YOU GO LIVE IN UTAH

(mildly clever title TBD)

2010-10-06T15:23:00.003-05:00

(The blurry Blackberry picture I took of the tunnel at AAC; I didn't want to get busted in all my dorky glory so I didn't use the flash.)

I have a confession to make. As you may have read on this blog, I was a music journalist in the past. I loved music. I went to shows every night. And then, after a few years, I became bitter. I felt like I had been there and done that. No one could impress me. I basically existed just to rip into bands and hand them their aspirations on a plate.

So I stopped doing it. Then I started this blog. I loved sports. Specifically, I loved the Mavs. I would write about them even if no one read it, which was the case for many months. Then I started getting a little attention. Not much but just a little.

But with that attention, also came that feeling that ripping into teams and athletes and shaming them for actual losses or perceived failures was the key to personal success. And guess what? It sucked the fun out of sports for me again. My sense of Dallas sports fan entitlement told me that if my team “only” made it to the playoffs then got knocked out in the first or second round, they were losers. Burn down the stadium. Sell off the team.

So I stopped blogging about sports. In the meantime, I became a columnist for Quick. A nightlife columnist, if you want to get specific. And through that, I was offered the chance to write the 2010-2011 Mavs Season Preview. You will be able to read that preview on October 21st.

Today I went to Mavs team practice to interview players and Coach Carlisle. Like a kid from a high school paper, I stood outside the Mavs office during practice with clammy hands. I looked over my list of questions approximately 12.5 million times. Which ended up being fruitless since my questions pretty much went out the window the moment I opened my mouth.

Now all of this would have been an undeniably awesome sports moment for someone who started a Mavs blog out of sheer fandom room four years ago. But as the other members of the press and I waited to be given access to the players, we all huddled around a small TV to watch the Rangers game. I know it’s fashionable to downplay ones enthusiasm and to apply a liberal coat of indifference to writing about things like this. But you know what? It was fucking awesome. Waiting to talk to the team I have loved for decades while watching a team I have grown to love? It was a moment I probably won’t forget any time soon.

Then we were ushered into practice. I’ll save most of that for the article. I hope that it wasn’t too obvious that I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I remember looking down at my recorder while Carlisle was talking and realizing that there were still beads of sweat across the screen from my nervous hands. I am as noob as it gets. It probably showed. My voice didn’t crack, as far as I remember.

I know I should be cooler about this. I should have asked some sort of hardball questions of the players. I should have been the young, snarky blogger who was there to call someone out. But it never crossed my mind. I’m a fan and I will give this Mavs team a chance and enjoy the basketball they give me and any games I am able to attend.

Because as I sit here at my desk listening to the Rangers play their first playoff game in 14 years (and lead it 5-1), I am just about as sports happy as a girl can be. If the Rangers can make it to the playoffs after all they’ve gone through this past decade, anything is possible. Losing my grip on sports cynicism is almost certainly a detriment to my career as a blogger. But the world needs one more cynical, armchair quarterback blogger like…….well, like the Lakers need one more ring.

Why I Love the Sport, the Franchise and the City But Ultimately Hate This Team

2010-09-29T15:47:00.003-05:00

I love the Cowboys. No, wait scratch that. I am in a relationship with the Cowboys. I committed to them, for better or worse. It was a long time ago and there’s no way that I can switch allegiances. I used to feel sorry for people who grew up without an NFL franchise in their town. They never got to meet that perfect team. They never got to go through the courtship that is a Super Bowl season. I did. I do. I have the Dallas Cowboys and they’re my team and like a good Catholic, I’m stuck with them. Shackled to them for eternity, left only to offer excuses for them when they fail and explain away their shortcomings.

But I’ve come to realize that I secretly hate the Cowboys. Of course, I want them to win. Mostly for my own selfish, debauched reasons. I don’t even want them to win for themselves since I learned long ago that in the pantheon of things important to the Cowboys, winning comes in five spots behind ticket sales, sandwiched somewhere between cheerleader calendars and paper towel and charcoal product licensing. The greed doesn’t surprise me. You don’t become the NFL’s most valuable franchise without caring first and foremost about butts in seats and pro-shop merchandise. But at some point, you told me that you, quite frankly, didn’t care about me any longer.

You built a new stadium that has all the soul of a Roomba gliding along a taupe linoleum floor while Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music plays in the background. And when you announced the price point for tickets, you patted me on the shoulder and told me that you were sorry that I wouldn’t be able to attend any regular season Cowboys games while firmly guiding me to the exits. I didn’t take that too well. I’ve had to deal with the sideways glances and ridicule that comes with being a Cowboys fan for two decades now. And the whole time I stood my ground because you did care that I gave my time and attention and support and meager paycheck to you each Sunday.

Now, you’ve done it. I don’t know how I can look at my friends and say that I support you or your behavior. You apparently thought you would ingratiate yourself to the public by telling them a story about how Dez Bryant took the team out to a steakhouse and spent $55,000 on dinner for them. All of this to make up for some perceived rookie slight towards Roy Williams that everyone had already agreed was not actually a big deal. The whole thing was over and done with. Sure, Dez could have still taken the team out to dinner and the rookies could have paid for the team to dine lavishly. But wouldn’t you try to keep the story quiet, something just between your players and your front office.

Instead, this story has hit the media complete with quotes from team sources and Tweets from players, mid-gorging. So you’re proud of it. While you didn’t encourage it, you aren’t discouraging it either. Before you start giving me reasons why this is not that big of a deal, let me tell you that I think those reasons are, at best, weak and at worst, absolute bullshit of the highest order. You say that plenty of NFL players have had to pay up on bets or promises of steak dinners. You say that it is his money which he is free to spend as he chooses.

But unless your PR department is run by the same brain trust helming the BP PR department over the summer, you should know that you must immediately include a comparable donation to a food bank or charity of some kind to offset the gluttony and wastefulness of this gesture. Perhaps if the rookies were the ones who picked up the tab, the veterans can match that amount with a donation to Austin Street Center, the North Texas Food Bank or the Metro Dallas Homeless Alliance?

But that’s not my real problem with this story. My real problem is that someone somewhere in the chain of command or amongst the players should have known that $55,000 is a lot of money. Money that the people who watch you on TV, buy your t-shirts and save up to attend your games would love to have lying around. There’s a pretty good chance that they don’t have it lying around though and because of that, they have had to give up certain luxuries once the economy took a nosedive. Luxuries like Cowboys games. So what you’re saying to Dallas Cowboy fans who fantasize about what a difference in their life $55,000 would make is essentially, “Sucks to be poor. Let us hear from you when you’ve got money again.” It’s a slap in the face and don’t think for a second that I won’t savor every morsel of news I hear about the team being broke.

Speaking of the team, I don’t blame Dez entirely for this situation. I blame the team’s mentality as a whole. You took a chance on drafting Bryant, a kid whose upbringing you would be generous to describe as “rough” and you told everyone to watch what a disciplined, good guy you believed him to be. And what lessons on character and values do you have to impart on him? A source says that, “Players ordered basically everything on the menu and even took home bottles of wine.” What kind of Latrell Sprewell-ian lesson is this to teach a kid who is young and impressionable? Grandiose displays of gluttony are apparently more important than discipline and humility. How utterly unoriginal that the team that plays in the most tacky and over the top stadium in the NFL encourages such displays.

Let me put it to you this way: you’re a 1-2 team going into the bye who hasn’t managed to get your mange-y, excuses-filled collective asses into a NFC Championship since Justin Bieber was learning to walk. Your second-in-command/coach-in-waiting is Jason Garrett, an offensive co-coordinator who squandered his choice of head coaching opportunities before his talent was discovered to be not much more than a momentary fluke.

Maybe it will take a losing season and empty seats and mounting debts for you to learn that $55,000 steak dinners eaten off the backs of the ever-dwindling number of lower and middle class fans who have the means or enthusiasm to support you don’t taste nearly as good as wearing a Super Bowl ring feels.

I Drank the Internet Kool-Aid and Now I Feel Queasy

2010-08-04T17:41:00.002-05:00

Confession: a few years ago, maybe mid-‘aughts, I was that kid on a Hoverboard telling people who didn’t get behind new media that they were olds who were in denial and they needed to get on the Hoverbus or get left behind. Nice printed newspaper, Nonagenarian! You want a Werther’s Original with that copy of Newsweek? Here’s a nice crocheted shawl to keep you warm as you curl up with The New Yorker.

I would tell anyone that asked, not that anyone asked but I would volunteer my thoughts on the matter loudly like any cocky mid-20’s person would do, that instant news is where it’s at. The overhead is lower, the writers are hungrier (quite literally) and the ability to turn a story out quicker and scoop your competition all signaled the New World Media Order.

I’m a fucking moron. Ok, I get the majority of my news online, as do most people I know. But as I’ve found out in the past few months, weeks and days, the list of online sources you can trust seems to be dwindling. It turns out that not every asshole who can think of a “clever” URL to reserve at Blogspot (see above) is the undiscovered Walter Cronkite of their generation.

Maybe it was the finality of words being immortalized in print and the money that a libel suit against a major publishing company could garner that made print journalists more diligent and trustworthy. It’s easy to get a hot head and think you’ve got something so incredibly clever to share with the world that, editing and self-censorship be damned, you’re going to just hit that Publish button and let everyone soak in your genius. And if it turns out you’re wrong about the whole thing or people don’t exactly lap it up, you can always go back and edit. Or even better, you can deflect any criticism by picking apart your critics.

I wrote about the Chief Brown kerfuffle yesterday. It’s a pretty good example of when emotions, vitriol and bias get in the way of pesky things like facts. Interpretation is a slippery slope when publishing doesn’t involve multiple editors and printing presses but a few taps on an iPhone screen. And now Deadspin has leapt at the opportunity to prove why, despite occasionally dressing the part and keeping up in the conversation, they don’t deserve to sit at the grownups table.

You can go here and read the entire thing. The synopsis is: girl tells acquaintance, we’ll call him “AJ”, who works at Deadspin an anecdote about Brett Favre leaving her voicemails and sending pictures of his man places. AJ says he’d love to get her on the record, in case you weren’t fully convinced that Deadspin is less worried about breaking worthwhile news stories and just concerned with trying to take rich pro athletes down a peg by embarrassing them. Girl declines offer. Favre retires (or doesn’t, which you would think would be the story they would be chasing down here) and AJ decides that they need to strike while the iron is hot. He remembers the wiener picture story.

This is where a story about cell phone pics of dongs and Crocs manages to get sleazier. He shoots the girl an email informing her that he would be running the story and if she’d like to get on the record with it or send those pictures along, that would be great but this story is just TOOOOO hot to pass up. Needless to say, she’s upset. It almost certainly could endanger her career and livelihood. Also, there’s the minor issue of the fact that he had a verbal contract with his source to not reveal her identity without her permission. But I guess when it comes to sports news that will shake the earth to its’ core, pesky things like promises and character should never get in the way. The good news for him is that AJ doesn’t seem to ever risk going to jail for not revealing his sources. In fact, just give him a slow news day and he’ll cough up names faster than Hedda Hopper. You wouldn’t know her. That was a reference for the olds.

The joke here is that Deadspin anted up its small pot of credibility it had with a story that is remarkably meh. So I’d like to offer up this open letter to Deadspin:

Dear Deadspin,

First off, you have my full permission to reprint any or all of this blog entry for whatever use you see fit. I know you find that an unnecessary step but it makes you look a little less like a multi-level marketing scheme run out of a PO Box and more like a real publication.

I saw your post about Brett Favre sending pictures of his ding dong to a cute girl and leaving her flirty voicemails. Now maybe my moral compass is way off but I default to an assumption that any rich, male professional athlete has done one of or both of these things. Multiple times. Married, divorced, widowed. Doesn’t really matter.

If I know a half dozen people in my small group of friends who have received that sort of picture, it seems to be a pretty common occurrence. Therefore the law of averages back up my assumption that a pro athlete, a man whose profession includes appearing hyper-masculine and showing off, is likely to participate in this behavior.

So you told me that one did. He didn’t have a love child, didn’t kill a stripper, didn’t do blow off the carcass of a bald eagle. He sent a girl he thought was cute a picture of his business. This is not news. This is not shocking. Please try harder next time.

Sincerely,
Deadspin reader

And so now I’m left with my sad realization that new media is maybe not the great youth revolution that I had previously claimed it would be. A lot of times it’s more of a party line with wild rumors and unsubstantiated un-facts being tossed around. The good news is that Deadspin has given fair warning to anyone who might want to give them a story or a tip that any promises of confidentiality are as non-binding as Favre’s retirement promises.

I feel cheated.

PLEASE COME JOIN ME IN BURYING THE PUTRID CORPSE OF COMMON SENSE. IN LIEU OF FLOWERS, PLEASE BRING YOUR OUTRAGE

2010-08-03T20:38:00.005-05:00

Let's go ahead and get one thing straight here. Is rape a crime committed by rapists? Yes? Ok, good we agree. Are rape victims in any way to blame for the fact that they were raped? No. Ok, good. We agreed again. We're on a roll here. Well, now that we've gotten that out of the way...

As you might have read on Unfair Park, FrontBurner or Jezebel today, the Dallas Chief of Police David said something that was controversial. FrontBurner seemed to handle it best by presenting Bethany's take on the whole thing while also offering up a link to the video allowing readers to come to their own conclusions. Only the problem is that, before video of his actual quote surfaced, what he said was purportedly something along the lines of, "Women, ya'll are getting date raped more frequently than you were last year. Wise up, ladies! Don't be going out and drinking that firewater around a bunch of men who can only respond to their natural, biological rapey urges. Geez, wominz. Come on! Help us out a little!"

The headlines summed up his quote as, "Dallas Police Chief tells women to not drink so they won't get raped." Now obviously, that would be grounds for immediate dismissal followed by torches and pitchforks. But would Chief Brown say that? Surely not. I mean a lot of public figures have said a lot of dumb stuff in their time. So it's not outside the realm of possibility.

Oh, but it turns out he didn't say that. In fact, what he said was:

"A little bit of known offenders. Date rape primarily. Where alcohol is involved. We're needing to create a message to the victims of these types of crimes, on a prevention kind of component, related to you know, first date, second date, someone you don't know that well, but you're at a club, you've had a little bit too much to drink, having friends or someone help watch you, and maybe have someone that doesn't drink in the group."

"We're finding that these are people that you may go on a date with, and have a little bit too much to drink. You don't know them that well. And it ends in a sexual assault. We're needing to do quite a bit of awareness education campaign to that victim's group. That's causing this spike."

To report that quote as the Chief in any way victim blaming or slut shaming is wholly irresponsible in my humble little blogger's opinion. The analogy has already been made dozens of times that, "This is like saying to not leave valuables in your car and to lock your car. If your car gets broken into whether you took these preventative measures or not, you are still the victim of a crime, you did not bring this upon yourself and you are in no way a guilty party." And they're right.

But let's use a different scenario, since car burglary is not a violent crime unless you consider inanimate objects potential victims of violence. Let's say that instead of the inflammatory topic of rape, this had been a meeting about people, specifically women, getting jumped in parking lots near bars after closing time. They are beaten, robbed, mugged, threatened. It's a bad scene. Now let's say that Chief Brown advised potential victims of these attacks, specifically women who are probably physically smaller than their attackers and therefore more likely to be attacked, to try to be more aware of their surroundings. Maybe being drunk dulls your reflexes or allows you to let your guard down, right?

Now the Chief should not have to preface that reminder with, "But before I say this, let me ease your fears by reminding you that we do still consider aggravated assault and burglary illegal and even if you are shitfaced, that doesn't mean it's your fault. You still should not have been attacked in the first place." We're all adults and know what is legal and what is not. Ergo, I know that Chief Brown is not insinuating that me having too many kamikazes at karaoke night equals open season on me for any predator, criminal or violent offender to attack me and go unpunished.

The idea that anyone is implying that the Chief Brown is only concerned with chastising women for going out and having fun is so absurd to me, I feel like it's been written for a sketch comedy show. So when people say things like, "he should be worrying about preventing rape instead of telling people how to avoid it", my response is: and how exactly does one, in a city council meeting, introduce a "don't rape people, rapists" initiative? Suggest mandatory talks between parents and their sons about how not to rape? Pass out "How Not to Raise a Rapist" literature at PTA meetings? Maybe, though that seems as absurd as the original, hysterical reporting of the quote that started this whole thing.

Should he have prefaced his quote with a long list of the initiatives and steps that DPD is taking to make sure that they catch rapists, a plan to get the funding to process the backlog of cold case rape kits, a reminder of the jail time a convicted rapist faces or a display of some newly updated sex offender database website that the public can access? Sure. But it seems like he was answering a specific question that was asked of him about the rise in rapes, which are increasingly date rapes.

You can report this story one of two ways: you can use common sense, which seems to be the boring mousey blonde stepsister of the much foxier journalistic angle, SHOCK! HORROR! OUTRAGE! My common sense tells me that you don't become Chief of Police by not knowing that rape is a crime perpetrated upon a victim not enabled by one. My common sense also tells me that a Chief of Police with a rising number of rapes on his watch isn't cool with treating the people who are committing the assaults with kid gloves.

Chief Brown is right. As a woman (and I might add, one who has more than one friend who has been raped), I know that he's talking some sense. My parents taught me to not get in cars with strangers, to not leave my house unlocked, to watch out for myself. If anything bad happens to me, they know that I am the victim even if I forgot to lock the door or accepted that ride. And no, I've not always followed my parents sage advice on these matters. But I also don't begrudge them for teaching me those lessons, whether or not I choose to adhere to them, because I know that they are trying to help keep me safe.

Sharp upticks in page views are awesome for any publication. National exposure is pretty great as well. But twisting a completely innocent comment into something sinister, misogynist and offensive is not cool. That's sensationalism and while it is what seems to get the most eyeballs on the story and garner the most comments, it's anything but right.

But you can be the judge:

The original reporting of the quote and the context and the defense of the way it was originally reported, post-video and post comments from the council member to whom he was speaking (A WOMAN!) which deny that the quote should be seen as inflammatory or degrading to women.

The video

Get in on the Ground Floor on This

2010-07-30T16:06:00.003-05:00

My good buddy Aaron, along with his friend Jordan, have a pretty kickass blog called Good At Internet. On it, they utilize their mad Photoshop skills and boredom to create little nuggets of genius.

Now why am I just getting around to telling you about this? It couldn't possibly be because I got credit for coming up with the name on this one, could it? Of course it is. I don't like to wait and let the game come to me.

So go over and eyeball rape their art. And tell 'em Amanda Cobra sent you.

Liveblogging Self-Indulgence

2010-07-08T20:31:00.003-05:00

You Go Live in Utah has decided to make a rare return to the world of actually writing about basketball because the most ridiculous thing to ever happen to basketball since someone said, "Seriously, don't worry about guarding this Wilt guy because he's probably harmless" has occurred tonight. Mind you, it wasn't good. In fact, it was ridiculously bad. And unlike an out-of-the-blue 100 point game, we all had time to take our Dramamine before this mess hit our television screens tonight. So without further ado (which is far more than I can say for both ESPN and LeBron James), I bring to you the You Go Live in Utah liveblog coverage of Brawdo Presents ESPN's Boys and Girls Club of America's Night in a Gym with the Owner of the Fewest Number of NBA Rings: LeBron James.

(It should be noted that I actually turned it on 20 minutes into the whole thing because a) I was cooking dinner and b) I figured that they had to get read off all the sponsors and show the highlight reels of him throwing powder into the air thousands of times so I had a good 15 minutes to burn off before I needed to tune in)

8:22pm: Stuart Scott tells me that "we've been waiting for it for almost 7 years and it's about that time". Hold the fuck up. As far as I was aware, this season's free agency did not start back in July of 2003. I don't remember the summer of '03 being the summer that I marked in my calendar as being the one where I could finally start anticipating that I would one day sit on my couch and watch some drawn out ESPN jerkfest where some uncomfortable looking kids squirmed around looking bored while LeBron James gave non-answers to softball questions for 60 minutes. Hell, I don't even think I had a TV in 2003. And if I did, I sure as hell wasn't using it to watch Sean Salisbury's creepy ass.

8:22pm: Jim Gray uncomfortably asks LeBron if he's ready to go, smacks his hands together, throws them in the air and asks, "Where's the powder?" Le Bron dryly responds, "Left it at home." That's the kind of banter we've waited 7 years for, folks. Gray's follow up question is borderline performance art: "So what's new? What's been going on with you this summer?"

8:23pm: "You weren't able to be recruited because you went into the NBA straight out of high school. So have you enjoyed this free agency process?" Are you asking a man who has given himself the name KING JAMES, a man who is currently sitting in front of you lording over a ONE HOUR PRIME TIME PRESS CONFERENCE if he is enjoying finally getting fawned over? I think he might be. It's a hunch.

8:25: "When did you decide?" "I think I decided this morning. I mean I wake up one morning and it's this team. I wake up one morning and it's this other team." This is the only part of the press conference that makes me like the guy. Say what I really want you to say, LeBron. "Let me level with you, Jim. I have and will continue to make more money than most humans ever. I have more power than most humans should ever have. My ego has fed daily from the hummingbird feeder of press attention that I receive with each day of free agency that passes. Life really can't go wrong for me no matter who I pick. So let me give it to you straight. I hung a bunch of dart boards up in my garage, backed the Bentleys out, put a blindfold on, spun around and just threw a gold-plated dart about an hour before I got here. Truth."

8:25pm: "So the last time you changed your mind was yesterday?" "Uh, the last time I changed my mind was in my dreams." LeBron went on to say that he dreamed that he went to the Nuggets and he had to hear Chris Anderson explain each and every one of his tattoos and how they corresponded to a line from a particular Crazy Town song and how sometimes even when he's on the court he still feels really alone out there. LeBron concluded the story by saying that he woke up screaming and crossed Denver off the list of franchises he keeps written in a Snoopy notebook on his night table.

8:26pm: "So does the team you're going to, do they know?" "They just found out." Mark Cuban is yelling at everyone in his house to stay off the phone. Jay Z isn't even bothering to look at his phone because I imagine he's as annoyed with LeBron as I am. And just to be safe, that guy who owns the 76ers is chasing people away from all the pay phones outside of the Wells Fargo Center.

I just fast forwarded. I skipped over the part where LeBron said that winning is important to him. And he listened to his family. And he likes to help his teammates. To win. We all caught up?

Oh no wait, he also wants everyone to remember that you never know if you're going to win until you go out there and play the game. So just remember that. Unless you're Biff Tanner and you find a discarded sports almanac from the future in the trash. In which case, you probably already know LeBron's decision.

8:27pm: "This fall, and this is very tough, I'm going to take my talents to South Beach."

OH MY GOD. LEBRON IS RETIRING TO LIVE THE LIFE OF A CAREFREE BEACH BUM, TROLLING OCEAN BOULEVARD'S WATERFRONT BOUTIQUES FOR COUTURE AND LIVING THE GOOD LIFE! NO MORE BASKETBALL!

Well, you heard it here first. Dwanye Wade and Chris Bosh will be playing for the Miami Heat there next season so maybe he can get some season tickets and take in some games in his down time. Good for you, LeBron. Long live the King! You've earned it. And way to get out on the top of your game. Sure, the people of Cleveland would have loved a title and all of this drama you've put them through was sort of humiliating. And yes, they should probably hate you. But take those talents to South Beach. I'm sure you'd make one hell of an inline skater. Godspeed!

WATCHING YOUR STORIES: THE AUGHTS EDITION

2010-07-08T11:59:00.006-05:00

I watch horrible TV. So let’s just acknowledge that nothing that I am about to write is going to be written from the haughty perspective of someone who is really getting into Breaking Bad or someone who has written a thesis about the socioeconomic moirés of The Wire. I would probably watch America’s Farthest Poo Flingers if they showed it. That’s only a slight exaggeration.

I get that television can be a perfectly respectable and wonderfully artistic medium and all that jazz. For me, television is the glowing thing that is on in the background when I clean house or write a column. It’s the thing that gives me recipe ideas, tells me what the weather is going to be like or brings me the new episode of Top Gear. It just isn’t a medium in which I put tremendous faith or importance. I like it but it’s pretty dumb.

And this is why I feel like I am missing an important strand of DNA which most of my fellow humans possess. Each time I hear or read someone who genuinely expresses some sort of concern, anger or really any actual opinion on the situation between Jake and Vienna of Bachelor fame, a tiny little corner of my mind is blown. Now I’m not talking about people that I know who watch the show for the sheer absurdity that it dishes out.

I’m talking about people who have taken this show as a real-life soap opera. They’ve assumed that the fiendish pilot Jake has woefully mistreated his bride-to-be Vienna. Because the TV told them so. And it’s reality TV so it REALLY HAPPENED (apparently)! There’s no shame in getting wrapped up in these shows like a housewife gets wrapped up in General Hospital. But it baffles my mind that people are allowing the tag of reality TV to supersede things like, you know, facts.

The fact that none of these people actually, um, get married might be your first red flag. But there’s no reason to be bitter about it. And I’m not. You or I would do it. Go on a show, go on fake dates, get real alcohol, get some fake action or maybe some real action. Get roses or maybe a ring. Show up in public places. Do photo shoots. Develop plots and follow them accordingly. I’d even play the villain role. The whorish woman who ran off and broke the Bachelor’s heart and left him at the chapel. He’ll be in tears in the reunion special. He’ll come back for Bachelor 38: This Time It’s Love and I’ll go on Celebrity Apprentice as the assertive bitch character who makes Weird Al cry. All the time, we’re both cashing checks and the cycle continues.

And the only part of this that confuses me is why we don’t just acknowledge that it’s all, to a huge degree, a set up and that’s ok? Is it because Bachelor viewers can feel intellectually superior to frumpy stay at home moms in their stained sweatpants who watch soaps because when they watch their shows, the performers use their real names and not character names? So there’s still an outside chance that it’s all real? Is it because people who watch the Bachelor so desperately want romance novels to come to fruition that they’re willing to suspend all logic just to watch sunset beach picnics and balcony serenades actually happen? Is it the feminine equivalent of professional wrestling wherein we want an obvious villain to boo and hiss and at which to vent all our pent up anger? They need Jake the Jerk to be their Iron Sheik, so to speak.

Now what’s the big deal about some dumb TV show and so what if some people get really into it? Really, not that much in an isolated setting. Except I think the ever increasing erosion of what fame and reality has brought us to the point where, when reality actually happens it causes intense vertigo. The plane starts to dive, the shaker stick starts to shimmy violently and the next sound you hear on the black box recorder is the ground proximity warning alarm. And if I’m talking about a plane crash, I am of course referring to Lindsay Lohan.

When reality television can make it so easy to fool the public, it can also enable someone in the public eye who has severe issues with narcotic abuse, obviously shitty parents, a tremendous sense of entitlement and a history of pathological lying and self-delusion. So when they crash their car into bushes while drunk and coked up, abandon the car, lie about that, get arrested, bail out, hijack a car with two occupants held against their will while again drunk and high on cocaine, blow through red lights while chasing another car, lie again, refuse to adhere to the terms of probation which was mercifully offered to her, leave the country on the eve of a court date, fitted with a SCRAM bracelet yet continue to drink then show up to court to face all these charges with “fuck u” written on her middle finger….there’s still a sense that in this reality show world that things will just work out.

Surely there’s an edit that can be made. Surely there’s a rewrite that can be done. Can’t her part be recast? Even with her 90 day jail sentence ending up being only 23 days, can’t that shoot be rescheduled? Can’t it be done on green screen back in LA on the Paramount lot?

If that doesn’t work, try the Amnesty International Manic Tweeting Route of comparing your much-needed three weeks in LA County jail followed by even more sorely-needed rehab to International treaty on torture and legislation dealing with federal crimes, of which you are not charged. Sometimes reality is best not dealt with until absolutely necessary.

The Internet Thinks You're Wrong, Ladies

2010-06-16T14:37:00.007-05:00

(Image stolen brazenly from Jezebel)

It’s rare that I get a chance to be an actual expert on anything instead of just bluffing my way through a series of irrational points (see also: my basketball talk). But when something like this comes up…well, I just rub my palms together and thank the Lord above for lists like these that get forwarded faster than the dialog parts of Showgirls.

I am 29 years old. And here’s a list called “30 Things that Every Woman Should Quit Doing by 30” so this is meant for me, right? This is going to be a treasure trove of insight and should act as some sort of maturity litmus test for my life, correct? Not a list of grievances complied by someone who walks around with an internal Seinfeld-esque monologue of unused “What’s the deal with…?” bits.

Let me say that I actually agree with roughly 65-70 percent of the blurbs on this list. But just the fact that the list even exists smacks of smugness and judgeyness that just doesn’t sit right with me. Let’s take a stroll down “Random List Tells People What They’re Doing Wrong” lane, shall we?

1. Buying clothes from the junior section – Fair enough. Unlike Hall and Oates, I can go for that. Mostly because everything in the junior section looks laughable and costume-y on me.

2. Forgetting her parents’ birthdays.- Is that a hallmark of the 20-something set? I guess it is supposed to indicate that you are self-absorbed but most people I know were capable of being a total fuck up and yet still remembering the date of birth of the people who spawned them. Maybe I travel in some highly advanced circle.

3. Making out with her BFFs at bars for attention.- Sign and co-sign on this one.

4. Making out with her boyfriend at bars for attention.- Sign and co-sign on this one.

5. Filling her bed with stuffed animals (really, even one is too many). – Sign and co-sign on this one.

6. Carrying a torch for anyone she hasn’t seen in the last five years.- Pretty solid advice unless that person is your birth parents or something.

7. Rebelling against her parents for the sake of rebelling against her parents. – Rebelling against your parents re: dying your hair crazy colors and getting tattoos? Yes. Rebelling against your parents by not going to work for them at the family meth factory in the guest bathroom? Solid decision making.

8. Declaring an entire gender “all jerks.” – I’m convinced that the woman who wrote this is actually a man whose two main sources were watching Dawson’s Creek and staring at a lifelike mold of a vagina.

9. Holding a grudge against anyone who wronged her in high school. – Girl who was mean to you and teased you? Let that shit go. Person who shot you in a drive-by? Probably ok to hold onto a little resentment. But the bigger point here should have been “LET HIGH SCHOOL GO!”

10. Skipping regular gyno exams. – Again, I would love to know who the fuck this woman is that wrote this. Because I have never heard of this stereotype before. Ever. And let’s not even begin to address the thought that someone might have to “skip” a regular gyno exam because they don’t have health insurance.

11. Going to bed without washing and moisturizing her face. – Probably a pretty fair rule but one that should always have certain loopholes.

12. Being “that person” who had a bit too much to drink at the office party. – Is this only at the office party? If you’re trying to say “stop being the embarrassing, emotional drunk girl” then maybe you should just say that. I can agree with that. By the way, at my office party last year, everyone was “that girl”. Especially the middle-aged guys.

13. Crushing on Justin Bieber. – Signed and co-signed in permanent marker. Cut that shit out.

14. Thinking she’s got it all figured out. – Who, when approaching 30, thinks they’ve got their shit figured out?

HALFTIME! So far, not too bad, right? Some decent advice interspersed with some weird mythological stereotypes I can only guess were cut and pasted from Snopes.com to pad the list out. Oh but it starts to go downhill…

15. Calling her father “daddy.” – Or here’s a better rule: don’t try to make people feel like shit for calling their relatives by the names that they have called them all their lives. But maybe you are right. “Daddy” is a relic of a time when you were a kid and you loved your parents. But now they’re just two people whose birthdays you cannot forget, lest you find yourself not in compliance with another rule on this list. To make everything easier, maybe just call them each by the last four digits of their Social Security Number from now on. Guess what, Shitty List? I’ll call my one remaining grandparent “Gran Gran” until one of us draws our final breath and you can pick which body part of mine you would prefer kissing if you suggest otherwise.

16. Engaging in sibling rivalry. – I’m an only child but this sounds like a pretty solid rule.

17. Trying to get by on her looks. – Right. Because that’s what every 20-something woman is accustomed to doing. None of them have ever had to work to get where they are now. Just showed a little perky cleavage. Well, this list wants you go grow up, ladies! No one thinks you’re hot anymore so you might as well put a bag over that old-ass head of yours and actually try for the first time in your life. God.

18. Living paycheck to paycheck. – This list needs to die in a fire. Because to be so alternately stupid and judgmental as to believe that people just choose to live that way is like telling a cancer patient to “just get better already!” No one wants to live paycheck to paycheck. But guess what, List-hole? There was a little thing called a recession where lots of people lost their jobs, took pay cuts or had to dip into their savings. Right now, I can name half a dozen friends who would be thrilled to be living paycheck to paycheck because it would mean that they actually have a job. But kick them while they’re down, right?

19. Expecting a man/knight in shining armor to swoop in and save her. – Signed and co-signed. But this should also be included in “Two Things Two Year Old Toddlers Should Know”.

20. Aimlessly jumping from job to job. – Again, die. If you’re saying to hold onto a job if you’ve got one, I can agree with you. If you’re saying that someone should not take just about any job that is offered them (nudity being the debatable exception) that will pay their bills, you’re an elitist asshole of a list? This list has a trust fund, apparently.

21. Using MySpace to pick up guys. – No worries there. None of my 29 year old girlfriends are also an emo band looking for someone to help them book a tour of the East Coast this summer so Myspace isn’t really in our lexicon. So this list is independently wealthy, judgmental AND out of touch? Awesome.

22. Expecting a man to do all the wooing. – Fair enough. Everyone can woo all over each other until someone needs a towel. This seems like more list padding.

23. Wishing she had someone else’s life. – I’m pretty sure that anyone of any gender or any age would probably like to trade places with Bill Gates. Do they sit around gluing pictures of Bill Gates head on their bodies? Nope. Do they expend too much time on this thought? Nope. Do they wish that they had a life of unlimited wealth and independence where charity work is the main focus of their day? Yes, they probably do. And that’s human.

24. Expecting everyone to drop everything because it’s her birthday ... – Probably pretty sound. I’m in the waning years of birthday celebrating. Not because this list has convinced me that I’m old, silly and useless. But mostly because I get stuck with a bar tab at the end of the night somehow even on my birthday.

25. ... or because her “boyfriend” of two weeks dumped her. – Again, this list brought to you by the three hours of prime time CW programming the author watched before realizing she/he/it had a deadline and banged out this trail of “ate some old chili” loose bowels of a list.

26. Measuring her self-worth by a number on the scale. – Why aren’t you dead yet, list? Measuring self-worth by a number on a scale is bad. We can agree there. But surely this list, with all of its expendable income to spend on magazines or watching TV, has seen that women of any and all ages are inundated with ads telling them they could (or should) be thinner, less wrinkled, more firm and cellulite-free? But stop paying attention to billions in marketing and advertising, silly bitches! Oh but don’t forget to wash and moisturize every night. Otherwise you’ll be ugly and can’t rely on your looks anymore. Oh wait. Fuck. I’m trapped in your kid’s menu maze’s dead end of logic, Demon List.

27. Being cheap. – So now that we’re like an early 90’s Super Mario Brother walking in place against a brick wall down in a sewer, let’s address this rule. So if I’m going to follow this list as my own personal code of conduct from now on, and I hope I am getting this right, I must not live paycheck to paycheck, not change jobs and also not be “cheap” about things. So I should spend money extravagantly on things which could be purchased for less? And that’s how I prove how grown up I am? Not, say, save that money and put it aside to have some savings so I won’t live paycheck to paycheck? Or maybe even go on a nice vacation? I guess this means that I have to spend a lot on that face wash and moisturizer too? But I’m not supposed to focus on looks and appearance anymore! Circuits overheating. Logic doesn’t compute. Need to call 5034 (formerly known as “Daddy”) for advice. Help.

28. Quitting a job without having a new one lined up first (especially in this economy!) – This is sound advice. And it’s good to see that the Getty heiress who wrote is has, by tip #28, acknowledged that the economy is not exactly rosy right now. Still, don’t be cheap or live paycheck to paycheck. Remember that, you underemployed whores.

29. Blaming her mother for all her issues. – Or how about not blaming anyone for your issues? Wouldn’t that be a sounder piece of advice? No, that would be too broad and not offensive enough. We really want to jab these women good. So yeah, let’s throw that one in.

30. Romanticizing her 20s. – I’m romanticizing the part of my 20’s where I didn’t know this list existed. Back when I thought people were capable of living and let live. Before I knew that the internet has been kind enough to bring people lists of why they suck in the veiled form of self-improvement.

Footnote: I actually can’t wait to turn 30 this year. I can’t wait to leave my generally kinda shitty twenties behind in my dust. If for no other reason than to add my own personal addition to this list –

31. Don’t let lists on the internet written by people you don't know tell you that you’re living your life wrong. Live your life for yourself and don’t let the bastards get you down.

Now enjoy "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan" (written by Shel Silverstein) about how you should go throw yourself off a roof. Or appreciate the irony of the lyrics in conjunction with this list.

THIS F'ing Guy...

2010-06-08T13:40:00.010-05:00

(BP CEO Tony Hayward pictured blissfully unaware that Mr. Burns is not the protagonist of The Simpsons)

It feels kind of silly for me, the blogger who started blogging to talk about how awesome Keith Van Horn is, to even consider writing something about the Deepwater Horizon/BP Gulf disaster. But I think like everyone with a pulse and eyeballs (apologies to anyone who is just as angry as me but eyeball-less), I just can’t contain my rage any longer. I’ve found America’s rage to be so far flung that it almost seems like everyone has a particular aspect of the disaster that infuriates them worse than others and to which they can cling.

During the first few weeks after the explosion, I watched with curious detachment as I saw a lot of people on the internet disclose themselves to be amateur underwater drilling engineering experts. I don’t mean for that to sound dismissive and we all have our individual ways to express frustration but the number of people who were so angry that no one was listening to their OBVIOUS logic about what fixes blown blowout preventer valves seemed extraordinarily high. I felt safe in the fact that, if the oil companies and government were resorting to shooting bulk trash at the crippled well to stop it up like my grandfather trying to rig car hoses with garbage twisty ties, the solution was probably not going to come from the CNN.com viewer feedback comment board.

But I did find my particular shady crevasse of this whole disaster which immediately got me up in arms. It’s very clear that this BP disaster will be studied for years to come. Sure, I mean geologically and environmentally and all of that. But I think that anyone studying public relations will most certainly hear ghost stories 50 years from now of the Bloody BP Public Relations Response Disaster of 2010. Communications and Marketing majors will circle around a campfire late at night with flashlights pressed up against their chins, trading tales of the horrific, extended and messy corporate image suicide of BP’s CEO Tony Hayward. If we could Delorean ourselves back 51 days ago, I would like to offer the following tips to BP:

1. Don’t try to circumnavigate or outright defy offshore oil drilling safety measures and just cowboy your asses off and see what happens. The answer is: lots of profits then big boom then lots of bad stuff.

2. If this does happen and there is a disaster, realize that this disaster will be in the Gulf Coast area of the United States. That’s the South. I’m from the South. They like oil and gas and driving big trucks a lot. So you’re good there.

3. But here’s the catch. Your company is called British Petroleum. So the minute that anything goes wrong, you should by all means, hide your pasty-faced, Eton-educated crumpet muncher of the CEO and find the highest up good ‘ol American boy you have in your company. HE will be the spokesman for your company. I repeat: DO NOT let the limey go anywhere near a microphone. Call it xenophobia if you want. It’s just better off this way.

4. Ok, BP you seem to have ignored all my suggestions up to this point. Fine. You’re going to let the least relatable human on the planet speak to struggling fisherman on the coast who are just starting to recover from Hurricane Katrina? Your funeral. But seriously, you’ve got Hugh Fucking Grant up there stammering and darting his eyes from side to side while an entire country is sharpening their pick axes and lighting their torches. You, BP, must have hired your entire public relations department from Opposite’s Day University.

5. Seriously, BP. You've pissed off a bunch of blue collar Southern fisherman. The last guy you need trying to relate to them is Hayward. He might as well start out the press conference by making out with his mid-gender-reassignment transsexual lover then killing a bald eagle with a crossbow, burning a copy of the Declaration of Independence and pissing on Joe DiMaggio's grave all before he approaches the podium.

6. Alright, so Hayward is out there. Let’s try to make him human. I mean he’s already said that the ocean is big and this really isn’t a big deal and all you dumb Americans are just freaking out over nothing. Yeah, he’s still talking. BP, seriously, cut off his mic like you cut off a drunk relative at a wake. Wait, here he goes again. He’s going to try to say something relatable and humble and contrite and….

On a Today Show appearance on May 30, Hayward remarked, “I would like my life back."

Let me take a moment to break from this blog entry’s previous tone of polite discourse and humorous observations to offer up the biggest, wettest, slimiest, keep-you-up-at-night-and-haunt-your-motherfucking-dreams FUCK YOU HARD AWARD to Tony Hayward. You want your life back? When you clean every goddamned oil-covered bird with the same mouth that uttered such a self-absorbed sentence as that, I’ll think about letting you get supervised weekend visitations with your life. Until then, you and your previous life will have sporadic contact via Skype. Get used to it, ass.

As jokey as I can be about some of this stuff, I want people to get mad and stay mad about this. Whether or not it is just words, I’m happy that Obama seems to not be letting BP off the hook that easily. Besides having to play the role of Captain Obvious and stating that Hayward should have lost his job weeks ago, Obama now is “looking for whose ass to kick” on this issue. No, I don’t get off on the fact that he said a naughty word. I just get the feeling that (erhm, cough cough) previous administrations or presidents would not be as enthusiastic about making sure someone in the oil industry gets in trouble for this.

Of course, then there’s the issue of what we all can do. I want to drive down and clean up every hurt animal. I want to go make signs with fishermen and scream into bullhorns. But I can’t. There aren’t really BP stations in my area and even if there were, that just hurts the small business owner of that location and not the BP that is supplying oil to many stations that don’t have BP’s logo outside. I’m not a huge driver anyways. I live within 5 or 6 miles of my work. I don’t take a lot of big driving road trips.

But if this doesn’t convince even the most ardent of petroleum advocates that alternate fuel sources need to be developed NOW, I don’t know what will. When it’s Ed Begley, Jr. touring the country in his Prius and telling Bubba that he should really consider cutting down his fuel consumption, I can see why it doesn’t have much of an effect. Maybe seeing people that look like Bubba losing their family fishing businesses because the guy from Notting Hill thinks that “the Gulf is very big and the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest” will finally start to get the message through. I hope so.

Then again, maybe this whole thing isn’t that big of a deal. According to BP rep Randy Prescott, “Louisiana isn’t the only place that has shrimp.”

I've Made My Leap into the Wide World of Podcasting!

2010-06-02T15:51:00.003-05:00

If you click on these magically illuminated words, you can listen to the "It's Just Banter" podcast with TC and Jake. I was on it yesterday. It was fun and outdoorsy. That gaping space of silence at the end where I forget the URL for this blog? That's why they pay me the big bucks. Good times. And please don't actually go do a search for Amanda Cobra on Pornhub. Thanks to TC and Jake for having me over. They still have half of my turkey wrap sandwich. Treat it with respect, boys.

The Award for Most Pointless Grass Roots Protest Goes To....

2010-06-01T15:04:00.003-05:00

Quit Facebook Day. In case you didn’t know, and you probably didn’t because the brain trust that came up with this idea apparently don’t own calendars, yesterday was Quit Facebook Day. Here’s a hint, guys. When you’re trying to kick start some sort of viral movement to theoretically get the largest possible group of people you can to quit using a social network, maybe don’t pick a holiday where none of them are at work or anywhere near a computer as your launch day. If you were pushing Drunk Boogie Boarding Awareness Day, maybe. But really, yesterday? Really, really poor planning on your part.

But clearly this is only the start of why Quit Facebook Day is so full of fail. The founders say that it is all to raise awareness of Facebook’s repeated invasion of user's privacy and what they claim are shady privacy setting policy changes that they Trojan horse like Senators who pass weird bills late at night when no one is watching the CSPAN feed. I don’t disagree with any of this. I’m sure there’s some people on the bandwagon who are also Henry David Thoreau-ing their pants about people developing addictions to Facebook and want to bring us all back to simpler, make-your-own-butter times.

Let’s tackle that one first. Now, you’ll find no one who hates Farmville and Mafia Wars more than this girl. But everyone’s allowed to have their Words with Friends, DigiPets, Fantasy Football leagues or whatever it is that keeps them from snapping and mowing down their coworkers on hot August days. However, if you are smugly telling me that I should in any way feel shame or guilt about relying on Facebook in some way, suck it. I do rely on Facebook. Heavily. I’ll explain.

When you’re in your teens and early 20’s, you’ve got your gang. You’ll always be a gang. You have your crazy fun times. You go to bars and concerts and you wake up in bushes. And then one friend gets a kickass job in a far off city. And then another friend gets accepted into grad school in another far off city. And then yet another friend meets and marries a boy from another country entirely. You understand how this works. Then you start throwing in the natural human process of baby making. Frankly, it’s hard to imagine what it was like before Facebook. Why should I apologize for using a website that I can log into and see pictures of my best friend’s baby now that she lives in London? Where’s the shame in checking the site to find out that a friend I haven’t seen in a year is going to be in town over the weekend and wants to go have drinks? I fail to see why I should be at all apologetic about the fact that the site serves as an internet-based social organizer of sorts for me.

But that’s not the big issue here, according to the organizers of National Quit Facebook Day if You Actually Had to Work on The Holiday Weekend. The issue is privacy and Facebook dicking over their users and selling their information and the fact that users’ data is not actually theirs. And to that, the most astute point I feel I really must make here is: uh, duh. Facebook’s CEO seems as slimy as Dov Charney oil wrestling Terry Richardson (Jesus forgive me for what I just typed) but that’s really not the point to me. Some people are mad about the fact that when you go to a website like Blockbuster or CNN, the articles or pages you view or any information gathered from your visit to that site can be connected with your profile information and sold to advertisers. Supposedly, you can go into your Facebook account and change your security settings to prevent this.

I haven’t which means that, were I to be worked up like these people, some big ol’ scary corporation out there now knows (based on my internet article reading today) that I am interested in CNN articles about men wearing Spanx for “back support”. They can now cross-reference that with the fact that my religious views are that I “worship Diet Dr. Pepper” and I enjoy the films of Robert Mitchum. I look forward seeing what spam offers come out the other end when you feed that into the machine.

There’s one hard and fast (pause to allow our less mature readers a brief giggle) rule here. NASA is working on cooking me up a font big enough to express what I am about to say with as much passion as I feel about the matter, but for now this will have to do:

DON’T BE PUTTING SHIT ON THE INTERNET THAT COULD COME BACK TO BITE YOU IN THE ASS IN AN HOUR/A DAY/A WEEK/WHEN YOUR KIDS GET OLD ENOUGH TO DO GOOGLE SEARCHES/WHEN YOUR GRANDCHILDREN ARE PUTTING TOGETHER THE SLIDESHOW FOR THE FUNERAL.

It really is that simple. Yes, the fact that data mining leads to all kind of “helpful suggestions” on the sides of pages that are a) anything but helpful and b) usually a little creepy is kind of annoying. I chalk that up as being a price that I have to pay to use a social networking tool that is free of charge to keep up with my friends. As far as my pictures and information not being mine, I’m okay with the fact that Facebook now owns over 40 pictures of my friends and I sitting on patios of bars or pictures I have taken with my Blackberry of weird looking dogs or funny typos on signs. If you’re putting copyrightable pictures or writings up on Facebook, you are a moron. If you’re uploading pictures of your friends peeing on you while you’re passed out, just do so with the mental image of every potential boss flipping your resume over at the start of every job interview you ever go to and seeing that picture before the first question is asked.

So I ended up celebrating Quit Facebook Day by meeting up with my friend Kelli, who moved to San Francisco last year and whom I keep in touch with primarily through Facebook, and we drank margaritas at Gloria’s. It was fun. Feel free to sell any and all of that information to Eli Lily, Philip Morris, Time Warner or whoever makes Bumpits.

As a side note: Hey Facebook – I just wanted you to know that my real name is not Amanda Cobra and my religious views are not actually based around carbonated beverages. So in a weird way, I kind of feel like I double-crossed you. Sucker.

Let's See if We Can Really Leap This Sharp-Tooth Swimming Beast

2010-05-25T11:43:00.005-05:00

As some of you may know, I am now a weekly columnist for the Quick. You can click on this here fancy hyperlinked sentence to read last week's column. And then you can probably type in my name to further delve into my illustrious columning (new word! so hot!) career. The fact that I have bamboozled a print publication into letting me sully their product each week combined with the fact that I lost my zeal for blogging about the Mavs means that this blog has become the internet equivalent of Richardson Square Mall. Tumbleweeds rolling depressingly past an airbrushed t-shirt and cell phone accessories kiosk and the lone remaining anchor store, Sears. It's always the Sears that is the last to go. Berkner High School alum, that joke was for you! Holla back, Rams!

So I've been thinking of using this blog, until the Cowboys come back and take a big steaming dump on our football hopes and dreams of a hometown Super Bowl, to just write down the things that Belo clearly will not publish because they have good judgment. Probably not sports related. Most likely me just bitching about things like water heaters and the price of artichokes. I don't expect many people to read this. This blog is pretty much just a slightly more hygienic version of the people who repeatedly try to explain Lost to sprinklers outside the downtown library.

And to prove this point, I would like to issue the following warning: be really careful about taking valerian root before you go to bed. You see, me and sleep have a very volatile relationship. I love sleep. Sleep is pretty ambivalent about me. I have to set the mood and dress up and make everything just right to make sure sleep comes over. So from time to time, I have taken valerian root to encourage sleep. It works sometimes. But with alternately bizarre and awesome side effects.

It causes dreams that range from sort of scary to full-on, intensity in 10 cities level kickass. Usually, I only remember bits and pieces of my dreams. I was so excited when I woke up this morning that I hit record on my Blackberry to ensure that no detail of my two distinct dream cycles was lost. I present to you, unedited, last night in AmandaCobra's Valerian Dream Explosion:

Dream 1:

I was hired by the big belt sander lobby. I was a belt sander lobbyist, hired to travel the country proclaiming the virtues of belt sanders. I didn't really know a lot about belt sanders but I learned.

But then as I traveled the country, I learned that pretty much anyone who needed a belt sander in their lives was already solidly on Team Belt Sander. Those who weren't on Team Belt Sander weren't really on the fence because, well, they didn't need a belt sander and didn't know why I was wasting their time.

So once I realized that, I also realized that all the time that the Big Belt Sander lobbyists were paying me to preach the gospel of Belt Sanders, I could instead just go to amusement parks. So I did.

But then I got caught after a few months. Instead of losing my job and causing my lobbying group much embarrassment, we worked out a deal where I would travel the country in an Airstream trailer and sing folk songs in the style of Woody Guthrie about belt sanders to appeal to the working man.

This turned out to work surprisingly well and Bruce Springsteen and I recorded a duets album all about belt sanders. Then I woke up.

Dream 2:

Noted comedian Steve Harvey and I were hired by a very downmarket motel chain to travel across the country on a very special mission.

(Side note: Why I gotta be traveling on all these missions in all my dreams? It is very tiring. Can't I just rest for a little bit?)

You see, this motel chain was so low-end and podunk that they had failed to replace any of their in-room telephone books since 1975. Yes, there are many holes in this dream's logic. Why did no one notice this error until 2010? Who uses telephone books anymore? Who hires me and Steve Harvey for this job?

Well, the company's plan was as follows: Steve and I were given a master key which opened every door to every room at every motel in their chain, which is a horrible idea. I would open the door and using my cat-like dexterity and speed, I would sneak into the room while Steve Harvey distracted and entertained the room's occupants with a short stand-up set. While they were distracted I would replace their old 1975 phone books with new phone books.

Overall, Steve and I made a great team and most people never even noticed the switch. Based on this dream, I would highly recommend any cross-country trip with Steve Harvey. He is a wonderful travel companion.

Also, valerian root is kind of badass.

YOU'RE YELLING ABOUT HAMBURGERS! JUST STEP BACK AND LET THAT SINK IN.

2010-05-25T11:08:00.001-05:00

In the Bible, some Biblical person (probably Jesus, he’s allll up in that book) said, “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them." Similarly, when a new franchise expands into North Texas and a blog posts something about it, so too shall the trolls descend. I like to read D Magazine’s blog, FrontBurner. It breaks up the monotony of my work day and even though I’m not cool enough to play Words with Friends with the editors and I can’t afford anything they advertise on their site or in their print product, I’d like to think that I am still a loyal reader. So imagine my surprise when all attempts on my part yesterday to read FrontBurner were met with the dreaded “System Error” message. Oh well. I guess Words with Friends really was the death of them.

So I headed over to Unfair Park to catch up on their news. “Oh huh, they’re putting an In-n-Out Burger in Firewheel Mall in Garland? That’s right by my grandma’s house. Weird. Well, back to living life.” Imagine my surprise when FrontBurner returned to life this morning, adrenaline needle still dangling from its’ heart, and told me that it had briefly crossed over where dead pets and grandparents live because of their story about In-n-Out Burger. Really? To their credit, they appear to have broken the story. Rather they broke the story which appeared to return the favor quickly thereafter. I clicked on the story and saw that there were 106 comments. Wow. I rubbed my hands together, excited to jump headlong into a thread that was sure to touch on everything from the chain’s above-par treatment of their employees, how they would maintain their freshness standards so far outside their distribution area, their religious founders, maybe some new secret code words for ordering off-menu treats? Oh boy, this is gonna be good!

Fuck. I should have known. Because it’s the goddamned internet. So of course, I get 106 comments worth of suck. Let me break down the 106 comments left on the Great In-N-Out Burger Thread:

(These numbers are approximate)

“In-n-Out Burger isn’t that good/Whataburger is better” - 45 comments
“In-n-Out Burger is fucking awesome/Whataburger sucks/Sonic sucks/Red Robin sucks/I’m from California” – 74 comments
“I GO TO CALIFORNIA A LOT! IT’S FAR AND I TRAVEL!!!!! BUT I’M BEING CASUAL WHEN I MENTION THIS!” – 39 comments
“Garland sucks/Southlake is better” – 19 comments
“Nuh uh, Garland is awesome! Rich people live here!” – 3 comments
“Food, Inc.” – 1 comment

Let me first say that I’m happy for D Magazine that they got lots of hits and comments and traffic. It appears it was a crippling amount. Kind of like when so many people show up to your birthday party and buy you so many birthday drinks that you end up puking into a shoe of unknown ownership. But why can’t people handle their shit when given the ability to comment on a blog? It’s a story about an f’ing burger franchise opening and you people are yelling at each other and name calling? Alright, I’m going to draw a line with chalk. Anyone who likes hamburgers from In-n-Out, step over to the left. Anyone who doesn’t like them, step over to the right. Guess what, there’s good news and bad news. Taste is subjective which means neither one of you are right and neither one of you are wrong. It does, however, mean that any of you who made more than two comments about whether or not a particular chain makes good hamburgers are, pardon the phrase here, dillweeds of the highest order. Chillax. Seriously.

If you’ve never had an In-n-Out burger and therefore have no opinion, I have nothing but great news for you. You can form an opinion sometime in the near-ish future when the first In-n-Out in Texas opens in Firewheel Mall in Garland. You would have known that yesterday but people on the internet had to yell about hamburgers and immigrants and stuff so you had to wait until today. Sorry.

Communication Breakdown

2010-04-28T13:19:00.004-05:00

As you probably heard, Mike Bacsik from The Ticket (Dallas sports radio station) was fired for putting things on Twitter that involved the phrase “dirty Mexicans” and “Stern’s cornhole” (the latter being an excellent name for a booth on the food pavilion at the State Fair this year). I don’t know Mike Bacsik and don’t think I’ve ever met the dude before. But I feel really, really bad for him. I’m not particularly interested in discussing the political correctness or incorrectness of what he put on Twitter. I watched this Great Twitter Mistake unfold before my eyes and I never thought for a second that it would lead to this.

Let me explain: I get a head’s up that Bacsik is drinking and Tweeting (horrible idea but we all have horrible ideas we indulge from time to time) and that he is very upset about the game and the way it’s being called. By the time I find his Twitter, he’s speculating about David Stern’s no-no areas. There’s some exchanges between some friends and I about how amusing/possibly not a good idea this all is. I said the words, “It’s funny to watch but someone NEEDS to take his phone away from him, hide it, pretend it’s missing and then return it to him when he is in a better state.” Then I saw the second to final Tweet about “dirty Mexicans in San Antonio.” And I knew it was a joke. Albeit, one in pretty poor form considering he is a public figure. But it was a joke.

I get why he had to be fired, though I may not agree. I find it reaching that every article I read about it mentions that he was the pitcher who gave up “the” homerun to Barry Bonds. It makes me wonder what, should I ever become semi-famous, will be my etched in history moment? I’m hoping it is that time that my friend Chrissy and I managed to pilfer an entire pizza off a man sobbing late at night in a NYC subway station or maybe the fact that I’m the only known person to have injured herself in a backyard (next to a keg) doing a Leon Lett impression. But Bacsik got to play professional sports so that means that we can all remind him of his failures in that sport when anything happens to him from now on. Serves him right for playing baseball!

But all this is very beside the point. My bigger issue is how hot exactly I think the fire Twitter dies in should burn. Hot enough to melt titanium is my current answer. I’ve written about it countless times and there’s no reason to beat you over the head with it again. I’ve tried Twitter as many times as Oprah has tried to lose weight and keep it off. There is no appeal. I don’t get how it works and I don’t get anything positive from it. In the past 72 hours, Twitter has allowed the following thoughts to go from air bubbles in cerebral blood flow to something that is permanently available for public viewing:

Michael Lohan, father of Lindsay, decided to give people a head’s up that his daughter is “living with HIV” and that she “had an affair with Tommy Mottola when she was 17.”

Jenna Jameson decided to try to work out her recent brush with abuse at the hands of her boyfriend by using Twitter to counter some of his claims and throw some slings and arrows his way. He, naturally, rebutted by accusing her publicly of being hooked on Hillbilly Heroin. As you do to the mother of your kids, you know.

I’m not saying that Twitter begat lousy humans but giving morally sorry people or drunk people or people who need instant feedback a forum wherein any old bullshit that can be abbreviated into 140 characters is permanently etched into the interwebs is a really horrible idea. Sure, that leaves Facebook statuses or drunk dialing/texting/emailing as an alternate route to ruining your career, talking shit about people or starting fights. But Twitter seems the most immediate and hardest to live down. I miss the old days when you had to pick up a phone and call someone in the heat of the moment to tell them that they are a polesmoker. And how contained that outburst could be in the privacy of a two-way call.

Unless Bacsik’s Twitter was hacked, he can’t blame the messages or the fallout on anyone but himself. But there’s the rub. I don’t think he is. The guy’s said sorry a lot. But apparently everyone who is out to crucify him has never cracked an offensive joke or sent a message that they wished they could get back within a few seconds or minutes of hitting that sexy “send” button. We all live in glass internet houses (like the movie BioDome, kind of) and I’ll be the first to stand up and say that reading back through old posts on this blog make me cringe sometimes. You’re a lucky motherfucker if everything you’ve ever written/posted/texted/emailed/said is something you stand by 100 percent. If so, I would like to meet you so I can call you names and Tweet about you. Until then, lay the fuck off this guy. He had what seems to me to be a pretty badass job and it’s gone now. That stings real bad. If for nothing other than your own karma, don’t jump on the pile. Unless you’re sure that you will never say or write anything that you might regret or about which you could have a change of heart. Ok, deal?

Signed,

A Filthy German

2010-04-14T17:41:00.004-05:00

But I Like Deadspin But I Think They’re Wrong But I Like Blogs and Dale Hansen Seems So Pompous So I Can’t Agree With Him and Why Does Jerry Jones Look Like the Biggest Badass in the Bunch. (Subtitled: WTF?)

I’m so confused that I need to grab onto something stationary to keep the room from spinning. Yesterday, as you may know, Slurgate hit the interwebs via Deadspin. In case you’re too lazy to click and watch, someone approached Jerry Jones in a bar. Jerry Jones was drinking. In a bar. The person introduced themselves as a Cowboys fan. They ingested drinks with Jerry Jones. In a bar. They brought up the Cowboys (and Tim Tebow, which must be the biggest wet blanket conversation topic you can bring up in a bar but whatevs) and Jerry talked about the Cowboys. In a bar. Someone pulled out their phone and recorded video of the conversation. At no point in time did we learn that Jerry has a dislike of certain minority groups. Jerry didn’t grab himself a handful of sweet sweater meat. Jerry didn’t start to cry when “I Hope You Dance” came on. Jerry talked about the Cowboys and said that a) he couldn’t get Tim Tebow on the field should he draft him b) he’s “gotta have a yes man” c) he brought Parcells in to get the new stadium and, just as we all suspected, d) "Sell mammoth fuckin' rake.”

I watched the video. And then I went ahead and kept living my life, slightly disappointed. I wondered if other, non-Dallas dwelling Deadspin readers would find something shocking in this video that I somehow had missed. Maybe they had assumed that Jerry was a teetotaler. Maybe they had never heard a man from Arkansas say the no-no words. There wasn’t anything on that tape that we all didn’t know already. Other than the fact that he loves Bill Parcells (he said it!). And for the record, a Cowboys fan secretly taping Jerry in a moment of what he assumed was a trusted private inebriated rake talk is a tad sketch. But you might want to show it to your boys at work. Understandable. Just don’t, say, upload it to your Facebook page or forward it to anyone. That would be tacky. It goes without saying that, no matter WHAT you think of Jerry as a team owner, it’s a shitty human thing to do to send it in to Deadspin in some attempt to either humiliate your team or the owner or buy yourself a chintzy, gold spray painted 15 minutes of internet fame trophy. Can’t you just lip-synch to Justin Beiber in a shark tank on YouTube or something instead? We’re the Dallas Cowboys. We get enough shit as it is without you turning a chance encounter into a Japanese subway Upskirt/Downblouse PR nightmare?

But then Dale Hansen has to chime in. Because getting angry about things is to Dale Hansen what photosynthesis is to plants. The problem for me is that I’m torn. I like his message (I think) but the delivery is like watching an OB/GYN try to bring a breached baby into the world using a Sawzall and a ball peen hammer. Again, all of this slight agreeing that I’m doing with Dale Hansen should be balanced out with the disclaimer that I *THINK* this is what Dale is trying to say. What Deadspin posted was not news. It was gossip. Now, Deadspin has never claimed that it was exclusively a news site. But the idea that the story was posted under the guise of being news (“Jerry hired Parcells to get his stadium” or “Jerry sells mammoth fuckin’ rake”) purely to be able to post embarrassing video of a drunk owner being, well, a drunk owner seems slightly deceptive. The actual headline reads: “Slurring Jerry Jones Bad-Mouths Bill Parcells, Tim Tebow.” Come on. Kitten, put those claws away. I’ve heard my grandmother whisper more offensive remarks during communion. Then again, my grandmother loves to sell rake too. Deadspin has been a legit news source that broke, amongst others, the Josh Hamilton Cool Whip story. And I know this all comes off as sounding like I love playing in the sandbox until someone flings sand in my direction then I cry and go tell. Maybe it is. Maybe I don’t like it when people do the equivalent of selling Jerry’s sexy picture texts to a sleazy magazine just to get themselves a tiny little brush with fame.

However, I don’t think Dale Hansen was the guy to take on this story. As I said, the message was lost in the delivery. Because no matter what Dale says, it’s overshadowed by the fact that YOU MUST KNOW THAT HE HAS AN OPINION WHICH IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACT!!!!!!!!! I appreciate his passion but threatening near-suicide like some character from a Poppy Z. Brite novel does not make me want to be on your side on this ethical Tug of War. Also, here’s a way to automatically lose any argument when it comes to anything to do with new media: refer to whomever is controlling, writing or editing the web-based media as "A fat kid in a t-shirt in his mother's basement eating Cheetos and writing his blogs.” You might also want to similarly refer to Bill Gates as, “that fucking four-eyed dweeb with asthma who doesn’t play sports and stays inside all summer looking at that stupid electronic math box.”

Listen Dale, and I feel like I can call you that because I wrote you a letter when I was in 6th grade because you were coming to speak at my school and I told you about how you were my hero and I wanted to be the first female sportscaster in Dallas and I couldn’t wait for you to come visit my school. You responded in dry erase marker on the back of the letter I sent which was something at least. I am pretty lazy and usually don’t even respond to emails I get through this blog. Anyways. Dale, I think we might be on the same team here and I get it that you feel like your profession that you have worked at your whole life has been threatened by these punk ass kids. And you think the shit they do is easy. Maybe it is. But you don’t do your argument any favors by painting an entire medium and their readers with a very wide and unflattering brush.

The moral of this entire story is a simple one. One that brings together all generations. It doesn't matter if you're a newspaper reader, a television news watcher, a Deadspin commenter or a Ted Kaczynski starter kit. There is only one Supreme Truth. Jerry Jones is a badass. I would give any worldly possessions I currently own or will ever own or could ever fathom owning in an alternate reality for the opportunity to go bar-hopping with Jerry Jones for one night. No cell phones, no cameras, no pens, no paper. Discretion is not only advised, it is guaranteed. Please, Jerry, call me. Together, there will be no more mammoth rake ever sold before and none more mammoth sold ever again.

Mitt Romney to Ron Paul: “No fair! Stop it! Seriously, that hurts. I’m gonna tell!”

2010-03-09T13:24:00.003-06:00

So Mitt Romney has requested, or pitifully demanded, that Republicans vote for whomever has an R next to their name in the upcoming election instead of supporting grass-roots, Tea Partiers, Libertarians or any other “beatnik weirdo longhaired third party”* candidates. (* may not be an actual Mitt Romney quote) Oh, the Ralph Nader sting we felt back in 2000. But here’s the problem with that, Rommers. And I do hope you don’t mind if I call you that. See, people tend to support third party candidates when they feel like their party has veered focus off the issues that actually matter to them. Real simple stuff here, Rommers.

Now, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday (I’m trying to appeal to the folksy demo like Sarah Palin). I understand that this isn’t about party solidarity. It’s about you soiling your temple garments over the thought of the base being so fractured that a clear majority is impossible and you will actually have to scrap for the nomination. Tough stuff, homes. Listen, I am pretty unabashedly liberal in almost all areas. So don’t think I don't get a little case of joyshorts just thinking about your party imploding on itself. And that’s not to say that Democrats do a tremendously superior job to Republicans, as the differences between the two seem to be dwindling.

But here’s the thing. I’m your demo. I’m your target audience. Provided all my vaccinations are up to date and I can stop eating raw hamburger meat, I probably have another few decades of voting years and elections cycles left in me. And don’t think that I, like my grandfather, am just a straight-ticket Democrat. I can mix it up. I like people who, as middle management might say, think outside the box. Even if there is something other than a “D” after their name. And that, my friend, is where you have screwed the pooch.

I know a fair amount of people my age who are conservative. And, while I hesitate to put words in their mouths, I would venture to say that their concern is not that gay people might be able to legally marry and tear a grapefruit-sized hole in the space time continuum by doing so. They seem to be pretty okay with stem cell research. They don’t, by and large, care about music with explicit lyrics ruining our children, a statue with a boob hanging out or Harry Potter turning all youth into mini Anton LaVeys.

What they do seem to really care about is government spending, bailouts, jobs and the feeling that the federal government has gotten out of control. They probably are really interested in things like state’s rights, though your mileage may vary. In short, they kind of hate you. A lot. Now this is a bit of a curse for them as they seem to be willing to support people based purely on the fact that they have very little experience. Because “experience” to them now denotes someone who has been a cog in the Washington machine for far too long and is part of the problem. That’s a bitch. Seriously. I would imagine that if I spent the better part of my adult life working my way up the ranks to represent my constituents in a local, state or national forum only to then be told that I suck because I spent all that time doing so and not hurling Molotov cocktails at the IRS headquarters, I would be mega-pissed.

But there’s one part of this whole thing for which you, Rommers, are completely culpable. And it’s not just you, homeboy. Your main (non-third-party) rival for the nomination is Mike Huckabee. Now there’s a dude who loves him some social conservatism. He makes you look like Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank splitting a plate of fois gras aboard the SS Socialist. Yes, you’ve got your Republican baby boomers to whom social conservatism might still be of paramount importance. But what about this: you’re a 20 or 30-something conservative. Which of these things keep you up at night: the idea that the government is raising your taxes to help out big companies that operated recklessly at the same time that you are trying to buy your first house and start a family or the idea that Dave and Mike down the street might get married legally in your state in the near future?

Again, I am not too much of a fiscal conservative but I can always see where they are coming from and respect it. But as someone who is on the outside watching this whole thing go down, I have to shake my head and wonder what in the world the Republican party is thinking. Not to be sweepingly dismissive but I generally think your Tea Partiers are kind of batty. I also realize they are a growing and increasingly frustrated movement. And they don’t like anything that seems too “government-y” to them. So you telling them that they should totally vote for the incumbent Republican no matter what just for the sake of the Grand Ol’ Party? Full of fail. Clearly you haven’t seen how self-righteous and indie some people my age get when the name Ron Paul comes up. That guy is like the Wes Anderson of young conservatives.

Hope some of this helps, Rommers. I look forward to your reply. Also, that Scott Brown guy rented a truck. You might want to think about that and maybe call around to Avis and Enterprise and Budget and get some quotes. Maybe get a bloodhound dog to ride in the truck and name him Reagan or Buckley, too. Seriously, man, I’m just trying to help.

Sincerely,
Someone Who Was Never Going to Vote for You in the First Place

A Desperate Plea for Help

2010-03-04T12:40:00.001-06:00

I need your help. I am desperate. This is not a joke. Please help me!

I need to add to my jogging playlist because the weather’s nice outside and I have found myself working out longer than I apparently was working out last time I was working out. Working out. Anyways, I am taking any and all suggestions. To give you an idea of what I like to listen to when I work out, and to discourage any hipsters from setting up camp and making my brain hurt with their Belle and Sebastian suggestions, here’s my current jogging playlist: (and please, do not for a minute entertain the thought of “Oh look at Amanda trying to show how obscure/ironic/schtick-y her music taste is”, ok?)

“Driver’s Seat” – Sniff n’ the Tears
“Just Got Paid” – Johnny Kemp
“Death of Autotune” – Jay-Z
“Buffalo Stance” – Neneh Cherry
“Genius of Love” – Tom Tom Club
“Two of Hearts” - Stacey Q
“Bad Romance” – Lady Gaga
“When the Lady Smiles’ - Golden Earring
“Boom Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back to My Room)” – Paul Lekasis
“Bat Out of Hell” – Meat Loaf (HI MOM!)
“Disturbia” - Rhianna
“Why?” – Jadakiss
“Horror Business” – Misfits
“Vision Thing” – Sisters of Mercy
“All Too Vivid” – Vega
“More More More” – Andrea True
“Everywhere” – Fleetwood Mac
“Blue Sky” – A-ha
“Freedom ‘90” – George Michael
“I Decided” – Solange
“Kiss You All Over” – Exile
“Call Me Up” – Gang of Four
“Who’s That Girl?” – Annie Lennox
“English Boys With Guns” – Deaf School
“I Know There’s Something Going On” – Freda

I Missed the Boat on Reality Television

2010-03-03T14:36:00.003-06:00

I have very little shame in admitting that, as an impressionable youth, I was a fan of The Real World. I liked it when folks stopped being polite and started getting real. I like pegging who was the slut, who was the party animal, who was the one with the “alternative” lifestyle. The show started to lose me when it became one big extended spring break. It’s hard to get into a show when you don’t root for anyone. You’d just rather see them all be confined to some VD clinic or contained in a Biodome, ensuring mankind’s well-being. It seems that my disinterest in the Real World intersected perfectly with the explosion of reality TV’s popularity. I have not only missed the boat, I have run from the pier in the opposite direction screaming.

First there was Survivor and Big Brother and Fear Factor, none of which interested me because I couldn’t find the backstabbing and immunity challenges and alliances interesting in the least. But the next wave of shows were the ones who nailed my reality television coffin shut for good. Laguna Beach and The Hills didn’t just manage to bore me but they actually annoyed and enraged me. Why in the world would I care about the (obviously staged) drama of the very spoiled, very dim, very white and very selfish? I can’t keep my Kristin Cavallaris apart from my Audrina Patridges and the name LC still only conjures a vague and hazy picture of a skinny white girl with a large handbag who drives a much nicer car than me.

As you can tell, I am aware of the existence of these people. I’m not one of those types who scoffs at anyone with a working knowledge of empty pop culture as some unenlightened Neanderthal. Also, I’m a big gossip blog reader. I just can’t keep them straight. And the fact that those two shows gave the world Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt makes my head hit my desk with terminal velocity. This is what we’ve come to, folks. People who take hot knives to their face in order to sell 600 copies of their self-produced pop album or make the cover of a tabloid weekly which will be thrown away by an airline cleaning crew and forgotten next week.

While I don’t enjoy the shows, I am fascinated by those who do. I think there are genuinely people who watch these shows to see all the twists and turns of the cast members, as if they really are just going about their lives with the small intrusion of a discreet camera crew shadowing them. I assume this is the same mentality that keeps professional wrestling going. But far be it from me to begrudge anyone their “stories”. What interests me more are people I know who, by and large, believe the shows to be mostly fiction but see them as a guilty pleasure. I don’t think anything is actually a guilty pleasure (maybe outside of heroin or the spoonfuls of butter flavored Crisco I used to sneak into the kitchen and enjoy late at night as a kid) if you actually like it.

Some shows, like The Amazing Race, I do understand the appeal of. Not for me personally, but I can understand rooting for your favorite team. But then there’s a show like The Bachelor. I know plenty of people, almost all female, who admit to watching The Bachelor regularly. This blows my mind. Even if they claim they watch it in an ironic, smirking kind of way, how in the world is that show anything short of complete science fiction? So you’re going to fill a house with women who will go to various bases with one “hunky” man, all in the hopes of being the one to get the rose or the ring or the Chili’s coupon or whatever the final token is? And then you’re going to pick girls to root for and girls to “boo! hiss!” based on the footage you are shown. And these friends of mine are intelligent people who surely understand that anyone, with a little creative editing, can be made to fit whatever character mold a show’s producer thinks would be most entertaining. Blows my mind.

Then, while on vacation visiting family in Georgia last week, I saw my first episode of American Idol. I have never had a negative opinion, or for that matter any opinion really, on American Idol. I think that some of the people who have won or come close to winning (Jennifer Hudson springs to mind) are fantastically talented. I even have quite the burning crush on Simon Cowell, based on his appearances on my reality show of choice, Top Gear. In fact, I always wonder why people go on and on about how mean he is. He’s playing a character, one who elicits strong reactions from viewers. I think the man might be borderline genius. And since I had never watched AI before last week, I didn’t ever see a clip of him saying anything that was either heinously mean or grossly untrue.

So my family likes American Idol. And I thought I would watch a bit. And I officially find its’ appeal as mystifying as Area 51 and the Bible. I don’t hate it. I’m just so confused by it. So so confused. So the point of the show is to find the next great entertainer? Obviously, as it is a TV show and only pretty people should appear on TV, I understand the need for all contestants to be young and, for the most part, nice to look at. But the songs! And the singers singing those songs! Maybe I caught a bad episode but it was like listening to buckets of wallpaper paste audition to be entertainers on a Carnival cruise line. There’s a guy who plays a guitar, like a mall Santa version of Jack Johnson, Jason Mraz, John Mayer et al. There’s the edgy “could be country/could be pop” girl with streaks in her hair. There’s soulful black guy/girl.

Bearing in mind that on a good day, I can maybe carry a tune in a bucket with the assistance of a Radio Flyer wagon, I have no criticisms to offer on their actual singing. In fact, the clips that I have always seen of the first few weeks of Idol (when we all get to laugh at the silly people who have been told by loving relatives that they really do have a nice singing voice) always leave me looking around the room. Wait, was that a bad one or a good one? I know I’m supposed to laugh at William Hung or the Pants on the Ground guy. But there’s a big grey area where I can’t tell if the girl singing the Mariah Carey song, replete with histrionics, is going to be pitied or told they’ve made it to the next round. It’s a razor thin line between awful, laughable singing and the next Maria Callas apparently.

I thought that American Idol was supposed to be like singing summer camp with the added humiliation of being run down by millionaires on national TV for fun. I thought that if you showed enough promise and potential, the American Idol juggernaut would chisel you into a (jazz hands) true all-around performer. So why is it that 80% of the show’s focus is how the judges get along, which judge is nicest, phone numbers and nuclear codes you should text into RIGHT NOW so that you are a living, breathing cog in the machine and you have done your small part to make someone’s dreams a reality. The performers and their performances that I saw on the show seemed to take an obvious backseat to Ryan zinging one of the judges or one of the judges breaking rank and issuing forth their gems of wisdom. Because apparently being a stand-up comedienne turned sitcom star turned talk show host is what makes you a good voice coach.

I don’t want to sound too “shaking my cane at neighborhood kids” about all of this. I’m sure that there’s something I’m missing. But I can’t summon up the interest to pull for any of these kids. I don’t care how that one person that’s not Randy, Ellen or Simon gets along with either Randy, Ellen or Simon. The fact that I’ve been able to write this many words about it means that there is obviously merit to the show. I just can’t understand the appeal. Maybe I’ll give it a shot again when The X Factor starts up since the wider spectrum of contestants might make things a little more interesting. But I’ll probably just watch a few episodes to objectify Simon Cowell with my eyes and gaze at his pretty teeth.

Why Do I Hate Movies So Much?

2010-02-22T14:44:00.003-06:00

(Warning: I don’t actually hate movies. I’ve watched approximately 7 of them in the past 48 hours. The title of this entry is an exaggeration to get attention. Kind of.)

Alright, we’ve already established how much I loathe the movie-going experience. It’s not transcendental to me. It’s not a two hour escape from my worries. It’s borderline excruciating. I hate to rehash old material (note: no I don’t) but to be trapped in a dark theater with the general population to watch a movie which I have no guarantees will actually entertain me is neck-and-neck with watching a movie on a transatlantic flight seated between two Kevin James’s and directly in front of the rear lavatory. Actually, now that I think about it, at least at the end of a transatlantic flight you will be in some foreign city with adventures awaiting you. Leaving the movie theater only means stepping over stale popcorn and sticky soda residue on the long trek out to your car.

This is all very ironic because one of the biggest parties of the year is the Oscars party that my friends Philip and Holly throw at their house. There’s betting sheets and a large cash pot to be won at the end of the night. The fact that I have come in second for the past two years, while frustrating, is a testament to my ability to blindly guess correct answers. See, on any given Oscar night, I have MAYBE seen one of the nominated films. Last year, 3:10 to Yuma was the only Oscar nominated movie I had actually seen. The year before that? I had seen a whopping TWO nominees. As a side note, that same year was the year that we learned that if you are ever betting on the Oscars and get stuck on the Best Sound Effect or Best Editing and there has been a Bourne movie out that year (Ultimatum, Supremacy or otherwise), bet on that. Also, for costume awards always pick the period piece with the frilliest costumes.

That’s not to say that I didn’t bluff my way through my ballot sheet. I talked about how hard it would be to choose between Sean Penn’s hauntingly on-point portrayal of slain San Francisco mayor and gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk and Mickey Rourke’s comeback turn in The Wrestler. It was especially difficult considering I had seen neither movie. To my credit, I saw Milk a few weeks after the Oscars and it blew me away. I’m glad Sean Penn won though I had no actual reason to vote for him a few weeks prior. I saw The Wrestler a month ago. Also a good movie.

So I can’t watch movies in theaters. That’s ok, there’s always renting them. Except I canceled my Netflix membership due to the laziness that lead to me keeping movies (unwatched) for months at a time. And I don’t like going into Blockbuster because my inner Premiere Video snob screams to be let out. WHAT? You don’t have Mike Leigh’s Naked available for rental? No copies of Roman Polanski’s Repulsion? Someone should burn this place to the ground! Sadly, Premiere Video is also aware of my laziness when it comes to returning movies and therefore they have regretfully decided to not rent movies to me any longer. I can’t say that I blame them. I wouldn’t rent movies to me either.

Then my mom, of all people, hipped me to the magic of just downloading any movies that you might have wanted to see a few years ago, want to see now(ish) or plan on eventually seeing sometime in the future. In the interest of keeping whoever that is that puts those legalese warnings at the beginning of DVDs about movie trademarks happy, I will insist that this is all legal, paid-for downloads. So I followed suit. I loaded up my download queue with all the movies I never got around to seeing over the last two years and threw in the few movies I did see in the theater to see if watching them in the safety, comfort and unstickyness of my home affected my opinion of them. And they kept piling up. Before I knew it, I had twenty-odd movies to watch. And that’s when I realized: I just don’t think I like watching movies.

Blame it on our instant gratification inter-webual society (that’s a thing). Blame it on my lifelong non-love of reading fiction (I can watch documentaries until my eyes bleed and I realize I’ve been up for three days straight). But it takes A LOT for me to get sucked into a movie. And if I don’t get sucked in during that critical 30-minute opening window, all is lost. And even if I do get sucked in, if the movie starts dragging 2/3rds of the way through, I have no sense of perseverance. It’s easier than it should be for me to throw my hands up and just turn the movie off. There’s no nagging sense of curiosity on my part as to how it ends . There’s no sense of duty to finish the movie just to say that I saw it. If I watch 2/3rds of a movie and can’t make it through, I consider my task completed and will discuss the movie as if I have seen the whole thing as long as no one asks me what I thought of the ending. And if they do, you can always win any argument with a simple, understated “meh, whatever.”

I think a lot of this has to do with the EXTREMELY narrow window of movie genres I tend to enjoy. No, I don’t issue sweeping dismissals of entire genres blindly. I will try to watch a movie of any genre. As I said, you could probably make a documentary on the life of an herb garden in a kitchen window sill and I would watch it. But when you start talking action, romantic comedy, Pixar, superheroes, espionage thrillers…I just…..get…..so….sleepy. Special effects and computer generated monsters leave me cold. A wacky case of mistaken identity that leads to a beachfront marriage despite all the odds makes me want to eat glass. I’m sure there are exceptions for all of these but generally speaking, I don’t like talking animated cars or people jumping out of helicopters into collapsing buildings or cloying romantic plot lines.

So, uh, yeah. Back to why I wrote all of this. I decided that this weekend would be the weekend I would try my best to plow through my stash of downloaded movies. And the results were as follows:

The Hangover – I saw this in the theater and my hatred for it could barely be contained. I now realize that the audience had a lot to do with my initial dislike of the movie. Too many, “Ohhhhh no they didn’t!”s or “Ohhhhh shit, that Chinese guy is naked!!!!!”s. I’ve actually watched it a few times since I downloaded it and while it’s definitely not a movie that I find something new about each time, it’s a decently entertaining movie with a few memorable laughs. There, happy?

The Wrestler – Man, this movie is the antidote to subtlety. How do you say that you enjoyed a movie when, while you admired the movie and the performances therein, you were just aching for it to end? I wanted him to die. Not because I didn’t like Mickey Rourke’s character but because his life was so shitty that, for my sake, I needed him to just go out, Redd Foxx-style, in as little pain as possible. The moral of this movie? No one should EVER hire me to work for a suicide hotline.

The Invention of Lying – I loved the idea of this movie. It’s a great premise. Shoehorning that great premise into a romantic comedy wherein the lead character, who is actually likable, spends the entire movie squandering his “powers” on trying to make a completely unlikeable character fall in love with him? Boo! I can’t think of the last character from a movie that I disliked more than Jennifer Garner’s character. Maybe Christian Bale’s sleep-apnea voiced Batman?

Lost Highway – I love this movie. Seen it dozens of times. Robert Blake plays, hands-down, one of the creepiest characters ever put on film. And this was before he shot his wife in real life so that only acts as a creepy supplement to the movie. But when I was watching it (again) on Saturday, I started to realize just how 90’s the movie is. It’s like if Reality Bites was turned into a surreal horror movie. "Someone is sending us videotapes they have filmed of us sleeping in our house at night? God, that’s so creepy that I’m going to take another drag off this cigarette and shrug and suggest that maybe we should, like, I don’t know, call the cops or something? Ugh, but the phone is all the way over there." I still like it despite all of this.

Now to the movies I didn’t get around to watching:

Inglorious Bastards – Seems long. Will get around to it eventually. Look for a half-assed review of it here sometime between now and Winter of 2013.

Slumdog Millionare – Never before has a movie been so beloved and seemingly made for me and yet I have avoided watching it like the plague. I love Danny Boyle and have for years. My gay theater friend Benjamin and I listened to the soundtrack for Shallow Grave on repeat (we were, as Hank Hill would say, not right) during my first flight to London. Let me reiterate this: I love the films of Danny Boyle. Additionally, everyone I have ever met in my life swears that this movie is the most heartwarming thing any human can ever have the pleasure of viewing. So why am I so averse to just sitting down and committing two hours of my life watching it? I have no idea. It is one of life’s great mysteries. Much like why I can’t return any given rental DVD on time. Oh well.

On a completely unrelated but undoubtedly more entertaining note, with Josh Howard now gone for good, all we have are memories of when he and Marquis Daniels were the two coolest Mavs. Now Marquis Daniels has immortalized his coolness in the form of the ugliest necklace I have ever seen. Apple Orthodontics would not have let this happen.

I Think I Have a Jezebel Heart but a Deadspin Lady-Area

2010-02-16T11:03:00.001-06:00

Yep, just like how John Mayer proclaimed himself to have “a Benneton heart and a white supremacist dick”, I have realized that my blog loyalty is completely torn. As a side note, I have always wondered who would be the next musician to “pull an Elvis Costello”. Congrats to John Mayer for giving the interview that will haunt you for the rest of your soft-rockin’ career. You’re like Costello minus the part where you make music that I enjoy. Alright, back to my allegiance being torn.

I was raised to be a pretty ardent feminist. Not in some kind of child indoctrination way but just as natural byproduct of being raised almost exclusively around women. And those women were no shrinking violets either. So to say that I have some very up-with-women views is putting it lightly. Mix in the liberalism that I wear pretty proudly on my sleeve and you would think that my back is covered in a lovingly-inked portrait of Gloria Steinem. All this is what probably lead me to Jezebel’s front door.

I’ve written about it before but my small form of rebellion against my hippie, long-haired mom (whom I love dearly and who reads this so HI MOM!!) was to get my hands on any and every fashion or women’s magazine I could. And to spend hours doing my make-up or my hair or memorizing highlights of designers collections. I have vivid memories of ogling the first Tom Ford collection for Gucci. I begged and begged until my less-than-wealthy family caved and let me go to the Chanel counter to buy a bottle of Vamp nail polish. I have a lot of girlie in me and that, mixed with my love of irreverence in most forms, made me the target Jezebel demographic.

Or almost. I remember getting an email to audition for commenter status on Jezebel the day before it launched. It was going to be the foul-mouthed, no holds barred, Joan Jett-ish sister of Cosmo and Vogue and Marie Claire and Glamour. It was going to out-Jane the sadly-departed Jane Magazine. I couldn’t fucking wait. And let me preface what I am about to write with the disclaimer that I still love Jezebel and read it daily. But now, years have passed since I was allowed into the gold gilded, lily-filled world of being a Jezebel commenter. And just like the day in junior high where you realize that your elementary school best friend is just not your best friend anymore, I have realized that Jezebel and I don’t agree on a lot of things. I find myself more amused and entertained by the boys over at Deadspin.

What made me realize this and, more importantly perhaps, why on God’s green earth does it matter? These are blogs, right? Not religious texts which have made you question your faith in a holy deity and re-evaluate your purpose on this planet, right? No. But if given thirty minutes to kill, I’m far more likely to check Deadspin or Jezebel than cracking open a King James or unfurling my Pocket Torah. And yesterday, Jezebel finally posted something so ridiculous that I had to break my silence. It was this seemingly innocuous and sparsely-commented-upon post.

I have an Enjoi hoodie that is the hoodie that all girls have. The one that is way too big and nice and thick and what they throw on if they need to run to the store. Mine has a panda bear on the front and I inherited it from a friend who happens to be stocky, male and gay as the day is long. Eventually, I exercised my garmet squatter’s rights and the hoodie was mine. While tossing into the laundry basket one day, I noticed the tag. One side said that the hoodie was made “100% in the USA in a sweatshop”. The reverse side of the tag gives me the standard washing instructions then adds that “Dirty Laundry Keeps Women Busy”. And here’s where I prepare for the inundation of sensible ballet flats to be hurled in my direction. I read the label, giggled and tossed it into the hamper. I have loaned the hoodie to people from time to time and always point out the label. It gets a little chuckle and then we all somehow manage to trudge on through our lives.

Apparently this label should have enraged me! I should be cutting the offensive tags out of every Enjoi sweatshirts I can get my delicate ladyhands on! I should be sending angry emails to the oppressive misogynists who run this 19th-ammendment-hating embarrassment of a company! I should be burning my bra at the steps of their modest company headquarters! I should be doing all of that! I should be enraged! This should offend me! I should NOT be laughing at what I see as an obvious attempt at a little buried, shock value humor. Eh oh. I’m sorry but I still laugh.

Do I believe that the folks over at Enjoi believe that I should be shoeless and pregnant in my kitchen right now? Nope. Let’s say that they do, which I think is a pretty big and ridiculous leap. So what? The tag in a sweatshirt does not have the power to oppress me because, well, how do I say this succinctly? It’s a fucking care instruction label on a sweatshirt. It in no way affects my life, the way the males in my life treat me (or to a deeper extent, how I allow them to treat me) and all it has ever done to me is explicitly warn me to not bleach my Enjoi hoodie. Trust me, I get where Jezebel is coming from. That allowing sexism to exist under the protective umbrella of satire is the primrose path to actual sexism. I’m just not buying it. Let’s see the first male (non-lobotimized) that has bought one of these garments and tries to convince any woman in his life that laundry does indeed keep women busy in a sincere tone of voice.

You have to pick your battles and I just don’t see how it helps your mission statement by looking for smoke where there is none and having very little sense of humor while you do it. I remember when the Tim Tebow Focus on the Family ad came on during this year’s Super Bowl. My first response: that was what everyone was in a tizzy over? My second thought: huh? That made no f’ing sense. Third thought: so why exactly did Tim Tebow just tackle his mom while she was talking? Fourth thought: why is a quarterback tackling anyone? Then came my fifth thought: I wonder how quickly someone on Jezebel will claim that the ad subversively (or even overtly) encourages violence against women?

It took about five minutes. I guess I don’t get the desperation to always find some sort of discrimination. Women have made great strides. One extremely strong piece of evidence of this is the fact that there so many of them who read, comment and support Jezebel. And I still do, daily. But I get beaten down by the party lines that they seem to take. Anything tainted with even the smallest hint of sexism, even if it is only in jest, must be torn down, destroyed and burned like an effigy of Evil Bert and Bin Laden. There can be no discussion of the current state of the Roman Polanski case that does not include a desire to hang the man by his toenails from the highest spire.

So, if an inanimate blog can read another inanimate blog, I want to say this to you, Jezebel. I agree with you about 90-95% of the topics you address and the opinions you eloquently state. The one about Sarah Palin being a ridiculous joke of a, well, almost anything she’s tried her hand at. The one about how Christina Hendricks is girl-crush worthy. The one about how the fashion industry inundates little girls with images of thinness in an attempt to shame them into becoming oppressed (but hot and skinny!) little submissive creatures.

Really, we are still friends. Just loosen the fuck up a little.

I’m Back (but Probably Not Any Better)

2010-02-16T09:27:00.001-06:00

I missed blogging. Hard. But let me cut straight to the point: I just didn’t want to write about sports anymore. Or at least not with such cynical regularity. I went through the apathy-turning-the-corner-to-outright-hatred cycle with sports that I had previously gone through with music. When I started writing about music, I thought there couldn’t be a better gig than writing about something that you listen to, read about, obsess over (and sometimes even try to play with alarmingly poor results) and get paid for it. And much like I would later end up doing here with the Mavs and the Cowboys, I always got the most positive feedback when I was the nastiest.

But I think that being the round-the-clock asshole eventually ruins whatever you’re writing about for you. It certainly did with music. I didn’t care who the new “it” band was and immediately assumed they sounded like a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs. I listened to NPR or sports talk radio or the sound of Tejano blaring out of the truck in the next lane gladly over putting on anything new or even an album I knew I liked. In fact, the only time I even cared to listen to music was when I was running and then you start getting into some dicey credibility territory. One glance at my workout playlists would convince you that you have somehow procured the iPod of a very emotionally unstable teen girl. There’s a lot of Beyonce and Ministry on there. A lot.

Once I got far enough away from music journalism, the blood started to run to my ears again. I started trying to find old, long out-of print albums that I loved when I was so angsty and sad and carb-oblivious. And slowly, I’m into music again. I scour You Tube for lost performances of deep album cuts. I stayed up until 2am on a work night a month ago just to try to track down old Southern Death Cult live TV performances. It’s back! I like music again.

But then there’s sports. It’s weird when you watch a game and all you take away from it is things you can bitch about. Why didn’t they go for it on 4th and 2 in the fourth quarter? Fire them all! They’re all idiots! I knew they should have gone for it! I hate this team! That stadium should just be turned into a flea market! I became the biggest sports cynic and that, mixed with the fact that I am inherently pretty damn lazy and not known for timely posting, combined to make the perfect storm of tired sports blogging. I felt like by the time I took to the keyboard to tear down those good for nothing players and coaches, I had already heard 5 sports talk hosts make those points and 10 callers rephrase that point slightly.

So let me get all of this my system: “Wade should be a defensive coordinator not a head coach!” “Jerry will never let his ego take the blow that hiring a GM would be and therefore the Cowboys are hamstrung and will eventually be the Oakland Raiders with a much nicer stadium!” “Dirk will never win a ring with this team. Let him go so he can at least retire with a ring!” “Mark Cuban is more interested in being the star of the show than building a young team and therefore the Mavs will look like a pickup game at a Medicare office!” “The Ranger and Stars….ugh……”

There. Now that I’ve made it clear that, like all sports fans, I know how to run a team better than anyone who actually runs a team and that I also have a touch of the Nostradamus, I feel like I can get back to writing about whatever the fuck tickles my fancy. Probably won’t be a lot of sports. The Cowboys made the playoffs then crumpled. The Mavs have hit a skid and now we have to rely on this trade and Caron Butler to re-invigorate the team. But not having the self-imposed assignment of ripping into my favorite teams feels like taking a load off. Besides, worry not, there are plenty of things that annoy me about which I can bitch incessantly. Hugs! It’s nice to be back.

Yet Another Episode of Envelope Blogging Theater

2009-11-12T11:31:00.012-06:00

Dear Universe,

More of the Following Please:

This Bad News Bears-A League of Their Own Cowboys Season Turnaround

I realize that the Bad News Bears end up losing the championship game at the end of the movie. I purposely used them as my analogy to preserve my requisite blogger pessimism and to also remind everyone that Cowboys December suckdom is just around the corner. Now that I’ve laid down that disclaimer, I couldn’t be more excited about this Cowboys team. Looking at this three game stretch we have in front of us (and truthfully, there’s a few games in the final stretch that scream “freebie Cowboys win” but as they occur in December, I won’t categorize them as such), it’s tempting to think that a record of 9-2 is not outside the realm of possibilities. To then contemplate what Week 5 Amanda would have said if you would have told her a record like that was even a possibility, well, first you would have had to knock the bottle of bleach she was about to drink out of her trembling hands. I’ve decided to not try to predict Wild Cards, playoff spots, playoff wins, playoff losses, bowls of cereal, Super Bowls. Nothing. I’m enjoying the hell out of this emotional rollercoaster season. The only people who seem to be enjoying it more than me are Keith Brooking and Miles Austin. And I’m okay with that too. Just keep on keepin’ on, homedudes.

The Mavs Minus that Little Snafu with the Spurs Last Night

Losing to the Spurs hurts. No matter if it’s close or not. And the worst part about last night’s game was that, considering the Mavs recent track record of pulling off amazing come-from-behind wins, it was never incomprehensible that they could beat the Spurs. Even being down double digits. Of course, that was not to happen. And to add a suck cherry to the suck sundae, Josh Howard had to come out due to soreness in his ever-so-tender ankley wankley.

But seeing as the Mavs are tied for first place with the Rockets in the Southwest, last night didn’t dampen my Mavs spirits too much. Because the high I’m still on from the Rockets game and Dirk’s 29 point 4th quarter just doesn’t seem to wear off so easily. And no matter how many people tell me that Drew Gooden will only disappoint me eventually, I still love the dude. No matter how many people tell me that JJ Barea will never, as I predicted last season, score 50 points in one game (ok, I might have overshot on that one) I still love him in an almost unnatural and almost certainly unholy way. If the Mavs keep up this level of decentness and the Cowboys don’t drop the soap in December, I don’t know what I am going to do. Retain my will to live? Sing “Wonderful Christmastime” on an unending loop to total strangers until mid-January? These are all very, very real possibilities. Prepare yourselves.

Lady Gaga

Ok, I’ve been stifling this rant for a while now. I offer no disclaimers for this. I might as well be a 20 year old trust fund kid going to the Tisch School of the Arts, smoking clove cigarettes and discussing Matthew Barney at their parents place in the Hamptons. But I FUCKING LOVE LADY GAGA WITH EVERY LITTLE ENZYME IN MY BODY. Let me clarify. When I first heard about her, a point in time which I will not claim was long ago, it was probably in conjunction with the words “Perez” and “Hilton” which immediately made me break out into hives. Then I heard her song “Just Dance” and thought, “wow, what an awful song!” and completely dismissed her. I should back up in this story a bit. I have written a lot about how I gave up on all indie cred a long time ago. I don’t really follow pop music either. In fact, if anything, my music taste is kind of like that mosquito in Jurassic Park. It just got stuck in some tree sap around 2005 or so and I like it that way. I’m sure Time Life will put out a microdot collection of the greatest hits 1980s, 1990’s and the early ’aughts and my grandchildren will buy it for me to listen to on my iBrain or whatever and I will angrily grumble at them about how the Arcade Fires were what music really was back in my day. And they will euthanize me to save money on the water bill or something.

But back to Lady Gaga. I read more about her and realized that she wrote her own songs and the more I listened, the more I realized that the girl knows her way around a hook. And I liked the influences she cited. Her nutty costumes even seemed somewhat endearing if not dangerously flammable. Then I saw her performance of “Paparazzi” at the VMA’s a few months ago. What. The. Hell? Did she just fake kill herself on MTV? God, that song’s catchy! Wait, is she now ascending into heaven? Also, is she the Phantom of the Opera? Does she ever wear pants? Is that real blood? If someone leads me to ask two or more of those questions in a three minute performance, I’m a fan of theirs. Case closed. Team Gaga. So I went back and listened to her songs again. Total fan. Then this week, she released the video for “Bad Romance” and I had the weirdest déjà vu moment. I was a huge Madonna fan from ages 5 to 10 (not physically huge, that came later when I discovered spaghetti noodles drenched in butter stuffed into a French bread loaf) and would pull my dresses off my shoulders and try my best to make my mom buy me heels and fingerless gloves to emulate my slutty idol. Sadly, my mom did not see it fit to allow me to dress like a child prostitute. John Hinkley, Jr. totally ruined it for all of us. But in my fangirldom, I would mark my calendar for Madonna music video premieres. I remember counting down the days until the “Vogue” video premiered and having a tape in the VCR at the ready for a solid week.

Well now YouTube is my VCR, Lady Gaga is my Madonna and “Bad Romance” is my “Vogue”. Damn, this song is killer. This video is amazing. Let me put it this way: my friend Philip doesn’t like 30 Rock because he claims that it’s not written for “people like me: stocky people who drive pickup trucks and have facial hair.” He loves Lady Gaga as much as I do. Case closed. Team Gaga.

Stephen King

I have a friend with whom I seem to constantly lament the lack of decorum on the internet. Apparently, we’ve added one new member to our club. And he’s been hit by a van so he’s got every right to be grumpy:

"Everybody bitches about everything." — Stephen King, on the Internet.

Dear Universe,

Less of the Following Please:

People Pelting Morrissey with Things

HE JUST GOT OUT OF THE HOSPITAL. STOP IT. FOR REALZ.

People Shooting Other People

I don’t want to trivialize anything. But seriously folks, cut the shit with the taking out your aggressions, fears, fundamentalist bullshit or just plain craziness on innocent people. If your trigger finger is so itchy or the voices are just too loud, kindly point the gun in your own direction for starters. For realz.

Mud at White Rock Lake

I had a little adventure on Halloween. If you were to make a movie poster for my action-packed Halloween day, Robert Wilonsky might call it a “bumper-splitting adventure!” In that vein, if anyone knows of a good place to buy a new front bumper for a 2002 Honda Accord, please email me at amandacobra@gmail.com. Here’s how it went down. It was really pretty on Halloween day. I drove to White Rock Lake for a jog. It was really crowded. Confusingly, there were a lot of parents there with kids dressed up in costumes. As far as I know, there is no candy fountain at or in White Rock Lake. And I should know because I had plenty of time to find it while my “situation” hilariously panned out.

As the lake was crowded, everyone was parking on the shoulder of the one way road that rings the lake. I picked a nice shady, grassy spot. As it hadn’t rained in a few days, I had no reason to be concerned about the mud to grass ratio of my parking spot. I kind of forgot that it had rained every day in October. I remembered that suddenly when I felt my car sinking. I tried play it cool and got out to go jogging. I then realized that playing it cool should take a back seat to getting the fuck out of this parking spot before my car became a permanent installation at White Rock Lake. But by the time I got back in the car to move it, it was too late. I was stuck. And people were looking. I tried to rock it back and forth. That might have even worked until one man kindly knocked on my window to let me know that my front bumper had been ripped off in my attempt to dig myself out. I think I handled the news pretty well.

I don’t really want to go into too many details about the rest of the ordeal. It was a lot like Vietnam. There was underbrush. There was a lot of mud and mosquitoes. Then there were a few attempts to use large tree branches, a paint tray, a beach towel and (oddly) a gym sock to get my car to higher ground. There was an aborted call to AAA for a tow. There was some talk of being dug out. There was a theory issued by me that maybe we could just come back in the spring. Then finally there was a tow rope and a man with a truck and a lot of testosterone, a taekwondo shirt and a lot of practical knowledge about how to tow a car out of a muddy ditch. He kind of saved my life that day. And the zip ties that hold my bumper in place remind me every day to never take a dry parking space for granted. I love you, cement.

David Cross

I will give David Cross credit for many things. His standup is funny. His character on Arrested Development is genius. He’s from Georgia, like me. But there’s some things that have been bugging me about David Cross for a while. The part about his standup that bugs me is his constant “I’m totally leaving this shithole redneck town and all you small-minded backwoods hillbillies” railing mentality. You’re out, dude. You’ve been out for decades. The bit is getting old. I get it that the Bush administration were a bunch of misogynist, war-mongering redneck assholes who reminded you of the good ol’ boys who ran things when you were a kid and you want to call them on it. I get it that you find conservative Christians to be narrow-minded sheep. But Jesus dude, you’re becoming as one-note as Larry the Cable Guy, your arch-nemesis.

I’ve discussed my rampant liberalism in depth on this and many other forums. I’m with you on many issues, brah. But then you do things like claim that you did some coke at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner within 40 feet of the President in a bid to be shocking and outrageous and “badass” or something. Jesus, really? Really, dude? Whatever could be next? Safety pin an upside down American flag on your backpack? Spray paint “SKATEBOARDING IS NOT A CRIME” on Henry Kissinger’s lawn? Read The Anarchist’s Cookbook on a crowded train? Loudly profess your admiration for Anton LaVey at your grandmother’s bingo night. Edgy? You’re doing it so wrong.

HANG THE (me)J, HANG THE (me)J, HANG THE (me)J

2009-11-05T14:03:00.003-06:00

My old buddy Geoff has a blog called The Hanging Brain. He's a funny guy and a damn good writer. He asked me to put together a list of some of my favorite songs by local acts. I was scared that he was going to punch me in the face if I didn't comply so I did as I was asked to do.

Here are the results:

http://thehangingbrain.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/hanging-brain-radio-guest-dj-amanda-cobra/

Please feel free to use this blog's comments section to tell me how much my taste in everything sucks. I need to be ripped. Hard.

A Lot of Stuff Can Happen in a Fortnight, Apparently

2009-11-04T15:05:00.009-06:00

As you may or may not have noticed, You Go Live in Utah has been disturbingly post-free recently. I have been brainstorming amusing stories I could make up about my absence. I was going to cry swine flu. I was going to make up a story about being cast on the new season of Rock of Love. I thought I might even get away with convincing all of you that I was boycotting blogging until Miley Cyrus returned to Twitter. But alas, dear readers, I trust that you would have seen through all of these lame excuses. The simple and truth-soaked reason is that my actual job that keeps the lights flickering in my cold East Dallas apartment has inundated me with all kinds of holiday-related work. And despite all the kind offers that this blog has had from people who want to advertise their penile-enhancement drugs or their work-from-home pyramid schemes, You Go Live in Utah had to take a sad little backseat for a few weeks while Amanda Cobra did (yuck) real work.

Luckily, not much happened in those few weeks. Oh wait, no scratch that. Everything happened in the past few weeks. Black turned to white. Cats started mating with dogs. Dane Cook became funny. As the first week passed and the Cowboys had massacred the Falcons, I thought I should start keeping a running list. Maybe on the back of an envelope. And since I had done such a poor job on the Mavs season opener (again, so did they so I didn’t feel too bad) I thought I needed to remind myself to redeem my Mavs-dom while I was at it. The next thing I knew, the envelope started to look like notes from Sports Journalism 101 as transcribed by the Zodiac Killer. One of the notes at the bottom of the envelope is the ultimate in give-up blogging. “Blackface? F it, whatever.”

So everything on this envelope has already been written about. I’m approximately two weeks behind on all of these topics, save last night’s game against the Jazz and Dirk’s “yes, please I’ll take that” of yet another Mavs team record. I decided that instead of trying to say clever things or scrape the carcasses of these topics for any scraps of funny meat, I would do this like those Time Life picture books that all our grandparents had when we were growing up. Let’s look at the last two weeks with nostalgia. Feel free to put on your copy of “Begin the Beguine” by Cole Porter.

Remember when the Cowboys beat the Falcons and Matt Ryan got sacked a bunch of times? And the Falcons bitched about how the Cowboys didn't close the blinds and the sun was in their eyesies-wysies? And how Keith Brooking continued his streak of awesome by beating his former team in his first season playing outside of Fulton County? Yeah, that was pretty badass. And remember how it was the begining of the emergence of our new Lord and receiver Savior...

MILES AUSTIN! All Hail Golden Gums! Seriously, who would have thought that our prettiest receiver would also become, far and away, our best? A gentetic football architect could not have drawn up a better football player blueprint. Miles Austin could be pulled over on the Tollway with a midget tranny hooker in the passenger's seat and a trunk full of pure Afghan heroin and I'm pretty sure a smile and a quick photo op would ensure that the whole matter died a quiet, citation-less death. Speaking of our new, Exalted One...

Remember how this past Sunday we also killed the Seattle Seahawks? Remember the chemistry between Miles Austin and Tony Romo? Remember Crayton running that kickoff return all the way back for a touchdown? Remember Hurd's catch? Hell, even Roy "I'm a Wide Receiver Too!" Williams got a touchdown (for one very brief second)? And remember how the Giants have lost three in a row and how the Eagles managed somehow to lose to the, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, sorry.....(regains composure slightly) Oakland Raiders? And how because of all that we are now tied for first in the NFC East? I know, it's weird, right?

Then remember how, after a totally soul-sucking and awful season opener against the Wizards, the Mavs managed to beat the LA F'ing Lakers? Granted, it was a Pau'less Lakers but it was the LA Lakers and the Mavs beat them by nearly 20 points? As a side note, I want to start a big and tall men's shoe store which will in no way be affiliated with Pau Gasol called Pau-less Shoes.

Then remember how we beat the Clippers too? Ok so beating the Clippers isn't a huge feather in anyone's cap. But it did lead to Baron Davis being compared to Kimbo Slice. And anytime that happens AND the Mavs win, I'm happy.

Then came last night. I thought I was going to just watch a little old Mavs game. Against the Utah Jazz. And I was watching a game full of shots not going in and thinking, "Wow, I am really going to have to stretch to find something to write about this game. Nothing to see here." Absolutely nothing would go for the Mavs and they weren't getting any fouls called. No free throws. No anything. Then came the fourth quarter. At this point you've read and heard enough about it that you don't need me to recap it other than to remind you that Dirk has set yet another Mavs team record by scoring 29 in the final quarter, 40 in the game and saved the entire team single-handedly. And apparently healed lepers who were waiting in the tunnel.

So the Mavs are on a roll and let me offer you a little reminder that, as of right now, the Cowboys have the same record as the New England Patriots and last year's Super Bowl-winning Steelers. So thing's are all-around awesome in Sportsville, right? We've hit the reset button and we're back in Happy Land and maybe even the curse of December Cowboys Football Suck has been lifted, right? Everything's golden, right?

Well, not entirely. Funny enough, when I started thinking about writing this blog entry, one of the pictures I intended to post was Popeye Jones's mugshot. But before I wrote this entry, I went for a jog on Katy Trail today. About five minutes into my jog this afternoon, I saw a distinct pair of ears. Nah, couldn't be. Then there was the Mavs warm-up shirt. Then I saw his face, swollen and scabbed up. And then I started thinking about what I was going to write. And the mugshot I was going to post. Here's the thing. I like Popeye Jones. I don't know him personally but I've always liked the guy for some reason. I don't like drunk driving. I don't make any excuses for him and I'm pretty sure he doesn't either. His face this afternoon certainly didn't. I'm not going to try to read too much into a chance encounter on a jogging trail. But the guy I saw and the weak smile he gave this afternoon made me realize that I could not and would not be posting his mug shot.

I don't care if anyone thinks it's a double standard we hold athletes to and how he could have killed a busload of orphaned puppies or whatever. This is, after all, a blog. Maybe I'm wrong but his swollen and slightly scabby face was the face of a guy who is more than aware of what kind of work lay ahead of him and what a mess of trouble he's in and he doesn't need anyone piling on him right now. On a side note, he is in better shape than me but I was able to keep a decent pace with him (in a non-stalker fashion) for some time. I blame the fact that he eventually left me in the dust on the fact that his iPod obviously did not randomly decide to play "Killer Queen" by Queen on an unexplained loop at one point.

Fourth Mavs Quarter

2009-10-27T21:54:00.005-05:00

Alright, there's 2 minutes left in this game and based on my own unprofessional opinion and the texts I am getting from the Mavs fans I know (all two of them that have been texting me), this game is boring. And not very promising. Based on the number of empty seats I am seeing at the AAC, I would guess that the crowd agreed with me as well. Maybe it's the Little Caesar's/warm Diet Rite-esque appeal of a season opener against the Washington Wizards? Maybe it's just rustiness?

I think I picked the wrong game to live-blog. Sorry if this one seems mailed-in. It's about as mailed-in as the Mavs performance tonight.

Third Mavs Quarter

2009-10-27T21:47:00.004-05:00

I had to take a phone call which ended up lasting the entire third quarter. I was told by someone that was watching that the only thing that happened was "Dirk hit some shots and a three. Not much."

And I also promised to mention the phrase "man-pris" in the third quarter wrap-up. Go Mavs?

Second Mavs Quarter

2009-10-27T20:44:00.003-05:00

I know you guys said that Gooden was going to be no-Gooden but I have to disagree. What was awful was the same thing that has been awful with the Mavs since the continents of the Earth first began to break off and shift and form the current 7 continents. Those stupid, brick layups that never go. Those meh shots. Those "terrified of the paint" shots that dominated the entire first half of the second quarter. Oh Mavs, I missed you so much I even missed that stupid stuff.

Also awesome was watching Barea, for completely inexplicable reasons, fall to his knees mid-dribble in the paint. I still have no idea what happened. Sudden burst of Catholicism? Flashback to pre-basketball rent boy days? I have no idea. But it was awesomely awkward and funny.

The Mavs started finally showing and little hustle and (gasp!) defense in the last three minutes of the quarter only to have their hearts ripped out and showed to them, Temple of Doom-style, in the final second when a steal was stolen from them by Washington and sunk at the buzzer. KALI-MA!

First Quarter of the Opening Night of Mavs Season

2009-10-27T20:10:00.004-05:00

(all apologies to the wonderful and potentially batshit crazy Anita Ekberg)

The first quarter ends tied up 21-21. Mavs shooting 38%. I'm already impressed with the applause that Barea got when he was sent in. Mavs were 9-9 on free throws. But more disturbing to me was the endless pimping of Twitters and Facebooks. Bob's Twitter. Mark's Facebook. Bob and Mark's broadcast team's Facebook. Skin's Twitter for his Facebook profile. The Twitter group to discuss the Facebook profile for the messageboard for the chat forum for people who like to IM during the game. Seriously guys, social networking has a stopping point. Like when you see those old ladies who leave the house with tattooed on eyeliner, lipliner, diesel fuel for perfume, 18 different pieces of costume jewelry, five pairs of reader glasses in her hair and a shirt with some sort of jungle cat on it? That's what your social networking overkill is becoming. Alternately, if I become that woman, please just leave me be. I'm probably totally aware of it and enjoying it.

I…Uhhh..These Cowboys…What They Need…To…Do….(sigh)/LET’S GO MAV-ERICKS, LET’S GO!

2009-10-15T14:43:00.002-05:00

I have reached critical mass of apathy with the Cowboys. There’s nothing to say about them that anyone hasn’t said already. Wade….should…fired….year and a half ago. Tony Romo…shaky….inconsistent…at best. Five off-sides calls is…gah. Marion Barber and Felix Jones…hurt…always. Roy Williams underperforming and….Jason Witten not getting the kind of….last year…celebrating an overtime win against the winless Kansas…..dog-piling in the end zone…….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

This is a very odd feeling. Usually, I have poorly-thought-out opinions to share when a team is doing well. And I have even more of them when a team is doing poorly. But Jerry Jones has shown everyone in Dallas that his priorities are, in this order: the new stadium, making money at the new stadium, selling jerseys, selling Party Passes, selling suites, selling Papa John’s pizza, selling Ford trucks, keeping his face taut and perhaps a little bit of football.

So, for the first time in a long while, I have become detached from the whole thing. I’m no fair-weather fan by any means. I will still watch every game. If the Cowboys can, miracle of all miracles, pull a better-than-.500 record out of the charred remains of this season, I will be happy for them. But this team, my team, doesn’t deserve my rapt attention. Before this season started, I made all kinds of plans to attend any home games I could on a Party Pass and maybe even shell out the big bucks for whatever home game fell closest to my birthday. But in a real kick to the junk of Jerry Jones, I’ve come to the decision that this team doesn’t deserve any of my meager paycheck. I relish in the idea of the Cowboys getting so bad that the Terrordome sits half-empty on Sundays, as it’s the only thing that Jerry cares about or would make him take any notice. I’ve never been a jersey-wearing gal but at this point, I’d make my own bootleg Bobby Carpenter jersey to not only take money out of the G-string of Jerry’s mistress but to celebrate the figurehead of mediocrity on this most mediocre of teams.

If the Cowboys are gonna “meh” out on this season, expect me to act in a similar fashion. Other than some quotes from Keith Brooking, Martellus Bennett and Miles Austin, no one on this team gives a flying dog turd about how they’re underperforming this year. In fact, Tony Romo had some quote after the Chiefs game along the lines of, “If we keep getting it done like that, I have a good feeling about our chances this season.” Really? Really? Your chances for what exactly? Normally, a quote like that would infuriate me to the point of drawing dongs and mouth sores and blacked out teeth on a picture of Tony Romo for this blog entry. But I just don’t care anymore. Be happy wallowing in false positivity and I’ll be happy knowing that I can devote my full time and attention to the Mavs by Christmas.

Part 2: Come Back to What You Know/LET’S GO MAV-ERICKS, LET’S GO!

2009-10-15T14:41:00.001-05:00

I cannot wait for Mavericks season to start. Seeing Shawn Marion and Dirk score more than 20 each in a preseason game? My tiny basketball heart is fluttering at the mere thought. And lucky for me, that money that I had been thinking about using to make the total ass-beating of a trip to Arlington to see the Cowboys will now be used instead to walk from work to the AAC to attend as many Mavericks home games as I can this season. I can’t remember the last time I was this excited about a Mavs season. And I don’t have much reason to be so excited, other than the addition of Marion and Gooden, the improvement of Barea and the continued work ethic of Dirk.

It’s weird because, even as much as I get frustrated with them (sample You Go Live in Utah blog post from the first-round playoff series with Golden State two years ago: “Fucking Mavs!”), I really really love the Mavs. And I’m not going to deny the fact that part of my Mavs enthusiasm stems from my Rangers boredom and my Cowboys anger. But here’s what I would like to remind everyone:

This summer, when at absolute best, the Rangers were neck and neck with Boston for the wild card…everyone was talking about the Rangers like they were Christopher Reeve doing a gymnastics floor routine at the Olympics. That’s not a diss on the Rangers or their fans. I understand the misery and desperate search for hope in the heart of every Rangers fan. But before too long, the Rangers did what they always do. They fell apart like a Forever XXI dress in a washing machine on the gentle cycle. And no one was too angry. “Hey, they were really on fire there for a little while! They are showing so much improvement! This is what we expected because come 2011, this team is going to be a monster.” All of this about a team whose owner is essentially digging his own gold fillings out with needle-nose pliers outside of a Cash America at this very second.

I really am not picking on the Rangers. I respect their fans. Now again, my Cowboys anger might be clouding my perspective on this right now. But let’s put it this way, if your child was born the last time the Mavs made it to the Finals, you would have a healthy, walking and talking and getting ready for preschool-aged toddler. If your child was born the last time the Cowboys made it to the Super Bowl, you would have a surly, acne-riddled, grunts-as-answers teenager. And if your child was born the last time the Rangers made it to the World Series, you would only have the glint in the traffic cop’s eye before he got an urgent call and let you off with a warning. So why aren’t people more proud of the Mavs? Yes, they took a record books season of 67 wins and fed it into the wood-chipper in the first round to the Golden State Warriors. Yes, the next year they went out in the first round again to the New Orleans Hornets.

But let me re-type that. In the past 4 seasons, they have made it to the FINALS once and to the PLAYOFFS every year. Last year, they made it to the second round of the playoffs. Imagine the size of the Cowboys logo that would be burned with lasers on the surface of the moon if the Cowboys could claim that in the past four years, they have made it to the playoffs each year AND even made it to the Super Bowl once! Try to wrap your head around the kind of frenzy, tears and pandemonium that would radiate from Arlington outwards if the Rangers could make that kind of claim. Is that a sad testament to the low standards we have set for our franchises in town? Quite possibly. Am I still more than happy to watch 82 games on the chance that the team might make it past the first round of the playoffs? ABSOLUTELY.

I want Dallas to remember what we have rooted for since I moved here as a wee baby. The reason we sit in leather-tanning heat in August to watch the Rangers. The reason we are willing to let Jerry Jones rape our wallets and embarrass our city and football legacy. The reason we will get behind a washed-up Dennis Rodman if it just means one more defensive rebound. It’s so we can ultimately have one team make it to the title game and win the big prize and we can bring the big prize home and all take the day off work and go to a parade and allow a modicum of martial law to prevent us from rioting, looting and then burning the entire city down in a fit of sports ecstasy. I’m putting my money on the Mavs and will decorate my riot gear accordingly.

I Could Do (insert anything) Better Than That Guy!

2009-10-07T15:46:00.001-05:00

So Mark Cuban made some comments about how he thinks this year’s Mavs team is the best in at least five years. He also says that this team is better than the Finals team of a few years ago. He’s seen more of them than I have so I can’t argue. Yet. On the website on which I read this interview, there were a few supportive and optimistic comments. They talked about the additions of Marion, Gooden and Beaubois being positive things. Then the grand tidal wave of negativity was unleashed. “They will be lucky to win half their games!”* “They should have gotten Kobe when they had the chance!”** “Mark Cuban is a businessman!”***

*We’ll see. But pray tell where you came up with this mathematical formula?
**NO THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE GOTTEN KOBE. And no, Kobe did not want to come to Dallas. He wanted to get out of LA. Big difference.
***Yes, Mark Cuban is a businessman.

Then the comparisons to the Stars, the Rangers and the Cowboys began. Which seems, at best, unfair. At worst, it seems delusional. They are four different teams playing four different sports in four different leagues. I get it that everyone (myself included) is Cowboys angry right now. And some people have only recently made the bumpy and frustrating transition from Rangers angry to Cowboys angry. If I knew any hockey fans, I could tell you whether or not they are angry. When I meet one, I will let you know.

And don’t try to bring the fans into it and question their loyalty or support. I have lived in other cities where a large swath of people didn’t even know that their home team was playing on a given day. I have lived in places where, if you walked into a bar and asked them politely to turn a TV over to a regular season basketball game being played by the local team, they would look at you like you were from Mars. In fact, the average Metroplex sports fan shows an overwhelming amount of support for teams who, collectively, have not given them anything to show for it in a very long time.

Then comes the venom directed at Mark Cuban. I am, apart from a few bumps in the road here and there, a Mark Cuban fan to the point of being an apologist. I don’t hide it. I said I thought it was dumb when he did Dancing With the Stars but I thought it was dumb when Emmitt did it too. Does that negate my love for Emmitt “Seranate the Stadium” Smith in the least? Nope. The lesson that I am learning as the Cowboys season heads toward the iceberg is this: nobody wants to be an armchair QB as much as they want to be the armchair team owner.

Trust me, I get it. I would love to have the keys to Dallas Cowboys Big Ass TV Stadium or the AAC. But I wouldn’t profess to know how to run the team better than the current team owner. It’s fun to call into a sports radio station (I guess) and give the owner of _______ sports franchise some pointers in how to do their jobs better. But the fact that the same argument is being used against Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban is baffling.

People hate Jerry Jones because he refuses to fire a coach who is obviously not suited to do his job. People hate Jerry Jones because he built a new stadium which he cares about more than how his team plays on the field. People hate Jerry Jones because no one can afford to go see a Cowboys game without refinancing their house. People hate Jerry Jones because he did nothing during the draft, nor did he make any worthwhile trades. People hate Jerry Jones because he built the stadium for the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington.

Yet with the same logic, those people hate Mark Cuban, who DID fire a coach who was obviously not suited to do his job. People hate Mark Cuban, who actively tries to make discounted tickets available for every game. People hate Mark Cuban, who lets fans in for free each game simply because they are willing to bypass their shame switch for a few hours and don body paint and ridiculous costumes to support the Mavs. People hate Mark Cuban despite the fact that he brought in Drew Gooden and Shawn Marion. People hate Mark Cuban but probably dig the idea that they can take the DART to the games or walk to a game from their offices in Downtown Dallas.

I will admit that I am not a very big Jerry Jones fan. I didn’t like him firing Landry, even if Jimmy was a great coach in the end. I don’t like the fact that he sees football as pure entertainment like a Vegas show or a Styx concert on a cruise ship. I don’t like the fact that he doesn’t seem to care a bit about the team as long as the brand continues to sell. Though I do grudgingly respect the fact that he makes practically no bones about that.

It just seems to me that being the team owner is a lose-lose proposition. Build the arena inside the city limits in the heart of downtown and they hate you. Build it out in the suburbs and they still hate you. Blow your money like a stripper on a tour of meth labs on big names, trades and drafts and they hate you. Save it up and try to develop what you have and they hate you. Try your hardest to be an everyman, one-of-the-little-people owner who sits amongst the fans, they still hate you. Build yourself a skybox suite and look down on your team like the Dark Lord, they hate you then too.

I enter into every Mavs and Cowboys season with optimism because, well….why else would I want to watch it? To be a masochist? To prove how right I was about how bad my choice in sports teams is? The optimism isn’t paying out huge dividends with the Cowboys so far. But I’m not dousing the season in diesel, lighting a match and getting the engine started on the getaway car just yet. And with only ONE PRESEASON GAME under their belts (and call me crazy here) I’m not quite prepared to predict a 14-car-pileup of a Mavs season. I’m a regular little Pollyanna, I guess.

Tony Romo is a Human Fountain of Suck

2009-10-06T13:32:00.001-05:00

I hate blogging after Cowboys losses. Especially when it’s the exact same faults that lead to each loss. I posted a video last week of Tony Romo being affable, funny and downright awesome. The problem was that very little of that had anything to do with him actually being a good quarterback. Hell, Ryan Leaf probably knows more than a few dead baby jokes. But Tony Romo, what is your problem? You seemed to have lost all depth perception on Sunday and were unable to see any open receivers. I am 100% sure that SOMEONE was open. As much as I can rag on Bobby Carpenter being a complete waste of molecules, Roy Williams not being able to hold onto catches and Flozell Adams overcompensating for Carpenter’s lateness with perpetual earliness, it all lies on coaching and Tony Romo as far as I’m concerned. Huzzah to Tashard Choice and Keith Brooking for being rare glimmers of hope on this team.

Now there’s video to prove that Tony Romo MIGHT NOT HAVE EVEN KNOWN WHAT DOWN IT WAS on the final drive in the waning seconds of the game. I’ve heard some people who have gone to games at the new stadium complain that the down and distance is more than a little bit difficult to see, despite a TV screen that is an affront to God himself. However, that doesn’t worry me too much because those people are just there to watch the game. They are not the quarterback who has 4 seconds left in the game on 4th and goal. Between the three fingers he held aloft, the curse word he yelled when he realized that was the last play and the fact that he threw to Sam Hurd who was being covered by Champ Bailey, it seems to be pretty likely that Tony spaced on that one. Then again, even when Tony did try to go ever-so-slightly long to any of his receivers, the ball was a few feet away from any of them. Half of the time, it didn’t even seem as if Romo was actually aiming for any receiver. It was more like he was just lobbing it out to midfield and closing his eyes and hoping there might be a man somewhere in the vicinity.

But it should have never come to that. The calls that Jason Garrett is calling are downright absurd. While I chastised Romo for throwing to Martellus Bennett in the corner of the end zone during the Giants game, I can’t help but wonder if Marty B. had a better chance of catching a last-minute desperation pass than Sam F’ing Hurd. What about Crayton? And imagine the redemption and respect that Roy Williams could have earned by playing through his stinger for one final down and perhaps catching a touchdown.

Our running backs (other than Choice) seem to be made of candy glass. Jason Witten has essentially been relegated to blocking. Demarcus Ware was apparently spayed and/or neutered in the off-season. But all of that seems to be things that can be remedied. However, who will remedy them when the foundation has such visible cracks? Who is going to fear getting their ass handed to them by Wade Phillips? I’m pretty sure Wade lets his Bassett hound just go on the rug for fear of hurting his feelings by correcting or disciplining him. Jason Garrett seems to be living out some Leaving Las Vegas existence now that he’s realized that his once chance to become a head coach might have passed him by. I imagine his playbook being dominated by repeated scrawls of “FML” and NIN lyrics.

Two things dominate my Cowboys mind right now:

1. Watching Brett Favre play last night (particularly on the final Vikings drive of the second quarter), I’m stunned by what a man who could be Tony Romo’s father can do with a 40 year old arm. A lot of Cowboys fans have maintained that Tony Romo’s personal life has caused him too many distractions. As a quick refresher, the distractions and hardships that Romo has had to deal with so far in his professional career: broken pinkie, having a few too many Coronas in Cabo before a playoff game, dating Carrie Underwood, dating Jessica Simpson…uh, well I guess that’s about it. Brett Favre has dealt with alcoholism, pain pill addiction, his wife’s battle with breast cancer, his father’s death, torn tendons in his shoulder and the merciless ridicule of his ever-changing retirement status. I told a friend last night that if Tony Romo had completed ONE of the kind of passes that Favre threw in the second quarter alone, I might not have been angry about losing on Sunday. That’s not completely true. There’s still no good reason to lose that game. But to lose it and to simultaneously realize that Tony Romo has started unraveling in front of our eyes? That hurts.

2. So people say, “That’s Tony Romo, he’s streaky. He’ll come back next week and win and throw for no interceptions and over 300 yards.” Yes, he might do that. Against the KANSAS CITY CHIEFS! What an accomplishment. Winning against another 0-4 team? NOT IMPRESSIVE OR REASSURING. Please don’t get me wrong. I would like to win. Because at this point, 8-8 this year sounds lofty. But even if it’s a blowout, I won’t breathe even the smallest sigh of relief. They’ve got a week off after that and maybe coming back from that can be a fresh start. But seriously folks, this team is not that good.

(sits here staring at my laptop and repeatedly mouthing the word 'wow')

2009-10-01T22:53:00.007-05:00

To quote Patton Oswalt...

"Sometimes I thought, 'Yeah, I'm sooooo edgy.' Then this guy comes along and it's like, "Man, I'm nowhere near the edge. This guy has a cottage on the edge that he lives in year-round."

Thanks to Deadspin (Jesus, I should make a macro for that) for bringing to my attention this amazing pile of what-the-what brilliance. I would try to give you my slick and ultrahip witticisms on this but...well, uhhh....

Well, I've got absolutely nothing. I give up. Internet, you win again. You live in three-story Tudor bungalow centrally located on the edge (with great schools!) and I have nothing to add to this.

Me trying to say anything about this would be like Matthew Barney trying to explain the Cremaster Cycle but only being able to use the vocabulary of an autistic 5 year old to do so.

I think I need a lie down. And a hug. And a blankie. And perhaps a warm glass of milk. Can someone put Sesame Street on for me? Thanks.

The Internet is Accused of Ruining Something Else Again

2009-10-01T17:28:00.003-05:00

I wish that this blog entry could be a Choose Your Own Adventure blog. If you want to read the serious, thought-provoking (errrr, maybe?) blog entry then turn your monitor upside down. If you want to read my somewhat flippant and possibly uninformed opinions about this topic, keep your monitor right side up and continue.

I get tired of debating “new media” vs. (whatever else isn’t “new media”). The transition from publishing ideas on a sheet of pulp paper product or publishing them on a website is NOT a tectonic shift. If there were journalists who were able to write in-depth pieces that were well-researched and well-written in a print product, there will also be people who can do the same in the new medium. I get that the criticism is “hey, anyone can just start a blog (hi!!!) and they don’t have to be well-informed or even a decent writer and they can put stuff out there and people will take it to be truth!” Yes, that’s true. Just like how (and I’m not making this up), the local newspaper in Barnesville, Georgia ran a piece that I cut out and kept that was written by a woman wearing a cat sweater. The basic premise of her article was that the rising price of gasoline was not a big deal because the Lord is sending us signs that the End of Days was nearing and so we really shouldn’t worry about how much gas costs since we won’t have to buy it much longer. So it’s not like print journalism is, across the board, some prestigious bastion of truth, fact and reason.

But clearly, no one was confusing the Barnesville Herald Gazette with the New York Times. Or if they were, they were stupid enough to deserve to believe that they needed to start getting their Rapture plan in place. And so it is on the internet. As many wing-nutty, poorly-spelled, crazy-ass blogs as there are out there, this should not cause anyone to see any and every online new source as just another decibel in the pointless and deafening white noise of the internet. Recently arrested child kidnapper and confirmed fucking lunatic Phillip Garrido has a website that claims “the Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongue of angels in order to provide a wake-up call that will in time include the salvation of the entire world.” It’s not as if I have afforded the same credibility to Garrido’s voicesrevealed.com that I do to CNN.com.

Let’s get back to the funny stuff here though. The two things that lead me to writing this missive were the fact that Buzz Bissinger is going to be promoting his new book on Deadspin and a comment I read in regards to the recently-launched Dallas-centric ESPN sports site. The Buzz Bissinger thing is hilarious to me on many, tiramsu-like levels. The most obvious being this clip from Costas Now where he goes on a tirade. The theme of this entire blog entry is neatly summed up by the always-better-at-summing-it-up Will Leitch who observes that “the internet is a meritocracy.” As a side note, the video also makes me laugh because it’s always funny to hear someone so caught up in their own vitriol that they start using phrases like “pisses the shit out of me” or incredulously asking if someone is named …”Balls Deep?!?!”

The second thing from this week that has made this whole topic simmer in the Crock Pot of my mind is this comment, which was left on the Observer’s Sportatorium blog:

Shitty journalists killed journalism says:
I still receive the WSJ daily. Still read the DMN. The issue is profitability. The problem is stupidity.
Journalism/reporting has been capsized by the blog. Blogging is, by and large, ill-informed opinions.
Those who participate in "bloggery" are not Journalists or reporters. They are lazy.
Look at the Huffington Post. All opinions. Same thing on the other side of the political fence.
The same slipshod writing exists under the sports mantle.
It's all shit.

Ending with “It’s all shit” makes me think of a rubbery-faced Walter Matthau typing this out (on the comment forum of a blog, which is extremely confusing to me) with one hand as he shakes his other hand in a fist at the no-good kids who keep stepping on his lawn.

I know I risk pulling some ageist, “get with the times, old man!” card out by saying all of this. And I really do think that print is still the preferred medium for in-depth pieces, photography and non-breaking news stories. But I think that when it comes to instantaneous updates on breaking news and a place for discussion and less-than-reverant (read: funny, clever or slightly entertaining) writing, the internet has print whipped, hands down.

Let’s boil this down to second grader talk. I read because I like to learn stuff and be informed or entertained or both simultaneously, even. Meaning, if I can go to a website that covers, say, sports and know that there will be an article about how dumb Michael Crabtree is acting right now and I know that there will also be witty responses to that article which will cause me to chuckle, guffaw or even Laugh Out Loud, I’m probably going to visit that website a lot. If that website also offers up-to-the-minute breaking sports news, even better. Now, say that website has also recently done things like break the story of Josh Hamilton’s Redi-Whip-Gate or Sean Salisbury’s apparent ungluing following his departure from ESPN radio, beating print, radio and televised media to the story? Well, that sounds like a one-stop shop for me.

So that leads me to wonder why Buzz and Shitty Journalists Killed Journalism, henceforth known as SJKJ, are so upset about blogs. SJKJ says that the Huffington Post is just pure opinion and that’s why the internet is bad. He says that there’s just as many conservative sites that are just as opinion-plagued. So I guess that when the Dallas Morning News runs which candidate they will endorse in their print edition, that’s like them being all internet-y with their dirty, unwanted opinions?

Let me make this clear, I’m not writing this because I think I am a sports journalist because I write about the Cowboys or anything. I feel okay about claiming to be a blogger because, as I type this, I see that “blogspot” is in the URL of this site. So I think that means I am on Team Blogger, right? But I don’t hate non-laptop-based media. I respect the hell out of the journalists and radio guys and all the people who went to school and, as they would say after long pulls off a Camel Filter and a swig of Glenlivet, “paid their dues.” Guys who didn’t just hit “publish” on their self-congratulating rants about the Mavericks prospects this year and sat back and smiled smugly. But I also don’t think that’s what real (read: not me) sports bloggers do.

I started this blog because stats, frankly, give me tiredhead after a few minutes. I can read the box score of a game and see the mathematics of what occurred during the assigned allotments of time in the given sport. And that leaves me kind of cold. Do I care about Romo’s accuracy rating per game? Yes, absolutely. Do I care that, with Marion Barber injured and Felix Jones leaving the game in the third quarter, the Cowboys were still able to have a second 200+ yard game in a row, a feat that hasn’t been achieved since the days of Tony Dorsett? Yes, I care hard. But I don’t listen to sports talk radio shows where caller after caller phones in to break down the statistics on the offensive line’s effectiveness in protecting the quarterback in the pocket when the temperature on the field is anywhere between 62 and 75 degrees. I love football but I guess I don’t love it enough to care about that stuff.

What I do care about? Figuring out what kind of vehicle could be approved for use on commercial highways and residential streets AND be able to transport Leonard Davis without using two lanes or getting a police escort. I care about animated GIFs of Wade Phillips shaking his Cracker Barrel-loving body in a euphoric dance of triumph over something as mundane as the other team missing a field goal in the first quarter. I have a sense of humor, I like football and I have multiple electronic devices which afford me the ability to obtain almost round-the-clock updates on the tragedies, triumphs and paternity lawsuits of professional sports. I’m sorry if some people feel like this has cheapened an entire profession and lowered it to the level of hookers who give mouthlove in abandoned outhouses. But I’m a-ok with being entertained and informed by someone who may or may not be named Balls Deep. I guess it’s just a sign of the times. Maybe the cat sweater lady was right and the Rapture really is coming soon. I just hope the Cowboys can win one goddamn playoff game before it does.

All My Snarky Friends Are Coming Over Tonight

2009-09-29T13:52:00.009-05:00

Let’s get the actual game stuff out of the way in the form of questions:

- Did Tony Romo do better? No interceptions. Helluva job! (Sort of)

- Why didn’t Roy Williams hang onto that throw on 2nd and goal that seemed like a helluva catchable touchdown pass?

- Why did Tony Romo then decide to throw it to Martellus Bennett on 3rd and goal? Helluva bad decision.

- Why is Terrance Newman scared of touching people to tackle them? And should his interception for a touchdown make up for that? (No)

- Why is Jay Ratliff so awesome?

- Who did the Damageplan-esque guttural scream-grunt right before the snap when the Cowboys had the ball in the 3rd quarter?

- Is there anything funnier than hearing the intro to “Crazy Train” reverberating around the new stadium when the Cowboys are on their own 15 yard line on 3rd and 19?

- Why does Tony Romo think he can run the ball for 20+ yards to get a first down?

- Should we have beaten the Carolina F’ing Panthers by a larger margin? (Almost certainly yes)

- Why is Tashard Choice so awesome?

- Why is Jason Garret retarded?

- Does Wade Phillips know that the game happened last night? He looked confused, sad and lost. I expect to see one of those Old People Amber Alerts issued for him on the drive home this afternoon. And I pray the vehicle he was last seen driving was this:

Now on to the less important but far more amusing parts of last night’s game…

Probably not a good time to be named John Phillips. You might have made a decent play last night but it didn’t stop me from making a comment about sleeping with your daughter.

Cheyenne: “Our color guard is....different.”

Chad on the Brinks Home Security System commercial: “Oh no! Hit the panic button! Dave Attell is breaking into our house!”

The Hank Williams Jr. intro was insane. If I remember it correctly, it climaxed with two golden football playing men becoming electrocuted in a Hill Valley 1985/save the clock tower moment where they collide violently after a current surges through them which then causes their helmets (and perhaps their heads) to become detached from their bodies and rocket out of the atmosphere and into space (almost taking out a satellite which would have then made us all unable to see the game) before hurtling back down to earth and into the roof of the new stadium and finally colliding in Mutual Assured Helmet Destruction.

Also, this guy is a hot mess:

Chad - "Oh this movie Zombieland looks awesome. I wanna go see it."
Me - "Me too!"
Philip - "Meh, I don't know. I'm not sold yet."
Me - "They just showed Woody Harrelson riding a roller coaster with a shotgun."
Philip - "Yeahhhhh, I'm just not convinced yet."

Towards the end of the game, they showed the Carolina Panthers owner. He seemed to be draped in some sort of FDR-in-Warm-Springs polio leg blanket. Danny thinks he looks like Ted Kennedy wearing a Snuggie.

Chad on the commercial for the 3 disc Vietnam War DVD set being sold after the game was over: "Do you want to feel like you're really 'in the shit'? FINALLY a war documentary for me!!!!"

MNF doesn’t mean Monday Night Football to me. It looks like the antonym for MILF. Mother (I’d Rather) Not…

Dear Jon Gruden, Please Stop Sitting on Stools in a Way to Maximize Camera Time for Your Junk. Below is the “frame 224 of the Zapruder film” of Monday Night Football. This is the only known still photograph of Jon Gruden sitting on a chair of any kind and covering his junk.

He May Not Be a Helluva Quarterback but…

2009-09-28T15:00:00.003-05:00

I have a deep, dark, dirty, festering secret. Like the lure of heroin to those in chronic pain, my willpower is failing me. I can’t help it. It’s like a tractor beam and I have been sucked in. I’m struggling, however pointlessly, against it. But then I saw this video and, well, I felt my muscles go limp. Whether I just gave in because I was tired of fighting it or I actually willingly decided to let myself be pulled away, I’ll never know.

I may have typed one or two (or half dozen) negative things about Tony Romo in the past few years. A week ago, after his interceptions lead directly to the Cowboys losing to the New York Giants, I wished a cavalcade of painful, puss-filled diseases to strike him simultaneously. I really couldn’t even think or type or speak about the Cowboys for a few days after last Sunday night’s game. What’s funny is that I made a shorthand list of things I wanted to write about once the searing pain of the loss became just a dull throb. Then I crossed them off for each time I heard one of the points being made for the 10th time by a local writer, sports talk guy or blog commenter. The list:

1. Flozell Adams – roundhouse kicked Justin Tuck?
2. Tony Romo – fuck him
3. Defense – fuck them
4. Terrance Newman – you suck at football
5. Wade – nevermind about them demoting him to D. Coordinator. He’s now gunning for Assistant Manager of Section 302 concessions
6. DeMarcus Ware – where? (minus 1 for pun)
7. Jay Ratliff – GOOD JOB
8. Two chances at catching a touchdown – Terrance Newman, you suck at everything
9. If Flozell Adams can roundhouse kick someone, I expect crane kicks from Ware unless he remember how to sack someone

But there’s no reason to dwell on the mess that was the game against the Giants. Unless the Cowboys lose tonight against the Panthers, then I am going to burn down the new stadium myself. What I was desperately searching for all week and through this weekend was a reason to believe again. Well, it was more like I needed a reason not to hate my own team and specifically my quarterback. I searched and searched. And then I found that video. And dammit, I like the dude. I’m not really convinced he will ever win a playoff game. But there’s just something about him that makes me unable to outright hate him. And trust me, every fiber in my being is screaming to hate him.

I’ve watched the video over and over again (partly just to figure out if McGee really is as dumb as he seems or if it is just that he’s a rookie) and I laugh more each time. Comparing the silly pirate cannons in Tampa Bay to the gunfire you grew up dodging on the mean streets of Burlington, Wisconsin? Dammit, I can’t hate you. Trying to get a laugh, a smile or a pulse out of Jason Garrett? Awesome. Alternately, Jason Garrett apparently missed his calling as a palace guard. But what really sold me on this video is Tony Romo’s liberal and almost Tourrette’s-like use of the phrase “helluva job!” to encourage his teammates.

Maybe this is just a frenzied forage around the cold, barren soils of Cowboys football in a desperate attempt to find something redeeming about the leader of the team. Maybe I just need to find something to get my hopes up for tonight’s game. Maybe I’m doing that thing where once a certain number of people agree on something and jump on the pile (Ed Hardy sucks, Saturday Night Live isn’t funny, Apple sucks, “I want to throw this can away, where’s your recycling?”) and so I have to try to be ahead of the curve by believing the opposite to be true. So in conclusion, look for me and my football gang to be watching the game tonight with a renewed sense of Cowboys pride. Alternately, look for me in the crowd. I’ll be the one wearing a t-shirt with a bedazzled tiger on it, doing my impressions of the Church Lady during commercials and texting “Tony Romo rulez” on my iPhone to everyone I know while actively NOT recycling. Down is up, black is white, cold is hot and, most shocking of all, I don’t hate Tony Romo like I thought I did.

The Burger King Must Be Stopped!

2009-09-25T13:21:00.003-05:00

D Magazine’s FrontBurner blog is allowing comments again and just in time. You see, we all almost died. Bet you didn’t even know until you heard about it on the news yesterday evening, huh? As a disclaimer: no, I don’t think terrorists or mass killings or even one killing or maiming or slight inconveniencing for your cause is noble or anything other than really really stupid and cowardly. I also am not a “truther”, as I was accused of being on FrontBurner. In fact, I went to a screening of Alex Jones’s documentary about what he thinks was the US government’s involvement in 9/11. I left thinking, “Well, that was weak.”

So in case you don’t live in Dallas or your converter box coupon hasn’t come in the mail yet, the big news story yesterday was that the FBI arrested a 19 year old Jordanian who was here illegally for trying to blow up a big office building downtown. They also arrested a man in Illinois named Michael Finton, who choose quite possibly the most unoriginal Islamic name to go by….Talib Islam. Kind of like changing your name to Joe Name or something. Not too creative. Then again, when you take a look-see around his Myspace page, you will find not a hardened jihadist but a guy who has a picture of himself wearing the paper Burger King crown and exclaiming that he IS the REAL king! I’m assuming he 86’ed the bacon on his Whopper Deluxe.

Why am I acting so flippant about this? Because the whole thing stinks of TERRORISM PANIC!!!!!!!!!!!! Like, “Hey, you guys started to live your lives with only a modicum of fear of strangers so let’s rattle your cage a little bit and remind you that EVERYONE IS OUT TO BLOW YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN UP!” I wrote a thing about how the two big stories that sell tabloid daily papers in the UK is either a story about a suspected terrorist sleeper cell or about how fat Britons are getting because of American fast food chains. Anything to do with terrorism is always put people back on edge. Do I think that people should be apathetic if they see some dude lighting a stick of dynamite on the DART green line? No. But this seems to smell pungently of sensationalism.

I have said this before and I will say it again. I’m a freedom-loving American who adores her ability to blog about something like this without impunity or the threat of incarceration. That being said, I don’t think the average fear-rattled American realizes how tight our security has been and how lucky we have been to have avoided terrorist attacks like we have. I remember the first time I ever went to Britain. This was after the IRA had almost completely shuttered their radical front. There was no active war in which they were involved. And yet, when I stepped off the plane at Gatwick, I saw that some of the security officers at the airport were armed. With machine guns. And were wearing fatigues. It was shocking to me because I had never seen that before. Then my teenage brain put it together that Britain realized that certain people (the IRA, any number of countries that they had colonized in the centuries before, Islamic radicals who hated their relationship with Israel) did not like them and were actively trying to attack them.

America has a long exhaustive list of enemies. Gone are the days when America was hailed as the liberators of death camps and the innocent victims of Pearl Harbor. America has made enemies. Just like how our country grew on a foundation of capitalism, we have made enemies similar to how a booming corporation makes enemies by undercutting the competition or running them out of business. It’s the price you pay for being a superpower of the Western world.

But these arrests were not the infiltration and ambush of a powerful group of sleeper cells. These arrests were the result of the FBI finding disgruntled people who wished to commit violent and deadly acts. It should come as no surprise to anyone that these people were found on the internet (slogan: “Come for the porn, stay for the extremism and false sense of camaraderie!”). Just as the FBI could have found a message board for disenfranchised youth who idolized the Columbine killers or extreme environmentalists who worshipped the Unabomber and wanted to carry out similar attacks to the ones orchestrated by their heroes, they found two young men who were Islamic and looked up to the 9/11 bombers. And just like how the FBI could have gathered enough evidence to arrest the kid who wants to blow up his high school by posing as sympathizers and like-minded extremists, they sent in a team of agents posing as Islamic radicals who could help these young men carry out their dream attacks.

Do I think for a hot second that either of these idiotic kids would have gotten any further than the computer in their mom’s basement with these “plans” without any outside assistance? Not really. But I’m willing to bet that these kids were lonely, socially outcast morons wanting to prove just how vigilant and committed they were to their particular pet cause. These kids were out to prove something, though I don’t believe that their hatred of the US was the biggest point they were trying to make. Their approach was amateurish and filled with poorly-veiled braggadocio.

But I don’t think the FBI was wrong in their approach at all. I actually support the FBI in this but hate the way it’s being reported and the reactions that it is garnering. What I took out of the whole thing was that, while Al-Qaeda would like you to believe that they have thousands upon thousands of well-trained and incredibly adept terrorists-in-waiting hiding out all over America, this shows me that is not the case. These kids are the online equivalent of the boy in school who tells everyone about how he “totally killed a cat in the woods the other day” to make people think he’s far out and freaky and dangerous. These were not men who were training in flight simulators and studying chemistry to develop explosives that can evade airport security detection. If anything, these were the William H. Macy and the two hitmen from Fargo.

What I think we should take from this whole incident are the following facts:

a) the internet is rife with dumb kids filled with angst over girls or fantasies of unrestrained hooker murder like they play in Grand Theft Auto daily
b) they will respond to encouragement of these activities with gusto
c) the FBI has sent a message to actual terrorist cells that they cannot know for sure that the “jihadNow69” that they have been chatting to about their “death to America” platform is who he says he is. Could be an FBI agent. That’s a very good thing.

So before I am rounded up, McCarthy-style, and put before the UnAmerican Activities Committee: Part II (“This time it’s personal!”), stop for a second and ask yourself how close you think these kids would have ever come to blowing up a park bench much less a huge office building without any outside help? Or do you, like me, think that this was a case of cocky kids with big mouths digging themselves into an awfully big hole? I just don’t see the Burger King of Springfield carrying out anything grander than a large Meat Lover’s pizza with two orders of breadsticks for a big night of playing Halo in his bedroom at his mom’s house.

Letters from the DL

2009-09-24T15:37:00.002-05:00

I had every intention of blogging about the Cowboys impecunious performance on Sunday night. But as you can tell by my use of a word that I didn’t know a week ago, I’ve been sidelined for the past three days. With an affliction so debilitating, so demoralizing and so life-changing that I pondered my own mortality over the past anguish-filled 72 hours. That’s right, I have pink eye. This has been crippling for me in many respects. The first being that this is my first real foray into the world of pink eye. As a child, I adeptly sidestepped the Curse of the Eye of Pink many times and attributed other children’s acquisition of it to be a direct result of their love of putting their own or other people’s fecal matter into their eyes. I wasn’t into that type of thing and therefore, I never had to experience the shame of pink eye.

Nothing has changed about my refusal to let human or mammalian waste of any kind anywhere near my face, let alone my eyeballs. I haven’t had some sort of late 20’s meltdown wherein I question what I want to do in life and search for the answers in the bottom of pile of poo. I cannot reiterate again how absolutely sure I am that there have been no particles of solid waste anywhere near my eyes in the past 28 years. So let me serve as a warning to you. Contrary to popular belief, one does not have to smear dung all over one’s face to get pink eye. In fact, the only crime I am guilty of is having allergies. Basically, I have been rubbing my eyes because of allergies for the past week or so. I wear contacts in which pollen and other allergens can embed themselves. The rubbing caused tiny, microscopic tears and cuts in my eyes. Into those, any bacteria can take the express train to Infection Town. Which they did. So that explains about 90% of the reasoning for me wearing this eye patch.

Lesson number two that I want to share with you through my one good eye is: make sure that you buy glasses every decade or so. Not because of changes in prescription, because my prescription has not changed since the first time I got glasses and contacts when I was 15 years old. But therein lies the problem. Let’s review the tape on what I was like when I was 15. I listened to The Smiths, I sulked a lot and I was an avid reader. My favorite author at the time was Truman Capote. No harm there. Or was there? Yes, there was. When I was told that I needed to get my very first pair of glasses, I walked into Eyemasters and declared that I wanted the most Truman Capote frames they carried. The lady that worked there tried, in vain, to discourage me from this pursuit. But it was of no use. I got exactly what I wanted. I got Truman Capote glasses. Let’s put it this way: it wasn’t like it was going to put a real dent on my dating life since such a thing did not exist for me in high school really.

I could chalk this all up to the life lessons that one picks up in those oh-so-awkward teenage years. Only when it was discovered that I had pink eye, I was told that I could not wear my contacts again until the problem cleared up. I also could not get a new pair of glasses because my prescription was expired and I would need to take a new eye exam once the Peepers Plague of ’09 had been cured. So the only options I had were to a) cocoon myself into a blurry world of calling in sick to work with “blindness” or to b) dig out the only pair of glasses that I have ever owned (AKA “the Capotes”). I found them. Oh dear, did I find them. These were never okay to wear. I don’t care if I loved the works of Truman Capote or if the ghost of Truman Capote saved my childhood dog from being hit by a car or whatever, these are unforgiveable.

And I know because I have been wearing them for three days and must continue to wear them until my follow-up appointment on Monday. I might also mention that they sit slightly crooked on my face from 13 years of being at the bottom of various boxes in various states and countries. I have learned that I would rather risk walking face first into walls or into open elevator shafts than to have to wear these glasses for anything other than driving and being able to do my job at work. In fact, I’ve been almost pressing my face to my computer screen just to avoid having to wear these things on my face.

This is not a slight against eyeglasses or the wearers thereof. I assume most people do not pick their eyeglasses out based on the preference of tortured, alcoholic author but by how the frames suit their face. That would have been an invaluable lesson that I could have learned at 15 but instead, I stubbornly insisted that I knew what I was doing. On Tuesday, my first day of wearing the Capotes, I even thought that I might be able to pull it off in a hipster, “ugly is the new pretty” sort of way. I did not. These things are hideous. So unless you are planning some sort of get together which requires no eyesight whatsoever (like maybe being a Defensive Coordinator to Wade Philips?), I’ll be staying in and laying low this weekend.

Kiss My Blackout Ass

2009-09-17T15:08:00.011-05:00

A lot of people are getting crazypants about the fact that, if the Cowboys do not (or did not) sell a couple hundred more seats for Sunday night’s game, there could be the first Cowboys blackout since 1990. They are, in fact, retarded to do so. First off, I’m pretty sure any given office or combination of offices in the metroplex would have a whip round to ensure that those seats get bought if for no other reason than facing the terrifying possiblity of having to talk to their families on Sunday night instead of watching the game. Also, could it not be a brilliant streak of marketing from Team Jones to make sure that every seat is filled and he gets his attendance record for the home opener at the new stadium? Granted, this is the same guy who bought a metaphorical bridge and/or swampland in Florida (I’m feeling incredibly pro-choice today) in the form of a video board that no other team would buy for fear that it could actually be hit with a punted football. But in an economic climate as not-awesome as the one we are in now, how better to sell the last few stupid expensive seats by telling the Cowboy fan that they might have to miss the game or, even worse, listen to 105.3 The Fan?

The part that amuses me about the whole thing is that this marketing scheme would be a secondary one for me. You want to really make sure those seats sell out every game? Why not capitalize on the time-honored tradition of rich people big timing the poor little people? You see, most people (well, Deadspin) assume that those seats aren’t selling because people are going to buy the $29 Party Passes then do the old Confuse-The-Usher sneak into the empty seats. In fact, it’s not the first time that Deadspin has become kind of like the guy who prints his own newspaper about a CIA gunman in the bushes on the Grassy Knoll and sells them in Dealy Plaza with this conspiracy theory of theirs. For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s true.

Well there’s your answer of how to get people with some coin to plunk down for $200 seats. You can finally feel the warm flush of imperialism as you rightly claim your Section 201, Row F, Seats 3 and 4 thrones from the impoverished, malnourished and unwashed shivering, bundled masses. With the help of an usher, of course. Seriously, in a city where people lease German luxury automobiles that cost more than twice what they make in a year, how better to flaunt your supposed wealth than evicting poor people? Even if it’s only from a stadium seat and it’s only for one day, imagine the power you could feel from watching a father and daughter from Garland go pale as they are asked to show their tickets. Hell, you could really impress a date by buying an extra seat for her purse just to show her that you are a better human than the pitiable creatures who would have otherwise enjoyed the game from that spot.

Let’s even take it a step further. Like how some people enjoy period-costumed murder mystery steamboat trips or how others enjoy paying people to make them wear rubber underwear and be belittled and spanked, let’s go all out with this. Have the Party Pass (or Plebeians Pass, as it will know be known) people dress up as Ellis Island immigrants replete with tattered suitcases and water-damaged birth documents. Or maybe the week that they play the Redskins, have the plebs dress as Native Americans and rename the aisles leading back to the plazas the “Trail of Beers” or something. Income-based water fountains? Or make anyone who has scraped together enough money to purchase something from the Fan Shop carry their purchase out not in a shopping bag but in a hobo bundle tied to the end of a broken broomstick? The possibilities really are endless.

I know this sounds insensitive and snarky but if there is one thing that I have learned in my years of living in Dallas (other than the fact that everyone with money will tell you that they are either in “real estate” or “marketing” despite how shadowy both of those terms are) is that people really like to feel richer/thinner/hotter/more powerful than everyone else in their vicinity, since that is what determines your Win/Loss record in life. So why not, pulling out my own vague knowledge from a few years in marketing here, monetize this and capitalize on the growth trend? Why not win-win on the visibility front with a little bit of brandstorming in the form of opportunistic Dollarization of the downtrending human spirit?*

* I hope your soul died a little like mine did after reading that list. Also, as a side note, I am clearly too immature to ever really dive head-first into marketing and I base this solely on my initial response to the phrases “Employee Surfboarding”, “Long-tail”, “Waste Identification” and “Re-skilling” which I mis-read as “Re-skulling.”

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Grudgingly Kinda Respect the Romo

2009-09-17T15:06:00.003-05:00

I fully intended on writing, at length, about the first regular season Cowboys game. I was going to write about how, on a refreshments run at halftime, my friend and I acted as if the Cowboys were down by 40. They were, in fact, up 13-7 over the Bucs. You really wouldn’t have been able to tell though from our maudlin predictions of doom and gloom. The phrase, “we look horrible out there” was uttered more than a half dozen times. And remember, we Cowboys fans haven’t seen so much as a little bit of Conference championship action, much less anything ending in the word “Bowl”, in well over a decade. So it’s not like we were being spoilt Victorian children about it. No matter how many reminders I was given that Tony Romo was maybe a little rusty and that this is Martellus Bennett’s first go at the whole two tight ends deal, I was never comfortable. Until the margin of our lead was in the 20’s, I was convinced that the Cowboys were going to lose and the whole season was a pointless waste of football time.

Then they pointed out that Sunday’s game set a new personal record for Tony Romo. Throwing for 353 yards. Really? When they said that, everyone in the room chimed in with an astonished “Wha? When?” Tony Romo’s shakiness was the root of all my distrust. How could he have just set a new career record in a game that never fully convinced me that we weren’t destined to be the Detroit Lions of ’09-10? I still don’t get it. I mean, I can mentally wrap my neurons around the concept that Tony Romo threw for more than 350 yards and 3 touchdowns. I get that part. I guess my question is…when? When did he cut the risky gunslinger crap and gain enough stability to accomplish this? Was there some secret Freemason’s-only broadcast of the previously unknown 5th quarter that I was not privy to?

I don’t want to focus all my “WTF” just on Tony Romo. In fact, let’s do this by process of elimination. If your name doesn’t start with “Jason” and end in “Witten”, you made me nervous on Sunday. Again, I will chalk it up to rustiness. The one area that, going into the Bucs game, I didn’t seem to be sweating as much as others was the state of our receivers. I think Roy Williams, despite Aikman/Emmitt/Irvin all taking turns in an elaborate game of “Yo Mama” at his expense, is really good. Maybe some have built their expectations of Roy Williams up to Hadrian’s Wall levels that he can never match. But between him, Austin and Cray-Cray (™Chad), I think we have plenty of able hands into which Tony Romo can lob the pigskin. As a little aside, that might be the grossest sentence I have ever typed.

But it’s cool to be a hater, as the kids would say. It’s cool to be a Cowboys fan who almost roots against the Cowboys. It’s fun to go into the season with a doom and gloom outlook on the rest of the season. In fact, all my Cowboys friends seem to be basking in the glory of suck-dom. They’re convinced that Romo is going to injure himself and leave us with a season full of Kitna fumbles and that the possibility of the simultaneous spontaneous combustion of three running backs is not so improbable. My friend Josh chastised us for celebrating the Cowboys victory by cracking open an $80 bottle of champagne because the victory on Sunday was against, after all, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My friend Danny refers to this Sunday’s game as an opportunity to “watch the Cowboys get killed by the Giants.” Everyone wants to see Wade Philips fail once again, if only to ensure that this is his last season as head coach. I’m sort of surprised that no one had charged onto the field of JerryDome in a Jeff Gillooly fashion and crowbar-ed Marion Barber’s shins yet.

Then came the ray of sunshine that was my friend Manny. No Cowboys apologist, he simply forwarded this link to some of us today. And that was all I needed. I started to remember what I heard one sports talk show guy say yesterday about Romo and his missing sense of humor this season. You see, the one thing I could always give Tony Romo credit for was his sense of humor and his ability to poke fun at the whole thing. The whole circus that surrounds the Cowboys or pro-athletes in general. So when I heard interviews with him this preseason, I was disappointed by his “by the book” standard issue athlete answers he was giving. Could he really have lost the one thing that endeared me to him? No. As Sports Talk Guy pointed out, it’s his way of subtlety showing everyone that the whole ill-advised, “If never winning a championship is the worst thing that happens to me, I’ve lived a pretty good life” statement was a mistake. He does, at least if you’re going by his drier-than-Betty White’s-lady-area quotes, care. He’s not just laughing off the potential that he could go down in the books as a quarterback fail and take the Cowboys with him.

So just let me bask in this Week One victory. Sure, Danny could be right and the Cowboys could become prison shower rape dolls for the Giants come Sunday night. Maybe an easy victory over an abysmal team which fired their offensive coordinator only a few weeks before the game against the Cowboys is not anything on which one should hang their hat. But let me have it. Let me savor it. I still don’t have the supremely blissful optimism that I had last season. But maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I have gotten over my spoilt child ways and come back down to earth. Maybe I just like the fact that a win is, in fact, a win.

2009-09-09T22:21:00.002-05:00

There isn't much that I can say about Obama's speech tonight that hasn't been said already or wasn't said better by my mom's text after the speech tonight. It just said, "I love our President!" No, not some Commie Pinko Blind Allegiance to the Great Leader thing. It's just so nice to have a president who sticks up for the things you believe in. No need for further praise.

Because everyone, Democrat and Republican, seemed to actually listen and respect both the President's authority to speak to the country and their right to disagree with some or all of what he said. Well, everyone except South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson. Check out him screaming, "YOU LIE!" Classy, dude. Classy.

My three favorite things about the immediate reaction to Wilson's outburst: 1. Obama calmly but firmly telling him that he is incorrect 2. Nancy Pelosi's look which is the same look that kids at the front of the bus make when the dumbass kid on the back of the bus who keeps playing with the emergency door accidentally opens it and falls out of the bus at low speeds and 3. Joe Biden's Disappointed Dad look. The head shake, the hang of the head. You might as well go to bed without dinner, Joe Wilson. If you remember childhood at all, just remember this: Dad's not mad, he's just....disappointed in you.

Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

2009-09-09T15:24:00.005-05:00

Alright, as you might remember (you probably don’t) last Cowboys season, I did a little game-by-game breakdown of each Cowboys game up to the BYE. I even implored to the Cowboys, “Come on, let's make this season Pyromania and not Euphoria” Clearly they did not take my advice as the season turned out to be not like a good Def Leppard album or even a mediocre or bad Def Leppard album but more like the car crash that severed Rick Allen’s arm.

And like every other Cowboys fan not named _____ Jones, I am thoroughly disheartened by the piss-poor draft. If it weren’t for the glimmer of hope I got from the first half of the Tennessee game, I would probably be opening up a few veins in a warm tub and listening to Closer by Joy Division. As it stands, I will say that my optimism for the upcoming Cowboys season (henceforth know only as The Season We Let Mike Shanahan Take a Year Off and Let Wade Phillips Play Coach For One More Season) is like my love for the songs of The Smiths. I love the Smiths. I love them no matter what, just like how I love the Cowboys. No matter how many fumbles, first round play-off exits or Johnny Marr and the Healers albums come between me and them, the love still burns like a pair of sneakers in Andre Rison’s bathtub. And so with that, I meld the two together seamlessly (well, kind of) to bring you my Cowboys-Up-to-the-BYE week preview…

Sunday, September 13th - @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers (noon)

“A Rush and Push and the Land is Ours”

There is no theoretical reasons why the Cowboys would lose this game short of the entire offensive line catching Montezuma’s Revenge simultaneously. We started last season out with the Browns. Remember that? I do. There was a Browns fan in the stands dressed as a three-headed dog. I also remember the return of the Fox Football robot, the commercial where the Burger King reverse pickpockets people on the street and the introduction of the Volcano Taco. Which should indicate three things: 1. The game was kind of dull 2. Advertising works 3. But I have not, in the past year, eaten a Volcano Taco or anything from Burger King so maybe it doesn’t after all.

I usually drag myself weakly out of bed in time to catch the last 30 minutes of the pregame show for noon games on Sundays. I say silent prayers every weekend that someone will hit Terry Bradshaw in the mouth hard and right now, all my money is on otherwise mild-mannered Michael Strahan snapping and taking one for the team. But not this game. This will be like Christmas morning. I won’t be able to sleep and the minute I grasp the first strand of consciousness, all I will be able to think about is about how cocky Jay Glazer will be when he announces the last minute gossip and injuries. “Yeah so Michael Vick and I were Skyping this morning and he says to look for the wildcat out there today.”

Sunday, September 20th – New York Giants (7:15pm)

“Barbarism Begins at Home”

Wow, I cannot wait for this game. As far as I am concerned, the Tampa Bay game is like a bonus preseason game. Funny quote: either Brad Sham or Babe Laufenberg made the proclamation during the Titans preseason game that Tony Romo, upon a long completion to Jason Witten, was “better than anyone realizes, even Romo himself. Ahead of him you really only have Manning and Brady if we’re being honest.” The next play was a obscenity-inducing interception thrown by Romo. The issuer of the previous hot sports opinion amended his original statement with, “I take back everything I just said. Nevermind.” Now THAT’S the kind of play calling I love. Baseless and hyperbolic opinions which are proven completely inaccurate 30 seconds later. Buck, Aikman, Johnson, Costas et al, the ball is in your court.

Monday, September 28th – Carolina Panthers (7:30 pm)

“William, It Was Really Nothing”

Last season for Monday Night Football, we got the Eagles. Oh my, that was a game. I even remember bonding with hurricane evacuees over the punk-ness of Donovan McNabb. This season? The Panthers. Umm, yay? God, I am really trying to think of what exciting things could happen in this game. A punt hits the scoreboard? Another FAIL like this? I know that the Panthers, unlike us, actually made the playoffs last season. But now that Kerry Collins is sober in Tennessee and Rae Carruth is making license plates, they just don’t have that pizzazz they used to have. See what Jerry Jones has done to me with his love of felons?

Sunday, October 4th – @ Denver Broncos (3:15pm)

“This Night (or early afternoon, really) Has Opened My Eyes”

This game is a huge bundle of awesome for many reasons, few of which are actually related to the Cowboys. First off, I want to see what a difference Shanahan being gone makes now that some time has passed. I also am, of course, terribly interested in seeing how the Jay Cutler for Kyle Orton trade is going to work out. I am a totally shameless and unapologetic Kyle Orton sympathizer. But most important for me, I can’t wait to see how Knowshon Moreno is going to work out for the Broncos. I distinctly remember his otherworldly ability to leap and (unless I have made up this highlight reel in my mind) flip over defenders when playing for Georgia last season. Then again, I also stopped watching Georgia games after the blackout game against Alabama that turned into a footbortion. I would also really like to be able to wear a light jacket or sweater by the time this game rolls around? Alright, Allah/God/Pete Delkus?

Sunday, October 11th - @ Kansas City (noon)

“Asleep”

Sundays are my one day I allow myself to well and truly sleep in. I feel like I must accomplish things on Saturday mornings and when football is not around, Sundays exist merely as a stopgap between weekend and being at my desk at work. Football gives me a reason to get out of bed. But what about when it’s football against the Kansas City Chiefs? I will probably watch at least half of this game in bed. Wow, this season sure does start off kind of slow, huh?

Oh wait, after the break we have a four week span that will see us play the Eagles, the Redskins, the Packers and the Giants again. Yeah, I’m saving up all my other Smiths songs for that streak. So expect to see a lot of “Girl Afraid”s and “You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby”s and “Miserable Lie”s. By December, I expect to be able to fully utilize “I Started Something That I Couldn’t Finish” and “Stop Me if You Think You’ve Heard This Before.”

On a side note:

Dear Mike Shanahan,

I love you, Mike Shanahan. Please come be our coach and make Tony Romo care about winning football games. You can keep Wade as our defensive coordinator because he’s the only head coach in the NFL that would take that kind of demotion. Or you can bring someone else in. Just please come and crack the whip. I’m not usually the type to sink to this kind of thing but I will let you touch my boobs if you come coach the Cowboys. Over the shirt, five seconds, no pictures.

Love,
Amanda Cobra

Pouring Out Some Diet Coke for You, Homes....

2009-08-26T12:44:00.003-05:00

I hate to admit this but I remember, as a child, that certain family members from a certain side of my family always made cheap jokes or openly booed and hissed when any member of the Kennedy family was shown on the news. If it was John Kennedy, there was some reference to Marilyn Monroe (the irony being that the family member in question has yet to master fidelity himself) and I dared not even speak the name Ted Kennedy for fear of the onslaught of insults and venom that would be unleashed. When I was about 10 or 11 and started becoming interested in politics and started kind of forming my own ideas, I remembered that we learned all about this John F. Kennedy guy in class and we had gone to where some mean guy shot him. So I started reading books about JFK and then RFK and eventually became interested in the sordid, tragic and compelling story of the entire Kennedy clan.

When this family member found out about my interest in the Kennedys, I was ridiculed for my admiration of any member of the Camelot. I was told horror stories about things that the family did. They drank, cheated on their wives and went to a Congressional costume parties dressed as Barney the Dinosaur with a nametag that read “Tyrannosaurus Sex”, which probably actually solidified my love for Ted Kennedy. It was the first time I actually remember thinking, “But I admire this person and he has done great things and why can’t I have a political opinion without being ridiculed for it?” I’d hear the mentions of Chappaquiddick over and over again. It was kind of a foreshadowing for the people who can negate Bill Clinton’s ability to bring Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin together to talk and shake on a peace agreement or him continuing to be able to do things like negotiate the release of two American journalists held hostage in North Korea instead of retiring to Preston Hollow by just saying “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” or mentioning a cigar and snickering.

Ted Kennedy died today and, while it wasn’t a surprise, it really made me sad. We all knew he had brain cancer. I didn’t think he would make it this long. But of all the times when we need a Ted Kennedy, of all the times when we need to put aside partisanship and fear for the sake of helping the country’s working class…well, it’s right now. With all the boogeyman talk of Death Panels and compromises on public options, I hope and pray that someone will pick up the torch that Ted Kennedy would have carried. If your memory is failing to recall all the things that Ted Kennedy championed during his nearly 50-year political career, let me jog your memory. I get teary when I start to think about the fact that, despite the progress we have made in the past year, the fear-mongering, uninformed and paranoid-email-forwarding idiots could ruin the greatest shot we’ve got at a national health care system that provides for all citizens, not just the lucky ones.

So in memory of Ted Kennedy, who was able to put aside left or right allegiance to try to help the poor, disenfranchised and disabled, I want to give major, major props to John McCain. I understand that he is following his party line and that he probably genuinely has misgivings about Obama’s health care plan. But these absurd town hall meetings have not been, by and large, about debating the pros and cons of the proposed health care program. They have been about screaming and packing heat and telling seniors to go rent Logan’s Run. So when John McCain stands up to town hall meeting attendees by reminding them that a) there is no booing in civil discourse (House of Commons being the glaring exception) and b) that Obama is the president, he is not trying to sidestep or violate the Constitution and he deserves respect, I give a hearty tip of the hat to McCain.

It’s so funny to me that this Death Panel hocus-pocus seems to really be sticking. My 80 year old grandmother would probably volunteer to go up before the non-existent Death Panel. She’s been telling us that she “probably won’t be around much longer” for almost a decade now. Every time I go to her house, she gives me yet another household item like some sort of drawn-out Estate sale. The irony is, of course, that her mother spent 20 years claiming that she wasn’t gonna be around much longer either until she passed away just shy of 100. In fact, my grandmother’s insistence in her own eminent demise is the biggest reason I haven’t had to buy kitchenware, luggage or scarves as yet in my adult life. Maybe she just voted for Obama to get in the front of the line for the Socialist Death Panels?

Why the present-day Dallas Cowboys are an awful, ridiculous, absurd monster and alternately, why I cannot wait for football season to begin

2009-08-24T14:30:00.008-05:00

I hate the Dallas Cowboys. Really, I do. Which is extremely uncomfortable considering that they are the team that I support. Nay, the team that I follow religiously. The team that I get depressed about missing during the summer and cannot wait until they come back in the fall to depress me with their bad football playing. The only analogy I can think of is the bad boyfriend.

The Cowboys are the boyfriend that you know, on paper, is completely awful. All your friends regularly ask with frustration all over their face why you are staying with him. They like to run down the list of things that he has done to hurt you or piss you off. He’s borrowed your car without asking and disappeared for three days with no explanation when he returns. He regularly uses phrases like “killer, brah” and “fo’ shizzle”. He doesn’t “get” the movie Idiocracy and calls is “dumb”. He wears Affliction t-shirts, jeans and flip flops most every day. Worse than all of that, when you try to defend your choice to stick with him to anyone, you cannot easily provide any reasons to justify your choice. You just, ummmm, well….you just, you know….I mean you don’t know what it’s like when it’s just us and no one else is around and…..

The Dallas Cowboys are a joke. A big, fat football joke. They used to not be. I think. Maybe I was just too young to get the joke back then. But Jerry Jones seems hell-bent on murdering any integrity the team may have. Because more than winning or playoffs or Super Bowls, Jerry Jones just wants to be really, really famous. Had he been born in a different time and not come into money (may need to re-evaluate this saying before posting) as he did, he would be a fixture of the reality show audition circuit and eventually become a staple of low-level basic cable reality programming. He’d eat monkey penises or make out with a pair of midgets or form alliances with smarter people and then throw them under the bus to avoid elimination. But mark my words; come hell or high water, he would be famous. And that’s a really bad thing for the Cowboys.

Let’s start with the most current wang measuring contest. The TV. I haven’t been to Cowboys Stadium yet but will be going soon because of the one good idea Jerry has had in a decade, the $29 party pass. Everyone that has been to the Stadium agrees that it is impressive if for nothing other than its size. Fresh Kills is also impressive because of its size, so size doesn’t always matter. I already hate the TV and I haven’t seen it. You know why I know that I hate the TV? Because at Mavs games, I hate the jumbotron. I never watch replays on it. I focus on the court instead. I sometimes realize this when I start to hear boos and remember, “Oh yeah, they show replays on the jumbotron.” But horses for courses and I do understand the appeal of the world’s largest replay screen to some people.

But when you find out that the screen is low enough that THIRD STRING punters could hit it with a punt, you eat humble pie. Not that a slice of such has ever passed between the lips of Jerry. But that’s when you take big HD lemons and make HD lemonade. You go, “oh yeah, well check this out….we can move the TV up because we have the most badass stadgeium of all time so suck it." You smile and push a button and pretend it’s as easy as that to move the screens up while simultaneously texting your assistant to get some cranes over to Arlington post-haste. You don’t, under any circumstances, claim that punters just shouldn’t, you know, hit the TV and say that the screens will not be moved as they provide “entertainment value” to patrons. You know what provides amazing entertainment value? Football. Non-dead-ball-filled football. Not that I think Jerry gives a flying anything about football. He’s the Paris Hilton of owners, great at brand building and so easy to hate

Before the football season starts each year, Deadspin runs something on each team in the NFL about why each franchise sucks. Here’s this year’s Cowboys one. I’d like to address each reason, if I could. And I can because this is my blog:

1. Their new stadium will rape your wallet multiple times over. Some of the new features of Jerry Jones' (YEEEEEEHAWWWWW!) $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium include carpeted floors (whee!), the world's biggest LCD screen (fer watchin' all dem big plays!), and a retractable roof. Oh yeah, there's also the $60 pizzas, and the $35, standing room only Party Passes the team is selling to an estimated 35,000 people PER FUCKING GAME. In other words, any time you attend a Dallas Cowboys game this year, nearly one third of the people in the stadium will be trying to take your fucking seat.

Do not get me wrong, I hate the idea of the new stadium because all the footage I have seen of it looks like the stadium equivalent of a model home in a “starting in the $400,000’s” planned community in Southlake or DeSoto or something. Completely soulless but filled to the brim with plasma concessions menu displays, frosted glass bathroom countertops and faux-modernism. But the idea that I can finally attend a Cowboys game and stand there on a pavilion and watch my team play is genius. If you have a seat at a game and are paranoid that a third of the people in the stadium will be trying to take your seat, breathe a deep sigh of relief when you realize that if that does indeed happen, the problem can be rectified with a simple “Yo homes, that’s my seat. Cough up a ticket or back to the party zone, hombre.” Takes about 5 seconds to say and will work 100% of the time. Also, Deadspin claims that the new stadium is “a painfully expensive, unnecessary luxury stadium that replaced a perfectly useful old home”. No. No, it isn’t. It is a painfully expensive, unnecessary luxury stadium that replaces a terribly dilapidated to third-world-esque levels stadium. Texas Stadium was the proverbial “used condom stuck to a dog corpse floating down the Ganges” of NFL stadiums.

2. If I have to hear Berman say "How bout them Cowboys?" one more god damn time… Seriously, Jimmy Johnson. FUCK YOU. Just because you won the NFC title against the 49ers back in 1993 didn't give you license to coin a phrase that would stay in the football lexicon forever and ever, well past the point of tolerance.

Point taken. When I was a kid in Georgia, my dad used to say “How ‘bout them Braves?” so I think it’s more of just a good-ol-boy way to sound folksy and blue collar and possibly backwoods. On a similar note, this list of NBA franchise slogans provides many a giggle to me.

3. I'm an American, and I did not ask for this team. Speaking of annoying terms associated with the Dallas Cowboys, the phrase "America's Team" was coined by NFL Films VP Bob Ryan in 1979 because he needed a catchy title for the team's 1978 highlight film.

Duuuuuuude, we get it. The phrase was coined before I was even born. It’s not my fault. I don’t call them that. One could argue that, as the top selling franchise as far as merchandise goes, the Cowboys are statistically speaking, America’s Team. Funny story: if you watch the Mexican film Y Tu Mama Tambien, you will notice that the two main characters have a club (“charolastras”) of sorts and one of the bylaws of the club is that “Whoever roots for Team-America is a fag.” I always assumed that this was a reference to either vague anti-Americanism in Latin America or a soccer thing. Turns out, if you watch the movie with the director’s commentary on, the sentence was mistranslated on the subtitles. What the rule is actually meant to read is as “Whoever roots for America’s Team is a fag.” True story. So even Mexicans are sick of the America’s Team thing.

4. They won't even have a chance to choke away a playoff spot this year. While the rest of the division improved, the Cowboys were fit to stand pat with Wade Phillips (he of the 0-4 playoff record) as head coach. They also did virtually nothing to their roster, with the mild exception of adding LB Keith Brooking. In short, this is the exact same team as the one that shat the bed last year. Only thinner at wideout.

Again, this bullet point belongs on a list of “Why Jerry Jones Sucks”. I fully believe that Jerry purposely half-ass drafted and blatantly ignore signing possibilities to pay for his new BonerDome. Which is why all Cowboys fans should be storm the gates of Valley Ranch with torches and hastily-made nooses at the ready, calling for his head.

5. Always remember: Michael Irvin once stabbed a guy in the fucking neck with scissors.

Done. Like 9/11 and where I was when Janet’s boob fell out, I hereby promise to never forget.

Yes, our team essentially sucks. And we hear about it constantly. We hear about how egotistical and underachieving we are. We hear people bitch about us like how everyone bitches about the prom king being a total dick. And then on top of all of this chimp diaper flinging, we still have to deal with the fact that at the end of the day, we love a team that doesn’t care about us and plays poorly at least 50 % of the time. Tony Romo told us he didn’t care that we didn’t win. Jerry Jones is telling us he doesn’t care about our football performance and would probably lower the TV screens in the ultimate middle finger to the actual sport the stadium was supposedly built to host. Wade Philips, while endearingly incompetent, is still incompetent. And while I wouldn’t go as far as to say that he doesn’t care, he doesn’t seem to mind losing a whole lot either. To be a Cowboy fan is to be a glutton for punishment, shame and disappointment. We all deserve Purple Hearts.

And I can’t wait for the season to begin. Even if we go 1-15. Even if Jason Witten finally breaks in half and Martellus Bennett is taken back to his home planet mid-season and we are left tight-endless. Because it’s football and it’s my team and it sure as hell beats reading or exercising or something on a sunny fall Sunday.

Now move the fucking TV up, Jerry and stop being a prick about it.

Can They Still Say It Isn't Fear-Mongering If the Word "Scare" Appears 22 Times?

2009-08-14T14:42:00.019-05:00

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA FROM LOU PRITCHETT

AND A POINT-BY-POINT RESPONSE IN BOLD BY ME

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

Dear Lou Pritchett, this is the first time in my 28 years of being alive that there is not a Bush either in the White House or the Governor’s Mansion of the state in which I reside. That’s the really scary thing. Unlike you, this is the first time in 28 years that I feel a sense of slight relief.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=barack+obama&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g10

You’re welcome. Welcome to the magical world of reading and knowing! Go get ‘em, tiger! Also, ummm, the whole premise of this letter and the opinions stated below would lead me to believe you know a lot about him. I don't think I know as much stuff about my mom as you know about Obama judging by your list of greivances with him.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

Household income for Barack and Michelle Obama for 2006 (his Senate salary + her salary + book sales/royalties)

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2007/04/sweet_blog_extra_barack_and_mi.html

As far as his education, one would presume it would be a combination of student loans and scholarships and maybe some help from his family? Like an overwhelming majority of college students have done for decades? I’m okay with this explanation. Moreso, I’m curious as to what dastardly theories you have on how Obama paid for school.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

If a Harvard-educated Senator who lives in Chicago with his lawyer wife and their two young children in an upscale neighborhood and like to do things like go to baseball games and take their daughters to see the Jonas Brothers in concert is “culturally not American” then I am Mongolian. The Obamas out-American me a million times over. But I think the correct term you are looking for to express your sentiment is this:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/xenophobia

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

Yes because the true mark of a good president is their previous experience in business.
Like maybe running a newspaper?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_G._Harding

Or even more recently, we had George W. Bush, who was a businessman. Was he a good businessman? Let’s take a looksee:

http://alaric3rh.home.sprynet.com/science/bceo.html

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

Here’s a pretty good analysis of George W. Bush’s military experience. I know you aren’t outright saying that you preferred W to Obama but you should have theoretically been just as terrified for this guy to be instigating wars:

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/lechliter.pdf

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

Matter of personal opinion. I guess you mean “class” like this?:

Or like this maybe?

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

See also:

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

http://www.vexen.co.uk/USA/hateamerica.html

Guess what dude? We’re an awesome country but awesome in the way that Vin Diesel eventually stops the stops the crazy bad guy but not before killing lots of innocent people in the process, breaking lots of people’s furniture or plate glass windows and possibly fucking someone else’s wife or girlfriend in the process. In other words, we are big and bad and we do git-r-dun, so to speak, but we do need some accountability.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

“European style government”. Huh? Wait, am I supposed to be scared of things that are vaguely European?

I’m assuming you like Fox News so you should LOVE this article about America sliding down the life expectancy rankings:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,293008,00.html

An excerpt…” For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care , nutrition and lifestyles.
Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.”

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

Please refer back to the Fox News link above. Please note the countries whose life expectancies are higher than ours. Please note how many have government run health care.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You know who would probably totally agree with you? Oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens...oh wait….no. No he doesn’t.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=american+standard+of+living+decline&aq=0&oq=american+standard+of+living+&aqi=g5

You’re welcome.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

Latin extorqu re, extort-, to wrench out, extort.
Soooooo, you mean like this?...

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/16/AIG.bonuses/index.html

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view/20090721democrats_challenge_obama_signing_statement/

You’re welcome.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Barack_Obama_presidential_campaign_endorsements,_2008

So this is a list of dummies? Even the Republicans?

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

Unless Barack Obama texted you recently claiming to be “omnipotent” or “omniscient”, that is merely your opinion. Nothing wrong with opinions. I thought George W. Bush was a vastly under-qualified failed businessman turned failed politician. But again, that’s my opinion.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=obama+failure&aq=0&oq=obama+fail&aqi=g10

“Results 1 - 10 of about 27,800,000 for obama failure. (0.25 seconds) “

You’re welcome.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

Silence? All those people still have their respective shows. And demonize? They do that pretty well for themselves…

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/28/national/main1561324.shtml

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1013043mackris1.html

http://tv.popcrunch.com/bill-oreilly-loses-it-inside-edition-video-clip/

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

transitive verb 1 a : to exercise continuous sovereign authority over; especially : to control and direct the making and administration of policy in b : to rule without sovereign power and usually without having the authority to determine basic policy

Eh oh. What do we do when the very definition of the “good word” contains the “bad word” you listed in your fears?

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

I have no idea why. Carpal Tunnel? The decline of snail mail due to the ease of email? Stamp shortage? Hand cramps? Amphetamine-induced paranoia? Paper cuts?

2009-08-11T13:31:00.006-05:00

My proverbial mouth is filling with proverbial blood right now. I have bit my tongue on this one but I finally decided to blog it out. Let’s talk about Josh Hamilton for a second. First off, let’s discuss how the news of the Body Shots Heard Round the World was broken to me on Saturday. A friend called me and without even saying hello, he asked me why “my boy” thinks it’s okay to ruin someone’s career and publish trashy tabloid-esque pictures of Josh Hamilton drinking at a bar with some girls on Deadspin. This is funny to me for many reasons. The first one being that my friend referred to Will Leitch as “my boy” though we have exchanged a total of two emails and Will no longer writes for Deadspin other than the occasional guest column. The second reason is that my gut reaction, which with a few days reflection has not changed a single bit, was “If you’ve made a name and source of income largely off of your position as God’s Sobriety Solider, pictures like that need to surface.” The story got funnier as my friend defended Josh Hamilton and lambasted Deadspin, saying that the account he heard on sports radio as the story broke was, “It’s him with a couple of girls around him at a bar.” While we were on the phone, I looked up the pictures on Deadspin. As my friend made his case against Deadspin, I interrupted him to say that I had found the pictures and then just repeated the word “Wow” over and over again. My friend said, “Are they that bad? How many of them are there?” I then went through each pictures with my descriptions getting more lurid in accordance with each picture. The phone call ended abruptly as my friend said, “Alright, I might need to go look at these. I’ll talk to you later.”

The most important caveat to the rant that I am about to issue forth is this: addicts slip up. Sobriety is an ongoing challenge. No one (at least no one I know) faults the guy for, as one Deadspin commenter said, realizing “This getting drunk in bars with hot college girls is fun. I miss the hell out of this.” Yes, we all know it’s a slippery slope from a few lemondrops off the suntanned stomach of a kinesiology major to blowing dealers for an eight ball. The guy should NOT be crucified (that will come in later) for relapsing. And he told his wife and his team what he did. Good for him. The fact that it appears that he either neglected to tell his sobriety coach, one who you might argue could totally use to know about something like this, or that he might have a sobriety coach who believes that honesty is not necessarily the best policy seems sketchvilles to me. When your sobriety coach denies the legitimacy of such pictures only to have you confirm their legitimacy the next day, methinks that the lines of communication may be frayed a bit. That’s, of course, the optimistic take on it. It would be far more disturbing to learn that your sobriety coach is also a cover-your-ass coach, wouldn’t it?

A big reason why I decided to blog about this, though I am most assuredly sick of hearing the name Josh Hamilton or anything about the topic at this point, is Richie Whitt. I don’t comment on the Dallas Observer Sportatorium blog that Richie Whitt writes. Or really any blog for that matter. But this is the first time I felt genuinely compelled to comment. Full disclosure: there are MANY things about which Richie and I disagree. Those topics include local sports radio preferences, his approach to certain local radio personalities habitual personal and professional failings, his insistence on the hotness of bony and boyish females. In fact, there are times when I think that, though we both love sports, it’s really only on politics where Richie and I seem to agree. I have never met the guy so it’s easy to have a neutral and unbiased opinion on his writing and views. But I was really happy to see him, in the wake of the Redi-Whip Ruination of Josh Hamilton, express the exact same frustrations and anger that I had over the whole situation.

People slip up, sure. The general public does not need to be informed of every personal and domestic problem in a pro athletes life, obviously. But when your image is almost exclusively contained under the guise of born-again Christian whose faith has made it possible for him to overcome addiction, you are different. You have set a bar for yourself which you not only must publicly measure up to but from which you also profit from both personally and monetarily. In other words, you make money from the views your espouse. You get paid for speeches. You get paid for books. You get paid for your story and the tales you spin about your ongoing ability to maintain your sobriety through your religious faith. Therefore, if you slip up, it’s like an auto recall. The whole car isn’t a write off. It will still drive. But you have to let people know that something’s wrong. Something happened. Because otherwise, you not only risk being accused of being a hypocrite but you also are selling a product (in this case, yourself) under false pretenses. Put it this way, let’s say I am a coach at a Christian academy and I have booked you to speak to my varsity basketball team about how Jesus has made you put away the pipe and hit homeruns and get metaphorical straight-A’s in the game of life. Then let’s say these pictures came out the next day. I would consider you, as a product, to be in violation of the Fair Trading Act which prohibits false or misleading representations about goods or services .

But somehow, this has become a hot button issue because the fact that he is a Christian and invokes his religion as part of his “ruin to redemption” package makes him above reproach. It is “picking on him” or “kicking him when he’s down” to point out that he has slipped up and seems to have, in collusion with his team, swept the incident under the rug. I guess I am confused about what sort of cloak of indomitability his religion affords him. We are not to question if his actions were hypocritical as that would be tantamount to religious persecution? So it’s fair game to demonize professional baseball players who collected fees for motivational speeches or profited off books they wrote about how hard work and grueling physical training lead them to gain 30 pounds of muscle mass in one off season once we find out that it was more HGH than cardio and weights that brought them those results? They are, and should be, fair game for ridicule and public flogging, right? Well, when one’s own personal human growth hormone is the healing power of Christ or a poster of Footprints or a huge cross tattoo across your back, you have to know that people are going to come down hard on you when you act in a very un-Christlike manner at a bar in Tempe, Arizona. That is unless Christ was way into body shots and fake doggy-style humping of co-eds.

So to all the commenters on Sportatorium who have taken time out of their busy schedule of predicting the demise of (X) (Y) or (Z) talk radio station long enough to cry Kulturkamp because someone dare take Josh Hamilton to task over his hypocrisy in light of his religious profiteering, don’t worry. This story’s news cycle is nearing completion and we can soon all go back to believing that Alex Rodriguez never knew that his cousin was not a trusted source of medical advice and that Tony Romo has learned his lesson and will stay away from celebrity tail this season.

GO. SEE. FUNNY PEOPLE.

2009-08-04T16:39:00.003-05:00

It’s hard to write something about a movie without ruining any part of the movie. So this won’t be very detailed but let me say that if you read my previous blog entry about my distaste for most recent movies and my excitement about seeing Funny People over the weekend, let me just put it this way: Funny People was possibly the best movie I have seen in several years. I went into it both expecting to like it and being fully aware of its’ running time. And when the credits started rolling, I turned to my friend and said, “Honestly, I could have done with a little more movie.” I cannot stress to you how impatient I normally am with movies so the fact that I thought the more than two and half hours was not enough says volumes.

I started thinking about how apparently some people thought the movie was too long and I searched my brain with a fine tooth comb to try to think of a single scene that the movie could have done without and I couldn’t think of a single scene. In fact, before I saw the movie, I watched a total of three Making of/Behind the Scenes specials about the movie and figured that I would probably end up having seen half of the movie before I even saw it in the theater. Turns out, the stuff that I saw on TV that actually made it to the movie represents a sum total of about six minutes of the movie. And once I left the theater, I started to wonder what make up the bonus features on the eventual DVD. I was hoping it wasn’t just the Behind the Scenes/standup stuff that I had already Tivo’ed and seen. So if you’re keeping score, the movie runs 2 hours and 40 minutes. I have watched 3 hours of additional standup and commentary on TV specials. And I still want more. That means that at this point, I want the movie’s running time to be over 6 hours. And this isn’t a bit, I’m not being funny (people). It’s an emotionally intense film but also it's an intensely funny movie. Viva la Movies again!

So if you’re keeping score, The Return of Amanda’s Will to Live can be currently attributed to:

1. Funny People
2. Football

Football is back. I’m slowly emerging from my deep, dark hole of pessimism. I’m sure the Cowboys will drag me back down into that hole by the BYE. Heh, I said “by the BYE”. Heh.

Me vs. Movies

2009-07-31T14:39:00.005-05:00

I have blogged many, many times about my personal love-hate veering towards hate-hate relationship with movies. I grew up watching two genres of movies: classic black and white and color pre-1970 movies and horrible situation comedies from the 1980’s, both of which I worshipped with equal fervor. I probably thought the best movies on the earth when I was a kid where something like Some Like It Hot, the original Cape Fear, To Kill a Mockingbird followed by The Money Pit, Overboard, Short Circuit 2, Ghostbusters 2 (I had a thing for sequels, apparently) and Labyrinth. I have since discovered that my taste in movies came from the fact that my mom essentially stopped watching movies in 1970 and I liked anything my mom liked and, more importantly, we were really poor and couldn’t afford to go to the movies so my access to movies was limited to what local channels played on Sunday afternoons. Hence why I can still recite the entirety of Blind Date, the 1987 “comedy” starring Kim Basinger and Bruce Willis. Yeah, the whole thing. It’s kind of like when you see current footage of people protesting on the streets of some impoverished African nation but one of the kids is wearing a brand new Space Jam t-shirt.

When I watched I Love the 90’s on VH1, I was shocked to realize that I apparently was not alive in the 1990’s, as I knew NOTHING about anything they were talking about. But then when I watched I Love the 80’s, I realized that I had somehow existed in that decade. Which lead me to realize that the 1990’s were my 1980’s. Apparently it’s possible to be so poor that you can miss an entire decade. Let me explain: Every movie discussed in I Love the 80’s eventually became a staple of basic cable or local stations by the 1990’s. So while I didn’t see those movies in their original decade of origin, I would end up seeing them years later on TV and mentally associating them with the 90’s. So as kids raved about something called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I was probably extolling the humorous nuances of Splash. I think maybe this was the foundation of me being so grumpy about movies.

Now I’m an adult and can occasionally scrape together enough pennies and coupons to see movies in the theater. And when I do, it is almost always a letdown. I wasn’t always this way. I worked at the Magnolia when I was 22 and we would get to see all the movies before they premiered at the tech screenings. Usually just a half dozen or so (more often than not, only two or three of us) employees watching whatever was about to come out. And I saw a lot of movies that were either not that bad or fairly good. My friend TJ and I saw 28 Days Later almost a dozen times, I think. I even took my friend Salim and his 9 months pregnant wife to see 28 Days Later, hoping the entire time that the baby would at least wait until the alternate ending after the credits if he decided to make his entrance that night. In short, movies used to be fun to me. Or at least not the ass-beating that they have become.

Then came Juno. Really. I blame it all on one movie. One movie that turned my movie-enjoyment tide. I think I not only hated the movie so much that my friend Chad had to hold my arm so I didn’t leave the theater before the end but I also saw it as a new subgenre that would spawn a million imitations. Twee, self-congratulatory and ultimately a celluloid version of the website stuffwhitepeoplelike.com. My hatred of Juno and Diablo Cody is so well-known that two friends of mine who do not know each other have, completely independently of each other, taken to teasing me with insinuations that I love the movie Juno and that I revere Diablo Cody. It’s hilarious (eye roll).

I also saw The Hangover recently, and though time has dulled my rapier-sharp hatred for the movie, I still can’t say that I enjoyed it. And looking back on it now, I realize that I went into each movie really wanting to like them. I saw Juno the night it opened and saw The Hangover on opening weekend as well, which is extremely rare for me. Were my expectations set so high that no movie would ever reach the bar? Doubtful since I basically expected The Hangover to be two hours of a couple of dudes recounting stories of a rough night of drinking. But maybe all this is a good thing. Maybe the fact that I have severely disliked most of the movies I have seen recently has lowered my expectations and enthusiasm to a reasonable level finally. In fact, take this weekend’s movie outing that my friends and I will be embarking on.

They are going to go see 500 Days of Summer. I will go see Funny People. For some reason, Funny People could literally be two and half hours of Judd Apatow taking a crap into his own hand and then describing it while the song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel plays in an endless loop in the background and I will probably still like it. I am an unabashed Judd Apatow enthusiast and I have seen a few specials featuring a lot of the stand-up clips used in the film, 98% of which were really amusing. Maybe I’m setting myself up for failure once again but I somehow doubt it. What I don’t doubt is how much I don’t want to see 500 Days of Summer. You see, my whole “getting burned by seeing cloying, twee or overhyped movies” armor is up on this one. A few years ago, if you told me there was an indie film about a girl who really likes The Smiths, I probably wouldn’t have immediately clenched my fists in rage. I might have even thought, “Hey, I love the Smiths more than any other band on earth too! Maybe I will go see that!”

But no more. I see the words “indie romantic comedy” and I get queasy. I read this:

Tom, the boy, still believes, even in this cynical modern world, in the notion of a transforming, cosmically destined, lightning-strikes-once kind of love. Summer, the girl, doesn’t. Not at all. But that doesn’t stop Tom from going after her, again and again, like a modern Don Quixote, with all his might and courage. Suddenly, Tom is in love not just with a lovely, witty, intelligent woman – not that he minds any of that -- but with the very idea of Summer, the very idea of a love that still has the power to shock the heart and stop the world.

And I get this eye twitch followed by a rumbling in my lower intestines. I haven’t seen 500 Days of Summer yet. It could be great, it could be ok. But for now, I would like to refer to it as Garden State 2: When Earnest Indie Rom Coms Attack. Then again, in ten years when it is showing on Channel 33 on a slow and lazy Saturday afternoon, I might watch it and realize that it’s a pretty good, solid little film. Kind of like I did with Mannequin back in 1991.

Christian Right and The Guardian…Mind If We Have a Little Pow-Wow Right Over Here?

2009-07-23T10:16:00.007-05:00

I love reading The Guardian. Their arts and music coverage is unparalleled. Their articles on matters both international and Stateside are always well-informed, well-written and thought provoking. Also, when I am in London, The Guardian is usually the best place to find out what to do on any given night out. I remember hearing David Cross mention something during last year’s election about how sad it was that he had to read newspapers from other countries, such as The Guardian, to get a more accurate portrait of what was happening in his own country. That, sadly, is too often the case. But reading this article from The Guardian made my blood rise to a nice, simmering boil.

I really thought that The Guardian would be above this kind of sensationalist cage rattling. If you’re too lazy to read the link, the premise is: Oh here go those crazy conservative nutty Texans again! Would you believe what they are doing this time? They want to change all the history and science textbooks in the state to include “intelligent design” and God and the religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers of the country. Texas is a theocracy and all your liberal hatred can be easily focused with laser precision at the state.

There’s a foundation of truth there. Yes, there are nutty people in Texas (some of whom are in the State Legislature) who want to God up all the textbooks and tattoo the Ten Commandments on the buttocks of all schoolchildren or whatever they want to do. But no more so in Texas than say…

HERE

OR HERE

or if you like your facts in scroll-overable picture form, check this out.

Believe it or not, it’s not just Texas or even exclusively Southern states. There are ridiculous people all over this great nation of ours.

But The Guardian must have written this because of some recent development in Texas that, living in Texas, we MUST have heard about. Because every few months, you get a new little wave of poorly-spelled forwards from misguided coworkers or relatives about how you should refuse to use dollar coins because they no longer carry the phrase “In God We Trust”. You sigh and laugh a little and hit delete and go on with your life, knowing that everything is going to be alright. When you read the Guardian piece, it turns out that is all this is. Maybe The Guardian caught onto this late and think that this is some kind of news or that the empty threats of forced religious public education are real. Don’t worry Guardian, come over here and let me give you a hug and little pat on the head. These people are what you would call “nutters” and this is a big state so we’ve got plenty of them.

In fact, hold on. The one you featured, whose name and existence was so mysterious to me that I had to Google him to find out who/what/why he was, is someone named Reverend Peter Marshall. So you’re implying that he’s got something to do with a pro-religion education movement here in Texas? Well, I Googled him and found his (excuse the lack of a better term here) crazy-ass website. Yeah, he’s a nutter. You said in your article that he blames Hurricane Katrina and the US losing in Vietnam on sexual promiscuity and homosexuality. Wow. Yeah, I wish people would have stopped sodomizing each other long enough to make Hurricane Katrina turn and hit Cuba like Baby Jesus wanted to happen. But you just HAD to do your sodomy, you sodomites!

Anyways, yeah, the guy is batshit crazy. And hang on…what’s this? He’s also based out of Massachusetts. In case you aren’t too familiar with US geography, Massachusetts is a) not in Texas and b) largely considered a very liberal state in the big scary liberal Northeast. So you’re telling me that the guy who The Guardian tells us is in some way related to a campaign to force references to God into the textbooks of Texas schoolchildren is not, as you are lead to believe in the article, from Texas, based in Texas or has any kind of connection with the state?

Because if the goal of the article was to find nutters in America who stand in the proverbial town square with a sandwich board, a cowbell and hastily scrawled flyers about the end of times or a conspiracy that Quizno’s and Subway are actually the same thing, you can really throw a dart at the internet and find something good and crazy. And speaking of throwing darts, I liked the last little kick to the junk you gave Texans at the end of your article. You know, the part about “There's no doubt that history education needs a boost in Texas. According to test results, one-third of students think the Magna Carta was signed by the Pilgrims on the Mayflower and 40% believe Lincoln's 1863 emancipation proclamation was made nearly 90 years earlier at the constitutional convention.” That’s right, we’re all a bunch of Jaywalkers who should not be allowed to use scissors that are not of the safety, rounded tip variety. Oh wait, that happens on your side of the ocean too!

And now a note to Peter Marshall. You see, when you do things like spew hatred and generally just exist, you give them ammunition. I know you can’t hear any of this over the sound of Money Jesus telling you to go out and spread more of the Good Word at crazy, discount prices. But let’s be honest for a second. You’re a snake oil salesman. You’re no different from

this guy who wants to help me have a pure colon

or

these people who want to help me cleanse the toxins out of my body with their Swiffer pad foot stickers

or even

the awesomely named Clint Stonebraker who has all kinds of personal motivation he can offer me if I just keep him on a $300 monthly retainer.

The only difference between these people and you, Peter Marshall, is that they surely don’t receive tax-exempt status or abuse people’s religious faith or fear for their own profit. They just want to get all the booze and cheeseburgers I have eaten in my life out of my body through my feet. But you offer visitors to your website the answer to “Restoring America” with the Restoring America Deluxe Package (a $170 value) is available for $149 with FREE shipping)! Maybe they are instead interested in “America’s Christian Heritage”? Well, there’s good news for them as long as they have a credit card, debit card, checking account or access to obtaining a money order. Per your website: >"America's Christian Heritage Package (a $60 value) is available for $50 with FREE shipping.”

I assume the free shipping is Ground and I can pay extra for expedited, pre-Rapture delivery?

Viva la Corruption!

2009-07-13T08:58:00.000-05:00

Dude, get me the eff out of this country. I am in Mexico and I would like to not be in Mexico anymore. Here's the deal. We got to the airport three hours early for our flight due to reasons beyond our control. We got to the check in desk and they said my mom needed some special card (no explanation why) and that she would have to go to ONE CERTAIN bank downtown to pay a cashier and get a receipt to bring back to the airport to get the card to go through immigration and make our flight which is chronologically impossible. Homedude Immigration guy was cute(ish) so I asked to talk to him in a private office then got all girly (am wearing low cut halter dress because my entire body is one big sunburn) and doing the puppy eyes thing friends make fun of me for doing and asked him if he could pretty please help us out with two twenty dollar bills in my hand. He (and I am not even joking) patted my head and said "for you, I go to the bank later today to take care of it. Give me the money and I will give you the card she needs" and then fucking put his hand on my shoulder. Whatever, it worked and we're at the gate now waiting to find out what new creative ways Mexico has in mind for fucking with us. My poor mom was sobbing outside immigration but the good news is that I am now the most badass, officials-bribing daughter of all time. One particularly debauched St. Patrick's Day with my friend Chrissy ended with me screaming I was a "good daughter!!!!!!" Prophecy fufilled. I know it's 105 at home right now but I am covered in heat rash and sunburn and I haven't brushed my hair in two days. Seriously, get me the eff out of here.

Kick 'em When They're Up, Kick 'em When They're Down. Etc.

2009-06-30T13:51:00.004-05:00

It’s not nice to dogpile. But sometimes it’s necessary.

There’s quite a furor building over Dallas Morning News music critic Mario Tarradell. He has long championed cookie-cutter modern country artists as well as MOR cheese rock, though he should receive credit for championing rock en Espanol, I suppose. This hasn’t bothered me because a) I don’t read the Dallas Morning News anymore and b) I really don’t care about music critique, music journalists or 95% of music that’s being discussed or reviewed these days. It’s hard to get worked up over something that essentially doesn’t exist in your world. I actually thought that Thor Christensen was still writing for DMN, if that gives you any idea of how out of touch with the paper’s entertainment section I am.

So apparently our buddy Mario wrote a little rant about how Gywneth Paltrow introduced Radiohead as “one of the most influential artists of all time” at the Grammys last year. If there are two names that make me doze off while driving and drift into oncoming traffic almost instantaneously, it’s “Gwyneth Paltrow” and “Radiohead”. I liked Radiohead a lot up to OK Computer. They’ve lost me since. I still stand by my assertion that the Radiohead/Spiritualized show that I saw at Fair Park Music Hall in 1998 was the best concert I have ever attended. I think they are a little too critically exalted these days but I can’t deny that, for better or for worse, they do seem to be a huge influence on today’s music. I have nothing to say about Gywenth Paltrow other than her hair always looks very shiny.

But Tarradell’s Radiohead comments unleashed a shitstorm on the DMN website, with commenters overwhelmingly defending Radiohead’s honor. Then Mario’s fingers found the strength to type this:

The Beatles are one of the most influential bands of all time. The Eagles are one of the most influential bands of all time.

And then also…

The Eagles?!?! Oh, I dunno, try EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY ARTIST AROUND NOW. They pretty much ALL list the Eagles as an influence. And that's just for starters.

I have never gone from half-heartedly nodding in agreement with a maligned rock critic to hoping that they experience a lifetime of incontinence and night terrors so quickly in my life. If you are serious about those two statements, Mario Tarradell, then you are the problem. Let me try hard here to not mince my words.

THE EAGLES ARE THE WORST MUSICAL GROUP/BOIL ON THE GROIN OF ALL THINGS CREATIVE, ARTISTIC AND GOOD….OF ALL TIME. *

*(Except for Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good”. That song rules)

I wanted to be in your corner, buddy. Well, maybe not but I could at least see where you were coming from with the “C’mon guys, Radiohead aren’t THAT amazing!” bit. Then you mentioned the Eagles and did not also mention the words “bland” or “contrived” or “obnoxious” or “inflamed anal fissure” in the same sentence. And now you are the enemy. Saying that the Eagles are the biggest influence on modern mainstream country is like bragging that pestilence-carrying rodents were the biggest influence on the Bubonic plague.

You say that the Eagles influenced every country artist around today? Therein lies your problem. I couldn’t have said it better myself, actually. I have often wondered when country music took the 90 degree turn to Pro-Tools, studded bandana wearing purgatory. When did country artists stop trying to sound like Johnny Cash and Hank Williams and Waylon Jennings and Bob Wills and Merle Haggard and Loretta Lynn and Hank Thompson and Buck Owens? If what you say is true and modern country artists are in fact influenced heavily by the Eagles, I think I have my answer.

Music taste is subjective but please, Mario Tarradell, do you really think that the current crop of mainstream country artists (you mention that Shelby Lynne and Brad Paisley were two of your favorite concerts last year) are something to write home about? Artistically innovate? Anything but Pro-Tools, spray tans, southern accents and 19-piece backup bands? I have no problem with entertainers that exist purely for entertainment. That’s what anyone from American Idol is. I also don’t have any problem with you knowing your readership and playing to them. We’re in Dallas, Texas after all. I mean, it would be nice for a Dallas newspaper to instead give props to artists who are true to the roots of country music, as so many of those roots are right here in Texas. But I long ago realized that was too much to ask for.

But really, Mario Tarradell, you have a forum upon which you can do one of two things. You can either use your allotted space to explore and critique music outside of Top 40 modern rock radio, modern country or Tina Turner. Or you can serve up the KFC Famous Bowl of rock journalism that you whip up each week. Patton Oswalt calls the Famous Bowl a “failure pile in a sadness bowl” and I now know that your music leanings can be classified as much the same.

I would like to end with the most astute commentary on the Eagles and the skid mark of a legacy that they have left on the underpants of modern music, courtesy of a DMN commenter:

Posted by Brad @ 12:55 PM Thu, Feb 12, 2009
People who like the Eagles...have kids who like Nickelback.

Please Just Remember

2009-06-26T09:47:00.002-05:00

I've been remarkably serious and psuedo-intellectual for the past few weeks on here. I promise it will come to an end soon. Please hurry, football.

In the meantime, I beg of everyone to remember this. When you're talking about the recently celebrity trifecta of deaths (Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson), please just remember one thing:

At least they all will get to have a proper funeral. Attended by hundreds or thousands and watched by millions. At least their family will have the right to attend this funeral and see their final resting place. At least the family will know when and where the burial will occur so they can properly grieve. At least the family will be free to, if they so choose, wear black in mourning or put up pictures or even a simple black banner to mourn their loss. At least the families will not be told that they cannot have any sort of ceremony or memorial for their deceased relative. And finally, at least the families will not be forced to move from their home(s) for no reason. Please don't forget that.

2009-06-25T18:15:00.003-05:00

Michael Jackson died an hour or two ago. Let me get this part out of the way...

It's sad when ANYONE dies. And especially for the family and friends they leave behind. And he was suspiciously young to go out on a cardiac arrest. And I really do hope that all his superfans are gonna be ok.

Now, for the rest....

I have never liked Michael Jackson's music. Even when I was a kid and he was mega popular. Then came all the allegations and charges, of which he was found not guilty. I thought he was a severely developmentally stunted boy-man who clearly was not too mentally sound. But I'm not here to talk smack about a man who has just died.

I am here to say that I find it ironic, hypocritical and almost insulting that MTV is wall-to-wall Michael Jackson videos right now. Even as a non-fan, I will admit that they might owe their very existence and success to him and his early videos. However, MTV hasn't cared about music in at least a decade. In fact, I'm pretty sure that MTV joined Leno and Letterman and all the other media that were so happy to report all of his troubles and failures. So now MTV has time-warped back to 1985 like they're not the network that has forsaken music videos for The Hills and Paris Hilton's BFF?

I like seeing videos on MTV. I do wish they were videos by an artist I dug but it makes me nostalgic for my childhood. I guess it just bothers me that the guy was the butt of a million jokes for the past decade and a half and the moment he dies, the same media that clowned him so hard are getting ready to carve his likeness on the moon with a laser beam.

Rest in peace, Michael. I wasn't a fan of yours and hearing your music exclusively for more than an hour has already driven me to the land of Tivo but you were a troubled soul and I appreciate that. For everyone else, please don't make me listen to "Don't Stop" on an endless loop for the next week.

PS - My friend Adam in London just made a really good point. "We got at least 2 weeks of this. The Iranian leaders are gonna be able to do whatever they want now!!!" I guess Neda and a potential revolution in a volatile Islamic country tired of tyranny and oppression by religious zealots just isn't as sexy as "Dirty Diana".

Those Crazy Tehran Nights! AKA: Today's Guest Blogger...My Mom

2009-06-23T16:58:00.005-05:00

Backstory: My mom's family lived in Tehran when she was a child. They fled (in the middle of the night in a van, no less) when the Iranian people were becoming increasingly resentful of the Shah. So growing up, I always saw all these photos of my mom's "normal" childhood in a house/compound surrounded by 10 foot walls. And you can barely step in any direction in my grandmother's house without one foot on a Persian rug.

So in light of what's happening in Iran right now, I asked my mom a bunch of questions about the Tehran she remembers. I also asked her (being a history major and all) to dumb down the exact chronology of the Shah/Ayatollah deal. I knew the basics but was a little rusty. I thought I would pick tidbits from my mom's response and use them. Then I realized that my mom is far more funny, educational and interesting than I am. So please welcome the Old-School Iranian Blogging Stylings of My Mom:

First a set up.

After WWII Britain was awarded Iran as a protectorate. They proceeded to suck all of the oil out of the country and it made the Iranians mad, go figure. Britain left but that put the country in turmoil. They briefly had a president who wanted to nationalize the oil industry but then Eisenhower was president and saw an opportunity to spy on U.S.S.R. However, the Iranian government was a little suspicious of colonial powers and weren't too hot on the idea of just trading one oil sucking protector for another. So, the C.I.A. engineered a revolution to put a pro American in power. Hence, the Shah and Americans in Tehran.

Colonial powers brought in schools, roads, clean water, hospitals, etc. They also brought a challenge to theocracy and traditional ways. This set up the society for division. Young people, especially rich young people who were educated abroad, saw the opportunities that westernization brought with its freedoms, art, and secularization etc. This was a challenge to the less educated, less wealthy who remembered the foreigners with their money and immodest ways. They were supported by the religious right who lost power with the Shah who wanted to limit the number of wives, bring in western technology and in general challenge the power they held.

When the shah was ousted the extreme right took over. Theocracy reigned. If you want a comparison think medieval Europe during which they had kings (Ahmadinejad) but the real power was the Pope (Ayatollah). Europe during the Renaissance struggled over who was going to be top dog, the king or the Pope. The king ruled but he could be excommunicated by the Pope. Most law was cannon law drawn up by the Catholic Church (Shari'ah).

You now have several factions and coalitions. There are not just two groups who hate each other but several groups who have agendas that cross age and religious lines. Young people who appreciate western freedom and technology. Young people who want to control their own destiny without foreign interference. Older people who remember the days of the protectorate and remember it fondly and those who remember it not so fondly. There are always the fear mongers among the religious right who lead the less educated and ignorant into believing that if they allow a more secular leader in power all their daughters are going to start running naked down the street, their women will start talking back and driving cars, drugs and alcohol will be running in the public water supply (which would actually be an improvement in the water supply)and Britney Spears will bring her tour to Tehran.

So, in answer to your questions as to whether Americans are loved or hated the answer is yes. It just depends on who you talk to. When we were there some people would shout curses at us and some wanted to live with us. It was one extreme or the other. There was a reason we had 10 foot high concrete walls around our houses and dogs to patrol the compound.

Walls were necessary because people would steal everything. One maid tried to steal Wayne (her little brother/my uncle). There was little police protection and some people were desperately poor. Also, there was hostility to foreigners. The only thing that protected foreigners were walls, dogs and the Shah. Probably the dogs were the most effective for keeping us safe since the "unclean" dogs scared them more than the Shah or the police.

I only got to go to Isfahan, Persepolis, Mount Damavand and the Caspian Sea. There were no Holiday Inns so traveling was difficult. The only hotels were in Tehran. There weren't many small towns. It was either city or deserts, rural Bedouins living in tents and herding sheep. The rural people were very scared of the foreign "devils" with the exception of a few who were fascinated by the unusual. Ask your grandmother about being stranded in the desert over night. (Note: this was after crash landing a US Army plane that my Army pilot grandfather and nurse grandmother were using to fly to a little romantic weekend getaway in the desert while experiencing mechanical problems. Ah, the old days!)

The weirdest thing in my mind was the ancient ruins of Persepolis, the 2500 year old capital of the greatest empire of the world at one time, just sitting in the middle of the desert without a soul around it. No fence, no guards, no museum. It felt a little like being an alien visitor to a dead planet.

Women did not drive, vote, and only the very elite women were educated. For the most part in public they wore chadors. The Shah's wife did not wear a chador but covered her head a lot like young Iranian women now. Exceptions were for children and foreigners. My mother never wore a chador. In their homes women wore whatever they wanted and some could afford very expensive Parisian fashion.

The Shah tried to limit men to 4 wives and encouraged only one. He divorced his first wife to marry the second. That didn't go over well but some educated in the West were monogamous. Ironically the poorer and less educated the more likely there were more wives. Some of this had to do with the snowball effect of being poor, marrying and having children, needing to marry again for another dowry and another person to work to earn money for wife number one and the children. Wife number two having children so the need to marry again, etc. This was the cycle the Shah was trying to break.

The foreigners were more than just oil workers. There were ambassadors and their staff, oil executives and workers, importers, exporters, military, assorted consultants, engineers, teachers, medical staff, etc. Foreigners were encouraged by the Shah and welcomed by those who supported the Shah but hated by those who hated the Shah.

The American school was large and included not just Americans but also the children of any English speaking parent and a native or some natives who worked for American companies.

Neither Big Nor Clever

2009-06-17T13:00:00.005-05:00

(This picture was actually one of the first Google image search results for the phrase "neither big nor clever")

One of my favorite sayings or phrases of all time is “neither big nor clever.” I’ve never heard an American use it and it’s a damn shame that there’s not an American equivalent to it. It's almost exclusively used to describe behavior when drinking or the next day. I first heard this phrase when a dear friend of mine in the UK used it to describe his behavior while drinking and the repercussions of said behavior. This friend was the drummer in a band who, for a brief period of time, ruled the world. Well, maybe not quite. But they had sold millions of albums and were on constant MTV rotation and EVERYONE knew their song and they were being transported to venues via helicopter. Then that all kind of went away and my friend was left in the uncomfortable situation of wanting to live every night in some sort of bacchanalian fashion but his appetite for vice quickly overtaking his professional success and fame. He was a mess. In fact, the first time he ever used the phrase “neither big nor clever” was to describe a night which started with some drinks and ended up with him falling face first on a stone floor and paramedics rushing to the scene. That was clearly neither big nor clever.

Let me state something as an absolute fact: I like alcohol. I like a drink. Or more than one, even. I have done embarrassing, violent, illegal and awful things when I have had a few too many. This is not some puritanical rant from a teetotaler. But I feel as if I am reaching my tipping point for celebrating and enabling the destructive behavior of the over-served. It’s, for a lack of a better term, neither big nor clever.

Maybe this whole thing started with my dislike of the movie The Hangover. I really didn’t like that movie. I found it to be incredibly predictable. When people balk at the fact that I didn’t like the movie (seriously, there HAS to be someone besides Tom Gribble who agrees with me!), I try to explain why I didn’t like it. The jokes weren’t that bad but the whole setup is so self-congratulating. I understand that a lot of people dig the movie because of the commiseration they feel with the characters over having to piece a night back together or doing the walk of shame or trying to find out where exactly you are. But if you think that kind of stuff makes you unique, interesting, dangerous or rebellious, you are sadly mistaken or you are under the age of 24.

In a search for old pictures which I feared may have been long lost, I ventured back to the Land Before Time AKA Friendster the other day. I created my Friendster profile when I was 21 (tweaking it occasionally to reflect how hip and ironic I thought I was). Now, I didn’t go to college but I consider my Friendster profile to be a document of my “college years.” One of my first professed interests was “booze” and, rough estimate here, 80% of the comments (sorry, testimonials) had some reference to drinking or something that was brought into our vernacular through drinking. I was screaming to the world about how awesomely badass I was because me and my friends, we were sassy! And we could drink a lot! And it made us do silly/stupid things! Check us out!

I cringed when I read all of that, like how people cringe over the fashion choices of their youth. I reminded myself that I was in my early 20’s, a period of time in everyone’s life in which you were put on the earth solely to drink and make mistakes. If you’re lucky, you retain enough memory from those mistakes to tick them off the Great List of Mistakes that are an initiation rite for all non-Mormons. But then it made me realize that I knew a lot of people who had crossed that threshold and still considered the bruises, sloppily signed receipts and car dings to be badges of honor. If not badges of honor, at least something sort of cute.

Then I started thinking about another friend of mine. He lives here and works at a bar at which we all congregate. He has been sober for nearly a decade. He didn’t go to jail or anything. He just stopped drinking. Again, I’m no fan of the wagon but this guy always manages to be fun and loose and interesting and non-judgmental despite the fact that he’s drinking Sprite. He tells tales often of the kind of things that he used to do when he would drink. I think I remember one story where he slept on a neighbor’s lawn only to be woken up by a water hose as the neighbor watered his lawn on a sunny Saturday morning. And I kind of realized that everyone’s got great “man, I was so drunk…” stories and they’re fun to tell and fun to hear. But there’s some point where the scale tips from “funny” to “sad” or even all the way to “pathetic”. It’s a delicate balance.

I started thinking about the drinking stories that I used to hear when we were younger and the ones I hear now. I’m usually the baby of the group and my social circle have generally all turned the corner to 30. Oh, how we used to regale each other with tales of making out and dancing on apartment roofs or having impromptu swimming parties. And we were young and that seemed fun and harmless and I still generally regard it as such. But now the drinking stories have gotten darker. Someone got hurt, someone had to go to the hospital, someone’s got a DWI and lost their license. Stuff with serious consequences and repercussions. And then it becomes like when a stand-up comedian comes out of the gate with decent material then slowly starts bombing before your eyes and all you can do is let out a nervous laughter of pity and slight disgust.

I don't want to sound as if I am being judgemental and I stress that my list of mistakes and blotto moments is comprehensive. But I guess I just don't wear it as a badge of pride and it bothers me when others over the age of 25 do. It's as if their poor behavior is somehow performance art because they are intoxicated. If I have a few too many and behave poorly (which I am wont to do), I couldn't imagine waking up and wanting to proudly regale others with my tales. I can't imagine being strangely self-satisfied with the sordid details of my behavior.

In a search for a better context or definition of the phrase “neither big nor clever”, I came across this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3618972/We-British-will-never-learn-that-a-hangover-is-neither-big-nor-clever.html

It expresses everything I feel about the subject. Britain has allowed some drinking establishments to serve alcohol for 24 hours straight. No last orders. No closing. Luckily, they have regulated who can and can’t stay open indefinitely. Which is why a city like New Orleans repulses me. I sent my friend in New York a postcard from my one and only trip to New Orleans that was a detailed list of why the city of New Orleans should fall off the map and drift far into the Gulf of Mexico, never to be seen again. And this was pre-Katrina! As photographic proof of why I dislike the city so much, I submit to you this. Scroll down to the “after the show” pictures to see exactly what I mean:

http://deadbrian.tripod.com/todnola.htm

And there it is. It’s my closing credits for The Hangover. See? And guess what? It’s truly neither big nor clever.

Today and This Summer in General are Taunting Me

2009-06-15T14:32:00.008-05:00

I woke up this morning missing a dear friend of mine terribly. I think about this friend all of the time. When they're around but moreso when they aren’t. I miss this friend. I hang around others but that just makes me remember how much I miss my one true friend. That friend is football. And today it’s really bad.

I guess because the NBA season is over, I now know that the worst part of the year is dead ahead of me. It’s going to be 100 degrees for the next few months and the only option for entertainment I have is base…YAWWWWWWWN…ball. I don’t want to turn this into another rant about why baseball bores me to tears. Different strokes for different folks. Horses for courses. Etc. Instead, I want to write a love letter to my distant and faraway friend, football.

Dear football,

How are you? I have been trying to keep up with you but it’s hard when you are so far away. I hear little bits and pieces here and there about you. I heard your OTAs went okay. You did them in the stadium at the school where my mom teaches. She sent me excited emails that she saw you the day you showed up. She even offered to try to take her camera outside and get some pictures of you for me. She’s not that into you but she knows how dear you are to me, so that was sweet of her. I know the draft wasn’t really much of an event for you, as far as the Cowboys were concerned. I have to confess that all the coverage of the George Strait show at Dallas Cowboys stadium was bittersweet for me. I obviously did not attend the show nor do I forsee myself being able to attend a Cowboys game at the stadium. But when they talked about how big that HD screen is and how George Strait had them open up the retractable roof halfway through the show, I started thinking about how much more amazing that would have been if you were around. I get a little sentimental sometimes but I know that you are well(ish) and I will get to see you again. I just wish that it wasn’t so long until you come back.

I don’t know if you heard but I was hanging out with basketball earlier this year. I mean, I know that you know I have always been friends with basketball. And we had some fun this spring after you left. Of course, I don’t ever expect much from basketball. I mean, I am loyal and everything but I always know that basketball will frustrate me and kind of just disappear abruptly sometime in early May. So, while I enjoy our time together, I am never too surprised when it’s over. And honestly, once it is over, I am usually to the point where I needed a break from it anyways. I have told people that before and they immediately point out that you have been a far bigger disappointment to me and how could I continue to care about you so much? I don’t really know how to answer that.

Even when you kick me in the teeth and steal my wallet and take my keys and drive my car headfirst into a cement wall and then piss on the burning wreckage with a middle finger in the air (Eagles 44 - Cowboys 6), I am still sad to see you go. Even if I am disgusted with you and I tell everyone that you are a puss-filled blight on all mankind, I still want you to hang around a little while longer. It’s not like that with me and basketball. By the time basketball goes away, I think I will enjoy seeing it again next year but was glad it didn’t overstay its welcome. My friend Manny (he misses you too!) and I were talking about developing a debilitating narcotics habit which would cause us to be unconscious for most of the summer, so we didn’t miss you so bad. Then we could go to rehab and emerge healthy and happy and ready for your return. Then we decided that was probably too extreme.

I don’t have the highest expectations of you when I see you again at the tail end of summer. I feel certain that you’ve gone downhill a little. I know you have that new big house. Too bad about your other vacation home getting blown down by the storm. You really should always check out your contractor. But I guess you don’t need that lecture from me, huh? I expect that when I see you again this year, you will have put on some extra weight and look a little older than you really should look. I heard that money is tight right now for you. It’s tight for all of us. But I have faint hope that you know how to make a dollar stretch in rough times. You know that everyone’s gotta come together, especially in tough times.

And that should be a little easier since I heard that you finally had a malignant tumor removed and sent to Buffalo for testing right after you left. I was so relieved to hear that. I kept telling you that thing didn’t look right. I know that you are stubborn but…Jesus, I can’t believe it took you that long to wake up and realize that thing was dangerous.

When I was a little kid, I used to make my own countdown calendars for every beach vacation my family took. And I would cross off each date with a big fat marker and write little slogans over the dates like “Hooray!” or “Almost beach time!” or “Beach, here I come!” I was thinking the other day about making one for when you return. I still have those Cowboys plates I bought two years ago when you left after the game against the Giants. They were on clearance. I said last year that I would hang onto them until the Super Bowl but they still sit there unused. I don’t want to put undue pressure on you. But I think it would be fun if we ate off those plates this year. Either way, I miss you. Be safe and hurry back soon.

Have a KAS! I know mine will suck without you.

LYLAS,
Amandacobra

PS - My iTunes just randomly played "Patience" by Guns n Roses as I was typing this. I teared up a little.

The Great Flood of 2009 Wasn’t That Great, Actually

2009-06-11T15:22:00.001-05:00

For those of you that don’t live in Dallas, we had some storms come through yesterday/last night/today. And with them came what meteorologists call “literal assloads of rain” that poured down for hours and hours. For those of you that live in Dallas, you already knew this. And you can even comment about it once your power comes on. Mine is still off. My mom’s is still off in Richardson. My grandmother’s is off in Garland.

This is inconvenient when, say, you need to wake up in the morning for work and you rely on an alarm clock-type device to wake you up. Usually I have a backup in the form of trusty Mr. Blackberry. But Mr. Blackberry’s battery died sometime in the night. If you’re wondering, yes I do need two alarms going off to get me out of bed. And I set them for an hour before I actually need to be up because I hit snooze for an hour. When people go, “I’m not a morning person” I sometimes contemplate explaining to them the bartering with God and Satan and Buddha that I try to do each morning if they will just allow me to sleep for another hour. But instead I usually say, “Yeah, me neither” and shrug. I hate mornings. I want to dump mornings body in a wooded area where no one will find it. I want to give mornings a tainted Tylenol when it has a headache. I am not a morning person.

Add to that the fact that violent thunderstorms are like Ambien to me. Minus the somnambulism and sleep eating and sleep driving and stuff. So this morning, at the hour when I would normally be cursing the heavens for making me wake up and get out of bed at the ungodly hour of 7am, I was instead enjoying the nicest little bit of sleep I have had in months. Thunder was shaking the pictures on my bedroom walls and lighting actually hit the tree outside my bedroom window. All of which made me pull the covers up and smile and turn over and nestle deeper.

Then I figured out that I hadn’t finally tricked the universe into letting me sleep as late as I wanted to with no repercussions. Power out. Oh shit. Still managed to take a shower but then realized that all my clothes are dark and, ironically, so was my bedroom. The only candles I have are those Mexican/Catholic prayer candles which give off a nominal amount of actual light. So I dressed by candlelight this morning. Which explains why I am wearing a blue sweater, black pants (with something that looks like pink icing on the knee?) and yellow argyle socks (cleverly disguised by my knee high boots). I’m lookin’ gooooood.

Then I try to pull out of my driveway only to find that there is a car that does not belong to anyone who lives in my house parked in our driveway and blocking me in. Then I notice that a car that does not belong to our neighbors is parked in their driveway, blocking them in. Neat! I get to off-road through the yard to get around Captain Asshole in the Lincoln Towncar. I get onto Peak to drive to work from the East Dallas/Junius Heights area to Turtle Creek which normally takes about 10 minutes. 15 minutes at absolute maximum. But it’s pouring buckets so I figure this drive might take me 20 minutes. Somewhere just after I cross Ross Ave, I am stopped by yellow Do Not Cross police tape. Not that unusual a sight in the Ross Ave. area. But just beyond the tape, I see a minivan turned the wrong direction (Peak is one way) and submerged up to mid door in water. Ah, so you’re saying I should not go that way? Right.

Me and the six or seven cars behind me started doing a very awkward pas-de-deux (pas-de-sept?) of fifteen point turns to try to find side streets to escape onto. A couple of us choose some random neighborhood street. Bad call on our part. It eventually leads us to Washington. At the corner of Whatever and Washington, I see a shopping cart swim by my car. Normally, I am not one of those people who gets tweaked about a shopping basket hitting my car in a parking lot. For some reason, this morning I was swearing and threatening a painful and slow death to this shopping cart if it hit me. I may have even told the inanimate shopping cart that hitting my car would be the last thing it would ever do. Luckily, it took a last-minute stroke slightly northward and missed my front bumper by inches. It was at this point that I noticed that when I got into my car this morning, I had enough gas to get me to work under normal, non-Biblical End Times conditions. But with all this reversing and cart dodging and East Dallas sightseeing I had been doing, I was about to run out of gas.

Cut to the scene of me pumping $4 worth of gas as lighting struck all around me and a furious little debris stream cascaded between me and my car. Alright, surely this was enough punishment for sleeping in today, right? Get back onto the road and resume my slow crawl to the office. Because no one can see if they are even in a lane because of the downpour, the roads looked more like one of those baby races where they line up five babies in five lanes and then let them go but they end up crossing over into other lanes or just stopping in their own lane or eating grass or crawling on top of the stationary babies. That’s what Lemmon Ave. looked like at approximately 11am today. An extremely slow ADD-riddled infant race.

At this point, it had been 30 minutes since I first got in the car. I was on the last leg, the usually simple left turn onto Turtle Creek. Except Turtle Creek the road and Turtle Creek the creek had become indistinguishable. The two had become one and intertwined in a violent embrace. It was then that Turtle Creek decided to try to get my engine in on the party. My engine had been doing well up to that point. I kept promising it that oil change I have been meaning to get it if it could just put on some water wings and get me to work.

But then the asshole that is Turtle Creek got all up in it and….stall. As I sat in my car, pondering whether or not I was about to be donate my car to the Turtle Creek CAN academy, I hit the gas one more time. And somehow, my little Honda Accord That Could found enough strength to slowly pull us out of our future of spending the rest of the day filing an insurance claim and towards relatively drier ground. We were in the shit and that little Honda came through for me. Thanks buddy! Guess who’s getting some 40W for the summer?

After a few blocks of sputtering and coughing, the Accord finally shook off the shackles and righted itself completely. And then I got to work. Only to find out that everyone else was late and no one even noticed I was. So 48 minutes after I left my house, here I was. Sitting at my desk. Then I realized I was hungry and went to lunch.

The End.

Dear Brett Favre,

2009-06-10T11:44:00.000-05:00

Hi Brett Favre! How’s it going? I hope you are recovering well from your super-secret surgery you recently had. It is to be expected that a career of being pummeled by linebackers would leave one’s body in desperate need of some corrective surgery. But the fact that you had the surgery brings two thoughts to mind. The first one is about how a man of your age is probably not as resilient as you were a dozen years ago. You probably know that already. It obviously takes you longer to get up when you’re knocked down now. And you probably feel the soreness for more than just the next day after a game. But you’re older and you have earned that creakiness.

More importantly, you’ve achieved great things and this is the part where you retire gracefully without tarnishing all you accomplished. It’s not the part where you do a Jordan and decide to play minor league baseball. It’s not the part where you hint at coming back (AGAIN) to play *just one more* season of professional football. It’s when you sit on a beach in Mexico (now with less swine flu!) with your arm in a sling and the other hand holding a daiquiri with umbrellas and exotic fruits spilling forth from the souvenir glass that is so large it is an affront to God. This is where you spend the fall watching football from your overstuffed naugahyde recliner and calling Tony Romo queer when he gets sacked. This is where you shoot all those animals you love to hunt for and spend your weekdays chewing Red Man and making friends at the taxidermist’s.

You have more money than God. If God had ever played as a pro quarterback in the NFL. Your family is taken care of for life. Your wife has her foundation to run and her charity work to do so it’s not like she’s going to be in your hair all the time, asking you when you plan on cleaning out the rain gutters. As far as I know, you are not the center of any major ongoing litigation for which you would need to earn money to finance. I don’t think you have an army of secret kids for which you must pay monthly support. You gave up all the fun drinking and drugging habits that you used to have which can be a drain on the bank account. You could probably afford the nicest pontoon boat any Mississippian has ever seen.

But instead, you hint that you might come back for *just one more* season to be the quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings. America collectively rolls their eyes. It’s not that we don’t want you to play. We just think it would be, ummmm, better if you didn’t. You have a distinguished career. Or you did until you came out of retirement the first time to play one lackluster season with the New York Jets. You know, when people who previously thought you had gracefully retired at the height of your success, going out when no one could touch you. Then we saw you getting picked off and chased down by younger and faster guys. And all the sudden, you went from being Green Bay’s own Silver Fox to the Old Guy on the Jets.

I, as surprised as you may be to hear this, have never played professional football. So it’s fairly easy for me to say, “I’m too old for this shit. I have enough money to buy all the monster trucks I could ever want. I’m widely hailed as one of the best quarterbacks of the past 20 years. I would prefer to wake up on Monday mornings not contorted and bruised. Thanks anyways though. Deuces!” I guess there’s some deep love of not just the game but playing the game that you can’t get out of your system. Maybe you’ve got some David Carradine-esque desire to tempt death for thrills. If those two things are true, play some tag football in your front yard with your old college buddies or drive around without a seat belt on or eat raw oysters from the Chinese buffet or wear an Obama t-shirt to your next NRA meeting. But don’t add another ugly black mark to your legacy.

Also, Minnesota is full of people that talk funny.

Sincerely,
Amandacobra

This Year's Juno

2009-06-08T14:18:00.002-05:00

A quick jog of your memory: I HATED the movie Juno. A lot.

For a long time, I wondered if I would ever want to leave a theater more than I wanted to leave when I saw Juno. It was almost like a masochistic desire to be able to top that miserable experience with an even worse one. Last week, I saw Anvil and it was like the anti-Juno. I didn’t want the movie to end. I didn’t want the experience to be over which is pretty monumental considering how much I hate the movie-going experience.

But then yesterday, I finally got to match, if not top, my Juno-watching misery. I went to see The Hangover yesterday. It’s taken me over 18 hours to regain the ability to express my distaste for this movie outside of angry growls and exasperated sighs. What you need to keep in mind is a) my love and admiration for Zach Galifinakis has been very well documented here and b) Old School, also directed by Todd Phillips, is one of my Top 20 funny movies.

It’s easier for me to point out what I liked about The Hangover. I thought the Zach Galifinakis’s line about “Do you know if Haley’s Comet is tonight?” was pretty funny. I thought that Ed Helms’s “BOOM!” line towards the end was fairly amusing. That’s really kind of the sum total of high points from the entire movie for me. And those weren’t nearly high enough to redeem the staggeringly low points that took up 90% of the film’s running time.

The rest of the movie was made up of pratfalls, dumb physical comedy, “look at that hairy/fat guy’s bare ass!” shots and scenarios that manage (miraculously) to be both predictable and nearly impossible.

Congrats, Juno. You’ve been released from Joke Jail for time served. We’re gonna need your cell for The Hangover.

I Typed All This While Wearing a Monocle and Boy, is My Good Eye Tired!

2009-06-08T13:00:00.005-05:00

Oversimplification and synopsis: a musicologist/professor from Cornell wrote a big diss piece on the soon-to-open Dallas Center for the Performing Arts. He talked about his personal distaste for the actual architecture of the building. He also expressed his distaste for the entire landscape and city planning of Dallas. Then he talked about how this center would play host to rich oil guys in their Stetsons and their big-haired wives who drive in from the suburbs in their gas-guzzling automotive behemoths. The Dallas Observer’s Unfair Park ran excerpts from this essay. Then the gates of commenting fury were flung open as people rushed to defend their city from a snotty, big-city East coast librul. Ok, now you’re caught up.

There were only two things in the essay that vaguely insulted or annoyed me.

#1. That he took the “oil guys in Stetsons/big-haired wives” route. Rich Dallas society wives have caught up to at least the mid-90’s, style-wise and any glimpse of the charity gala pictures in D Magazine or Dallas Morning News would reveal that straight hair is the new curly hair. Sometimes their rich husbands wear cowboy hats but that seems to be a waning trend.

#2. That he the essay is drenched in condescension and essentially scoffs at the notion that Dallas, TEXAS could have a genuine appreciation for the arts and specifically something as hoity-toity as opera.

I hate that he used those two tired old tricks in his essay because he is essentially right. First off, the building and surrounding areas are not particularly attractive. It’s like half Nortel off-site IT training facility, half space-age hog rendering plant. And Christ on a cracker, it’s flat. It doesn’t help counter the criticism that Dallas likes everything to be sprawling, big, flat and wasteful. But architecture is in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

When he complains about the Stetsons driving in for the opera in their oversized vehicles, he’s right. It’s not an aberration. Dallas’s suburban sprawl combined with the general unpleasantness that is downtown Dallas has guaranteed that anyone heading into the Arts District will be there solely to do that and then get back in their vehicles, which stand a better than 50% chance of being an SUV or truck, and get the hell out of Dodge and back to their respective safer, better lit, cleaner communities. And I say this as someone who lives in East Dallas and enjoys opera tremendously. I am the minority and I know that. But I also realize that those rich, oily suburbanites are often the patrons and board members who bring operas, collections and exhibits which I highly enjoy to town.

This brings me to the often hilarious tug of war that I see happen monthly between local and national publications. I laugh and then shake my head when I read local publications and their coverage of the Dallas music scene, the Dallas restaurant scene, the Dallas arts and culture scene. There is ALWAYS some achingly desperate reference to a restaurant having a more exhaustive wine list than any comparable establishment in Chicago or New York. Or there’s a jab about the Dallas Museum of Art having a more comprehensive hinge collection (someone please tell me you got that joke) than even the Guggenheim or Getty Museums. It always feels a little like the younger brother at a family reunion trying to top his much more successful older brother’s professional achievements by reminding everyone that he IS next in line for the assistant manager’s chair at the Arby’s at which he works.

Likewise, national publications love to remind everyone of how Dallas really isn’t a real city and regardless of how much culture they try to import or fancy fusion cuisine joints they open, they will always be the big dumb oil city. In their eyes, nothing that happens in Dallas is actually credible, arts-wise. It’s Dallas after all! Real culture happens in New York and Chicago and (really?) Los Angeles. Dallas is just a two dimensional city full of adulterous Stetson-wearing rancher playboys and their game show hostess wives.

Dallas needs to stop trying so hard to be something it is not. Face it, Dallas as a city is merely the hub for a vast, sprawling network of suburbs. And in many ways, that’s Dallas’s own fault. They knock down anything that isn’t protected by a plaque and the National Registry of Historical Places so that we can have one more block of condos, sandwich shops and dog groomers. They have done everything they possibly can to suck the life out of downtown by failing to address a near-pandemic problem of homelessness in the area. They offer no incentives to anyone, specifically young people who could breathe life into the corpse, to move downtown. A few months ago, I wrote this piece about Victory Park and the failures therein, of which there are many. In it, I mentioned that the development could be saved by bringing in hipper or more youth-oriented retailers such as H&M, Marimekko, Urban Outfitters or even my personally-despised American Apparel. Well apparently the city of Dallas thought that was a good idea, but instead of Victory Park, they want to bring it to downtown. It might be a step in the right direction. My first instinct is to worry about parking for such an expansive retail plaza. But that’s what garages are for. Maybe this would be the first step in getting something going downtown. But it does at least tell me that someone somewhere is trying.

Which means that it’s officially tired and lazy for people outside of Dallas to use suburban sprawl, oil money or the unpleasant presence of George W to immediately write off the city and its inhabitants entirely. Yes, I think the Arts Center is kind of ugly. And yes, I was angry that Dallas lost the new Cowboys stadium. But it does say something when the city devotes as much time and budget to building an Arts Center and trying to bring in artists, conductors and exhibits from around the world.

In conclusion, please take note:

People of Dallas – Please stop doing things like leaving comments like these about a story on war protester Cindy Sheehan’s planned protest at George W’s house. Because here’s a quick sit rep on that: George W. Bush is still widely hated around the country and around the world. And it’s therefore assumed that people who would defend his failure of a presidency would be angry, dumb rednecks. Ergo, when you leave poorly spelled and vaguely threatening comments like those in defense of the most hated contemporary president of our times, you give them (“them” being stuffy East coast/northern liberals) more fuel for the fire. Please proceed to STFU.

People Not of Dallas – Might I remind you of the following things: The New York Post and New York Daily News, Staten Island, Long Island, bridge and tunnel people, Times Square, the Freedom Tower, the new Yankees stadium, Howard Stern and everything in Los Angeles other than the Griffith Observatory and the Getty Museum.

The Slap Bracelet of Online Social Networking

2009-06-05T14:19:00.001-05:00

I said I wasn’t going to be one of those cynical old bats who bitches about whatever new website or widget or thingamabob on the internet the kids love these days. But I was lying. I said that because I decided to get on board the Twitter bandwagon. I have now log-rolled off of that bandwagon in a spectacular fashion. It’s official: Twitter is dumb and pointless. I thought that since EVERYONE was talking about it and EVERYONE had one, there had to be something to it. There had to be some sort of appeal or practical use for the thing. Turns out there isn’t. I suspected that someone would have to be pretty darn chuffed with their own cleverness (or perceived cleverness) to be a habitual, hardcore Twitterer. Maybe there’s some exceptions to the rule but the fact that there are now sites like this one dedicated to outing the more obnoxious Twitterers out there.

Again, no one has yet been able to explain to me why I would want to Twitter or why I would be interested in other people’s Twitter. I get that it’s just a huge stage where people can tell the world how awesome they are. I get that it’s a way to constantly update the universe on what you are doing AT THAT EXACT MOMENT. But as this guy can tell you (in 140 or fewer characters, no less), if you are actually doing what you claim to be doing in your tweet while you are tweeting, you are probably putting yourself in some danger of sustaining an injury. Which is why when people tweet about “Swimming in the ocean right now…vacations rule!” or whatever, I think “Wow, you have a waterproof phone and/or laptop?” The only 100% true and honest tweet would be, “Am on Twitter right now, typing a tweet.”

I am so sick of hearing about Twitter. I am so sick of being assaulted with offers to follow people on Twitter. I am only slightly bemused when objects, buildings and fictional characters have a Twitter. I am annoyed that all news about or statements by celebrities, athletes or anyone famous is issued forth on Twitter. I am just annoyed by Twitter’s existence at this point. I just don’t see a future where Twitter is an established means of communication. It has a distinct Friendster smell to it.

And then I read this statistic in the elevator at work today:

Study: Top 10% of Twitter users do 90% of the tweeting

So I am not alone. The great wall of white noise that is Twitter is not, as I had feared, a mass exodus of humanity towards the rocky, jagged cliffs of 140 character or less human interaction. It’s basically just two or three people standing around screaming at the top of their lungs. I feel better.

Bold, Mostly Baseless and Almost Certainly Pointless Western Conference Prediction

2009-05-23T19:42:00.002-05:00

The Nuggets will beat the Lakers. The Finals will be Cleveland v. Denver. I say this as I sit on my couch, five minutes into the first quarter of the third game of a tied Lakers-Nuggets series. After Denver has just missed three easy layups.

I could be wrong.

DC, San Antone and the Liberty Town, Boston and Baton Rouge

2009-05-20T13:47:00.013-05:00

Chuck Klosterman keeps me up at night. And not in a good way. I just can’t figure it out. I’ve read all of his books except for that novel that he wrote because his first hack at noveldom in Chuck Klosterman IV was painful for me to read and I thought was surely just an exorcising of Creative Writing demons. On paper, Chuck Klosterman should be my hero. I should have posters of Chuck Klosterman on my wall with little comet shaped stickers around his head and I should, much like I once spelled out the Poison logo in lime green thumbtacks on my bedroom wall when I was 10, have some sort of CK logo drawn somewhere on a notebook at work as a secret tip of the hat to the Klos. But I don’t. In fact, there are times when I grapple with whether or not he is the most irritating and self-flagellating human on the face of the Earth or not.

It just doesn’t make sense. Again, let’s go back to his numbers. He’s a former small-town rock writer. Me too! He’s a sports nut. Hey, me too! He not only admits to being a slave to, but also genuflects at, the throne of pop culture which is something I am ashamed to admit eats away more and more free Amanda RAM with each passing day. He is so self-centered as to see parallels and life lessons between all his failed relationships and inner-neuroses and, say, the Lakers /Celtics rivalry. Yep, I think I am that important sometimes too. So why do I sometimes feel like I hate him so much?

I think he is a good writer. Not a fantastic, great, burn-your-likeness-on-the-moon type writer (typewriter?) but an amusing read. In fact, I love Chuck Klosterman IV because I think it shows what he actually is, a great magazine writer. Not a manifesto writer. Not the Thoreau of our age put into some sort of pop culture Cuisinart. He writes entertaining articles about things like why Mexicans love Morrissey and how bizarre it is to go on a cruise with Journey and Styx and their fans. My favorite part of IV is the part where he re-visits one of his first columns that he wrote as a music journalist back in North Dakota covering the Fargo scene. I get particular jollies out of it because, as a writer, it’s always incredibly humbling and laughable to go back and read something that your cocky, younger self wrote when you were pretty sure that you were the Carl Sandburg of local music media, only to realize that you were trying so hard that it’s kind of amazing that the pages of the weekly didn’t actually emit a groaning sound when opened.

I love the fact that he footnotes the more laughable lines from the piece and adds perspective from Six Years Later Chuck. Again, I find him to be an incredibly self-absorbed and self-congratulatory person so I’m conflicted over whether that bit of self-critique is actually humility or just a chance for him to stare at old pictures of himself and remark on what a handsome fellow he has always been.

Now comes the part where I tell you why I think I hate Chuck Klosterman. Other than his collected articles and bits and pieces of his essays, his writings are collectively like the literary equivalent of “The Heart of Rock and Roll” by Huey Lewis and the News. And I don’t mean that in a good way. I can’t fault Huey Lewis for finding a cheap gimmick and riding it like a hooker he cashed in his Harrah’s chips for. What’s the easiest way to elicit a reaction out of the largest number of people? Say the name of the city they live in. “Hey, that’s us! I know that thing he just said! I am familiar with that! I live in that city! I feel a bond with this artist and therefore find this song to be, inherently, kickass.” That’s what Klosterman does and it bugs the shit out of me.

“Words words words words words words (Band Name) words words words words (Failed, Kitschy Two-Season TV Show from the Late 1980’s That Band Could Be the Musical Equivalent Of) words words words (Name of Nintendo Game You Played in 4th Grade) words words words (Awkwardly Shoehorned-In Life Topic Which Could Be De-Mystified by the Aforementioned Pieces of Pop Culture Detritus). "

If you are a Chuck Klosterman fan, fine. But ask yourself, do you like him because you feel like his frame of reference is similar to your because he mentions songs that you know, bands that you like and movie characters that also annoy you? If so, do you (and it’s fine if you don’t, I just happen to) feel kind of like that’s kind of cheap? Like going to an old folks home and offering them pudding or a screening of Gone With the Wind just to lure them into the naptime room. And yes, I do sometimes refer to Chuck Klosterman’s work alternately as “the naptime room.”

Then there’s the dealbreaker. The fact that Klosterman regularly paints himself as Chuck Klosterman: Heartbreaker, Ladykiller and All-Around Pants Earthquaker. There’s something either laughable or disturbing about his instance on fitting in, at any opportunity, another mention of his ability to break the hearts of girls far and wide. I may be blowing that out of proportion and it might only be a minor theme in his work but let me just A/B his angle and the angle of someone whose work doesn’t make me stabby, Will Leitch. Despite many reprimands from some male friends (imagine a sports nerd version of the song “Leader of the Pack”, minus the fatal motorcycle accident, when you imagine this conversation) telling me that Will Leitch is no good and he roots for the Cardinals and he’s just a hayseed who got too much blogfame too fast and I shouldn’t think so highly of him, I dig Will Leitch. When I want to read something that I feel akin to, I read something like Life of a Loser. Not in some self-deprecating (that’s not the one where you poo on yourself, by the way), Sassy magazine grunge layout kind of way. But because I just can’t identify with Klosterman’s self-absorbedness and bravado about just how clever he is. It doesn’t matter whether or not you think Chuck Klosterman is the wittiest thing since Oscar Wilde bread because Chuck Klosterman thinks so already.

So maybe I’m in the minority here. Maybe everyone else gains some sense of comfort like when the Downy bear falls into the pile of freshly laundered and folded towels when they read a Chuck Klosterman book and hear him drum on incessantly about his life, his insecurities and how he is completely irreverent because he likes hair metal in a non-ironic way. But I think it kind of murders my soul a little bit every time I read it.

Let’s see if I can explain this in a more Kloster-tastic fashion. You know how we all know that song “18 and Life” by Skid Row? You know how when someone sings it at karaoke, everyone sings along because we all laugh about how we all actually like that song and know the lyrics to it? You know like how Ricky was a young boy who had a heart of stone, worked 9 to 5. * Well, you know that part about where Ricky had tequila in his heartbeat (huh?) and his veins were burning gasoline (ouch!) and he fired his six shot in the wind and shot a kid? That kid is my literary patience and Chuck Klosterman is Ricky. There, better?

* He worked his fingers to the bone.

Is There Room On There For One More?

2009-05-18T15:26:00.001-05:00

Here’s the pitch (pun somewhat intended) I got on Saturday night:

“Amanda, I am telling you, you’ve got to get into the Rangers! They need you! This season’s gonna be worth it. I’ll fill you in on the players and the back stories. It’s so good right now! Seriously, you’ve got to start watching them! (Name redacted) and (Name redacted) even started watching games! So Lackey returns from the DL (Hughley?) to throw two pitches and he throws one behind Kinsler then hits Kinsler and gets tossed from the game! They’re 3 and a half games up, Amanda! And they beat the Mariners! Just ask me anything you wanna know and I will catch you up! I really want you to get into this team!”

All of this can only mean one thing:

Well, Pack Up the Truck (Again)

2009-05-14T15:35:00.002-05:00

Another Mavs season over. And you know what? I’m not sad. I mean, yeah I would have loved to have made it to the Western conference finals. Or the NBA Finals. But come on folks, don’t be spoiled babies. We got our asses handed to us in the first round two years in a row. This time we got our asses (pretty much ) handed to us in the SECOND round. That’s improvement. Honestly, bitching over the fact that there was a bad call in Game 3 is pointless. It shouldn’t have been close enough to let a bad call decide the game. The season is over. I had fun. Mathematically speaking, there’s only 3 teams in the Western conference who are better than us. And that’s being generous to Houston. Don’t be sad sacks of poo, Mavs fans. Save that for Cowboys season.

And with that, I’m off to Frisco to witness amateur baseball at its most amateurish. The soothsayers at Taco Joint have this hot opinion about the outcome of tonight’s game:

Lessons We Should Have All Learned From Game 4 Last Night

2009-05-12T19:35:00.005-05:00

1. Antoine Wright can get elbowed in the throat and somehow HE gets called for a foul.

2. SOMEONE TIE JOSH HOWARD'S ARMS DOWN IF WE ARE IN A CLOSE GAME AND IT'S THE LAST MINUTE OF THE FOURTH QUARTER AND WE DON'T HAVE A FOUL TO GIVE AND WE DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT NEED TO FOUL ANY MEMBER OF THE DENVER NUGGETS.

3. Dirk Nowitzki would like you all to shut the fuck up about his ghetto, con-lady girlfriend already, please. To further illustrate this point, he will save us from playoff elimination. There, happy? Seriously, drop it now, ok?

4. Carmello Anthony is allowed to hit people in the face with no fear of being suspended.

5. Nothing brings me more personal schadenfraude than learning that the Birdman is not going to be able to make the game due to hot liquid waste spilling forth from both ends of his body due to a stomach flu. Just to think of the cold sweats and stomach cramping making his mohawk sort of just tilt to the side then fall forward in defeat like Glenn Danzig after eating raw oysters from a Chinese buffet, oh the giggles... Thank you, Tummy Shame Jesus.

6. HEY MAVS, LOOK WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DON'T MISS HALF OF YOUR FREE THROWS!!!!!

7. Elephant in the Room time - Would everyone chill the fuck out. That means you, classless Mavs fans. That means you, Denver 'Roid Ragers. That means you, crazy-ass weave-wearing cat-fighting reality show, erhm, "personalities". The funny thing is the person I actually have the most sympathy for in this whole thing (oh yeah, besides the Mavs who are going to have to go to Denver wearing bulletproof vests) is Kenyon Martin's mom. If she talked shit to Cuban, whatever. If a Mavs fan poured a beer on her, in-fucking-excusable. To every other retard, failed rapper, half-shirt wearing former VJ, asshole fan, homophobic psuedo-tough guy who is turning this whole thing into one big "Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!" scene, seriously STFU.

Thanks.

Love,
Amandacobra