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.