory superiority complex. Overtime, as my wife and most people who know me will tell you, I fell quite in love with myself. An affair which continues to this day.

Maybe that’s part of what a bowtie is to me: defiant, self -segregating, a little arrogant. I’ll wear a bowtie if I want to, I’ll blaze my own fashion trail. You’ll come to appreciate both it and me if this building’s hit by an asteroid.

Just knowing how to tie one, enforces a feeling of superiority. Men will ask, “Is real bowtie?” I’ll smugly reply, “Yes, it is…I tied it myself. I know lots of things. Grand things. Things you’ll never know because while you were with all the other cool kids, I was at the library….becoming awesome.”

Notes from Abroad...

Today is the last day of my Portland adventure. Portland is a different kind of town, with different kind of people. I knew I was in a foreign land when I was walking through the concourse. I have never seen so many dreadlocks, artificially colored hair (in obvious shades of black, pink and blonde), stupid hats on members of both sexes, patchwork skirts, Birkenstocks, Doc Martens and other post-punk /hipster/hippy essentials.

Some other observations:

Station Wagons are cool. Waiting for my ride to the apartment, every other car was a Subaru Outback. A guy in the office has one. I could probably make a fortune buying the things in Cincinnati and shipping them into the Northwest. I also saw people driving glorified golf carts on busy highways, they looked like little Luigi’s from the movie, Car’s.

But as much as they love their Subaru’s and alternative electronic vehicles, the roads are really meant for cyclists and pedestrians. Heaven forbid you turn do anything they perceive as a trespass against them. Hippies may still exist in Portland, but they’re angry hippies. The Peace Sign is apparently a tired relic, the middle finger and salty language rule the streets.

Also you don’t need a crosswalk, its common practice to walk into the road wherever it suits you, apparently cars have to yield. Too bad I almost took out a Patchouli Wearing Dipshit before someone told me that.

The Natural Look is in. I cannot wait to go back to Cincinnati and see a girl in make-up, with her hair combed and in clothes that don’t look like they came from the wardrobe department of Reality Bites.

I was talking to a girl at Starbucks. Apparently there is a Stagnant Air Alert for the whole metro area. As she told me this with a dead serious look on her face, napkins were blowing off the countertop from the breeze.

It’s a neat city. Great people watching, great food, full of natural beauty. But it’s time to come home before I dye my hair or start shopping for glorified station wagons.

Ahhh...Travel

It’s been almost a year since I have been a business trip. Foolishly I have been looking forward to going. I miss travel. Or maybe I missed the idea of travel. All I know is, as I started the 2 hour drive to Indy to catch my flight, I was excited.

The ride up was uneventful and I arrived in plenty of time. I went right through security, and found a seat near an power outlet. To the novice traveler, finding a power outlet in an airport to keep your laptop and blackberry going is critical and usually impossible. I plugged in, powered up and prepared to enjoy the free Indy Airport WiFi. Again, another plus because most airports you have to pay for a day pass. Well, you get what you pay for. I had at least 3 tasks which I was counting on delivering while I waited, all of which required broadband access to send. I logged onto the wireless, and was rewarded with a blazing 2MBPS connection. That’s about as slow as dial-up. My browser wouldn’t even open let alone send anything.

To make matters worse, either through cunning planning to discourage siphoning free power or just bad luck, my power supply was right beneath a loudspeaker. Every page, every announcement shook the fillings in my teeth. They also had this strange military style naming convention.

“Can Mr. Jones come to Checkpoint Bravo to retrieve a lost item”

When did I enter the Green Zone? Don’t do it Jones….it’s a trap

“Would the owner of the black Ford Bronco come to Checkpoint Alpha?”

Fuck…are they going to detain him?

I worked away, and as the endless stream of pages and announcements blared on, the blood slowly trickled from my ears.

But, the plane left on time, and I had an exit row so it was all good. Until I landed in Denver.

I had an hour between flights. I always check my departure gate and time off the screens just in case there was a change. Then I physically check the gate. Both my ticket and the screen said B35 – there were people waiting, we had a plane parked outside but no gate agents. I decided I had time to grab a quick plate of dinner. Driving and total transit time to Portland was going to be 11 plus hours, better eat while you can. I grabbed some Chinese Panda or whatever the fuck it is, and sat down at the gate. While I ate some indifferent fried rice and a slimy, sickly sweet honey chicken, I noticed the gate still wasn’t manned. That’s when the fun began.

I walked to the nearest manned Frontier gate.

“Excuse me, where is the flight for Portland?”

“Portland?! That’s Gate 50, you’ll have to hurry?”

Gate 50 was on the other side of the Concourse. I took off running.

Past the foodcourt. Past Gates 40-49. Down a set of stairs. Down a Corridor. All the way to Gate 50.

“Portland?” I ask breathlessly.

“Portland? That’s up at gate 33! You’ll really have to hurry?

“I’m sorry, my hearing was damaged in Indy and I’m still recovering. Did you say Gate 33??? Are you sure?? I was just up there, they sent me here.

“Yes, you better run!”

I blindly followed her command.

Off I went. Down the corridor. Up the stairs. Past gates 49-40. Past the food court. Past Gate 35, where I just was, to Gate 33.

Really Breathlessly and with no conviction whatsoever, somewhat pleadingly, “ Portland?”

“Portland?!”

“Yes… What Gate?”

“55, but you’re really late”

“I was just down there, the screen says 35, they sent me here.”

“I have no control over the screens, the city controls those. It’s definitely at 55,and you need to hurry”

At the time, I was thinking, “Lady, I could give a shit who runs the screens, I don’t need a lesson on airport politics, I need oxygen, a bag to throw up in and perhaps a golf cart!” But I was too winded to fight, and I didn’t have the time.

“Fuck. Call them and tell them I’m coming!”

Off I go. By now, people openly pointing at me and the polite ones are smiling in disbelieve. The assholes are flat out laughing hysterically. None of which I can get upset about, as this made the third time I had sprinted by them, uttering profanities between gasps for air and Chinese belches.

So, back down the stairs, up to Gate 55 (just on the other side of 50 by the way), I get on the plane, and just as I am congratulating myself on making it just in time, the Pilot comes on to announce the flight is delayed. I spend the next 5 minutes catching my breath and convincing my stomach not to forcibly eject the Honey Chicken and the next 20 waiting to take off.

Ahhh, Travel….

The Urban Appalachians

My office is in a questionable part of town. Occasionally there is the odd shooting or stabbing down an adjacent alley or inside the local bar. The local community is a blend of recent Hispanic immigrants, black people and the people I recently discovered should be called Urban Appalachians. Now when I hear that term, I think of a fashion movement like the Urban Cowbody Movement, except the fashionable sort in this part of town aren't wearing coonskin caps or over-alls. Neither are they filling their days moonshinin' or outsmarting the Revenuers. The only the thing vaguely Appalachian about these people is an accent and speech pattern that might have originated in the mountains, but on the way here was drug through several trailer parks and an Eddie Murphy special.

Regardless of what you call them, they do make for great people watching.

The window from my cube over looks a parking lot for a Check N Go, which must be some sort of rallying point for several of the local Urban Appalachians. Most days around 4:00pm, if I am lucky, I'll see a 12 year old Maroon Chevy Lumina, all beat to shit, with no hubcaps and a busted tail light .

The last time I saw it a few weeks back, it sat there idling with the windows cracked. I could see at least 4 people in the backseat, and two in the front, The girl in the front seat's probably 14 and she's bumming a cigarette from her mom. Everyone in the car is smoking in fact it looks like the car's smoldering from all the smoke wafting out of it. Up comes a two more people to the car, one on crutches. The passengers get out, more smoke billows from the doors, everyone but the girl is overweight, the women have terrible bad highlights. They look like a pack of fat hyenas.

To my surprise, they all try to pile back into the car. Now there's 5 people in the back seat, some one riding in the lap of the front passenger seat but they can't close the door because the crutches are in the way. Not to mention they're all sizable people.

So they pop the trunk, and the trunk is so full of junk that stuff literally springs out. Clothes, cans, pop bottles, paper. The wind catches a plastic Walmart bag and a few empty cigarette cartons and they swirl around the parking lot. Nobody makes an effort to pick them up. The injured party hobbles to the back, and tries to jam the crutches into the trunk. The girl, cigarette clenched between her lips, hops out with her school back pack and helps her force down the trunk lid. They all pile back in and lurch into traffic.

I often wonder where they were going. Why they all needed to go there, and why they all needed to be there at the same time. The bus stop was on the opposite corner. I'll tell you right now, if I walked up to that car, and it was my ride? No way. I be all like, "Look, there's already 4 of you fat bitches in this backseat. My ass is hurt. I'm on crutches. I don't need this shit. I'm taking the bus. I'll see you at Denny's in 15 minutes."

I wanted a image to go with this entry. By the way, you won't believe what comes up on google if you type in Fat White Bitches. I had to go wash my eyes. Now the images below, aren't what I wanted but you might need to see them