Cool as the Other Side of the Pillow

     When Stuart Scoot first started appearing on Sportscenter I wondered, “Who is this guy?”  I have to admit he made me laugh and was a great addition to the Sportscenter desk. I loved Kenny Mayne and Dan Patrick as a broadcast pair; their straight men deliveries often lead to hilarity. Chris Berman had been throwing references to songs and musicians into all his highlight shows for a good while already, so over the top silliness with a dash of personality on Sportscenter was definitely not outside the norm.

      Into that crazy mix dropped Stuart Scott and the bar was raised just a tad. With his signature lines, each delivered with their own specific cadence and emphasis he made himself stand out from not only the broadcasters on ESPN, but all the other networks as well.  Those signature lines were original and sounded like them just came naturally to him. I wondered when I first saw him on screen if those lines were stolen from some long forgotten standup comic on Holiday Inn cirucuit or a wannabe rapper street performer. No matter the origin of those lines, they made us sit down to watch and take notice.

      As I continued to tune into Sportscenter I noticed a change; as the old guard at ESPN were moving on the new guys were trying to be Stuart Scott and failing.  Sportscenter turned into an contest to see who could come up with the zingiest one liner to go through the highlights.  It is said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery; no one said the imitation had to be good. I realized after a while that Stuart Scott was in a class by himself; he owned who he was and shared it with the rest of us. If the highlight show had been music, then he was the Michael Jackson of Sportscenter; he had the music in him.

      I ‘ve watched some of the tributes to him over the past couple days as the news of his passing hit the airwaves and everyone seemed to have a story to tell about Stuart’s influence on their life and career.  There were two poignant moments that stood out to me from all the others. The first was from Robin Roberts, a tough and very cool lady who had her own battle with the Big C, and how the two of them helped each other fight the good fight. The other was from Keyshawn Johnson on Game Day. It was a side of him that I’ve never seen on air before. The huskiness of his voice as he related his Stuart story barely disguised the emotion it was obvious he was feeling. If anyone was going to cry on that set I would have expected it to be Cris Carter.

      I watched his acceptance speech at the ESPY’s for the Jimmy V award; dry eyes were not in attendance for this seat.

     The sports world and the rest of the world lost one of the good guys, who will forever remain as cool as the other side of the pillow.

     

Tag, You're In and the Floppy Socks are Out

     When the New Year rolls around, as it just did, conversation often turns to the question of New Year’s resolutions. What New Year’s resolutions are you making and how long do you think you will stick to them?  The idea, in essence, makes a lot of sense; we just passed through a time of introspection and reflection on the year that was, as Christmas and whatever holiday you celebrate blew in through your front door and out the back. Then again maybe not, everyone celebrates the holidays in their own way and some folks are just happy to see the previous year in the rear view mirror as we look to a fresh start.

     New Year’s resolutions have been around since ancient times and are recorded as far back as the Babylonians and the Romans. The Romans moved the practice from March back to January, apparently as an offering to the God Janus, where we get the name for the month of January.  This god had two heads looking in opposite directions, one looking at the year ahead, the other head peering back at the year behind.  No doubt Saturday nights in the land of the gods must have been difficult; when you have two heads wanting to go in opposite directions deciding which party they were going to run off to probably ended in a tug of war. As you can see in the pic above he has his party jug at hand. I bet he walked sideways a lot.

     The beginning of a new year is similar to the experience of driving a stretch through a winding road only to finally come around a blind curve that opens into a long straightway. That straight stretch of road appears to have no end as it touches the horizon in the distance, though we know perception lies a lot and that straightaway may contain a dip we don’t see and a turn or three as we keep on truckin’. Maybe that’s where New Year’s resolutions come in to the picture; either way we get to see where the road leads.

     As we drive, those resolutions can become navigational aids or convenient clubs left by the side of the road to pick up and beat ourselves over the head with when we feel the need. The old standby resolutions such as eating better, losing weight, getting more exercise, quitting smoking or drinking have the potential to lend themselves to frequent stops to grab a club. From this seat I see those as year round sort of resolutions; whether it’s January, May or October I can always start my year over.  I kind of consider offering the old standbys as my New Year’s resolutions as being kind of lazy on my part; most of those pop up all year long for me anyway, so I know I am and will continue to be a work in progress.

      My resolutions tend to be a little outside the norm and I fully claim the right to make new ones at any time of the year. Last year in March I had to make a late resolution to not wear my shirt to work inside out. Apparently I threw on my polo shirt inside out one morning and didn’t notice until someone asked me why I had a tag on the outside of my shirt halfway through the day. I didn't bother switching it around at that point, why argue with success?

   A brief side rant here: Why do we call polo shirts polo shirts? I remember when these types of shirts started showing up everywhere during the 80’s we called them golf shirts, because golfers seemed to be the only ones wearing them.  There is a lot more people that play golf anyway. Who the hell knows anyone that plays polo?  Seriously, full contact croquet on horseback with a soccer goal and we name a shirt for that?  No, nah, nah, nah no, false. Okay, end rant now where was I? Ah, resolutions for a new year and the right to change them, or not.

     I’ve decided to keep the not wearing my shirt inside out to work resolution, and will apply that to all apparel with tags, though my wife and I disagree on one item. I say underwear doesn’t count because no one sees it, she disagrees; the eternal debate rolls on.

     Another resolution I am going to stick with this year is to try some type of food I have never eaten. A few months ago I ate guacamole for the first time. To me it is the most disgusting looking stuff; I thought it looked more like lizard puree than something edible. As far as I’m concerned it still is horrible looking stuff, though now I can say it tastes good. Live and learn I guess, though I do reserve the right to not eat cottage cheese again. Ever.

    Another resolution I’ve made for this year is a kind of two in one. I decided at least a couple times a month to wear different colored socks to work. That idea will test my creativity with a collection of socks that are either black, grey, or brown, which leads to part two. I resolve to purge my sock drawer of all my Pete Maravich socks. You know the ones I’m talking about; the ones with the elastic that is shot so they just puddle around your ankles. Hmm, I guess there is a part three here too. I suppose I’ll also have to rid my sock drawer of all the socks I’ve sharpened my toenails on for so long I can read the newspaper through the toe.

   I resolve to make more lists this year to give myself a visual reminder to not forget to do the stuff I keep forgetting to do. I think I will do them in pencil, because those trusty old pencils need some love too. I think I have a sharpener stashed in my office supplies box, its probably hidden under the box of staples I bought 5 years ago. This list idea is done under the guise of having my office be more organized. Now if I can keep the top of my desk a little more clutter free I might be able to find said list. 

     My resolution for this weekend is to put all the Christmas stuff back in the shed and fill the recycle bin with the boxes left over from Christmas shipping. The cats will lose their playhouse, though they have more than enough toys around here to keep them amused; especially the hair ties from the two-legged in the house.

     My wish for your New Year is one of good health and much success. Hopefully you will all find the time to find a good spot to watch the sun rise or set, take in the glow of a full moon with someone you care about, find some flowers to get a good whiff of and just basically  be happy. I say this to you and also to myself. We have a new year to mold, enjoy it and fill with new memories. Here's to making it a good one.

     

Requiem for a Dinosaur

     A couple of weeks ago the phone book pictured above landed on my front sidewalk. I hadn't really thought about how much these were still used, or wondered how many people still used one. I haven’t kept any of the phonebooks I've received the past several years after I got rid of my house phone, so now when I get them they go straight to the recycling bin, except this one for the time being. We are watching the extinction of another piece of Americana fade quietly into the night. 

     Seeing it sitting there on my desk got me thinking about how out of place it is to see a phone book now, because there was a time when there was always one somewhere in the house; now they just seem to be teleported in and dumped from another time. The days of the poor old battered and abused phonebook are numbered; they were often covered with crazy doodles, had a number or two scrawled on the cover when another piece of paper wasn't close at hand, or had the pages containing your usual take-out joints dog-eared for easy access. They served us well for many a year didn't they? Now with the prevalence of cell phones with internet access they have become an object of wonder almost. The fact that I received this one tells me there are still plenty of land line phones out there, though I imagine there may be more businesses with the then homes. This is the Yellow Pages for the East Valley, which is about 1/6^th the size of the first East Valley Yellow pages I encountered when I moved to Arizona in 1994; that one was actually split into two 3” thick volumes because there was so much in it, an added plus due to its weight was it could serve as a weapon in a pinch. I don’t think selling add space in the Yellow Pages would be such a good gig these days.

     Who remembers when you could just call 1-411 for directory assistance and have an operator find it for you? I guess you can still call it since the cell carriers have it available, though from a land line it’s probably 12 bucks a shot now. When I was in college some of us would drunk dial National Directory Assistance at 1-area code- 555-1212 and talk to operators in exotic places like Hawaii, Alaska and North Dakota. Alas, AT&T put a stop to that in 2000, those dirty buggers: 

http://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Common_Carrier/Public_Notices/1999/da992541.html

Over time the phone companies got a little smarter, and started to give you options to connect the call, for a fee of course. If you've ever had a phone you know how those fees manage to sneak their way onto your bill.

     I have been a numbers nut for a long time and there was a time if I wrote a number down, then used it, I would remember it; I still remember the phone number from my first apartment, odd I know. The trusty phone book or books always managed to find a place in the house , whether they were piled next to the phone or stacked up on the floor nearby for those who were phone book rich and furniture poor like me; in a pinch a stack of them made a decent end table. Nowadays, if I write a number down it’s either to just use it once, or to put in my phone under a name and then I don’t have to remember it, I just find the name in my contacts list. The world has moved on.   

     The old days of paying a fee each month to rent your phone as part of your phone bill seems like such a ridiculous idea now with us having the ability to carry our house phone wherever we go. I managed apartments for many years and would find phones left in apartments when folks split in the middle of the night; they usually were owing rent.  At one time I had so many of those ugly princess phones and hang on the wall kitchen phones, in their lovely gag me with a spoon colors, I was giving them away to friends. Of course, I ran extra lines to every room in the house I could to add a phone; when the phone rang it sounded like the donations lines at a Public TV telethon.  

     When long extension cords for phone lines became readily available I was stoked; I never have been one to sit in the same place while talking on the phone.  Of course one the drawbacks to having one of those long cords is that after a few weeks of walking around the house talking on the phone you have something that resembles a rats nest of Christmas lights without the lights sitting on your floor. Unwinding all the twists and kinks was never big fun, though eventually I’d be back in business to start that ridiculous cycle all over again.

      Those original cheap handsets that didn't need a base were a fine example of a product that should have been extinct before it was ever put on the shelf. I had one that would pick up the Spanish station in Hartford, but only at night; it sure made for some interesting conversations.  “Are you listening to the Spanish station?” “No, it’s my phone, only does it at night.” “What, I couldn't hear you the music got kind of loud there for a few seconds.” Ahh, this new technology is great isn't it?

 I grew up in the dark ages, i.e. the 60’s, and we had a wall phone in the kitchen with a short cord. You had to stand there next to it like you were using a payphone in your own house. My dad finally put in an extension in the basement; after breaking the railing on the cellar stairs for the 3^rd time dashing up from his workshop to answer the kitchen phone.  There were no answering machines or Caller ID, which really didn't matter; when the phone rang you wanted to answer it! 

     That thinking changed over time of course. I learned that if I turned the ringer down and my music up loud I didn't hear the phone ring; kind of like Caller ID before it became available and the best part; no extra fee. There was about a 2 year span where I was pretty much subsisting on berries and bark and it wasn't in my budget to have a house phone. I really didn’t miss it much and came to see having a phone as a luxury not a necessity. That was back when you could still find a payphone somewhere besides a grocery store, an airport, or some other mass transit location. Those phonebooks at those pay phones really took a beating didn’t they? How often did you find one that didn’t have a chunk of pages ripped out of it? Who can say they never ripped a page or two out of phonebook at a payphone; if you have never seen one then you can’t count that as a never.

     What’s it all mean? Do I long for the days of phones on the wall, with a stack of phone books standing by at the ready to let my fingers do the walking? Hell no,now I have room for the detritus of my daily existence to fill the space created by the phone books absence. I like that my phone can go in my pocket, I don’t need an alarm clock and it’s a great little flashlight to save my toes from finding malicious furniture in the dark.

     .

Rock n Roll Remembers

I read on the book of Face that Johnny Winter passed on today in Switzerland. I watched some of the videos that were posted in remembrance of him and it got me to thinking about how lucky I was to grow up during the time that I did. I saw The Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show and rocked out to Don Kirshner's Rock Concert on Friday nights and the King Biscuit Flour Hour on   FM radio on Sundays. Along the way I was fortunate enough to hear some of those iconic bands live and in person, though for most of those shows I know I was at there is no way I could begin to tell you the set list. Every time I scraped a few dollars together I was adding to me record collection, which got to be very large. It is all gone now, lost along the way for various and sundry reasons. I've replaced a decent chunk of it with CDs and though the music is the same vinyl just felt more permanent. It has been making a bit of a comeback, which didn't seem possible at one point. I still find newer artists that have come along in recent years that I really like, though if I'm just chillin' either gaming, reading or writing the old sounds just suit me more. Rest in peace Johnny and thanks for being a part of the best era in music.

Funeral for a Friend

     My wife and I are fans of Rizzoli & Isles on TNT. One of the actors on the show recently committed suicide and the show wrote his death into the storyline by having him die in a car accident. The follow up show was about continuing on with life and the tribulations friends and family go through in the aftermath of such a sudden event. I thought the show did a good job within the time constraints it has in presenting a glimpse of how some of us react differently to the death of a friend or relative. The show  lead me to thinking about the way some funerals I attended affected me and how my attitude toward the entire idea changed.

     The first funeral I ever attended was my Dad’s four days after my 14^th birthday. Between the wake, the funeral and the people that came by our house I ran the gamut of weird handshakes over that first week. I don’t think I’ve been graced with as many dead fish handshakes combined in all the years since those few strange days. I really hated the whole experience, though we did have some lighter moments that week thanks to some of the folks that spent a lot of time there in the aftermath. Little did I know then how important those moments really were. I decided I would never go to another funeral until my own and was steadfast in that way of thinking until a close friend passed on almost 20 years later.

     I was asked to get up and say a few words at his memorial service and the request really surprised me. I spent time putting words down on paper figuring it would help me focus on the difficult task at hand. I still have the pages I wrote for that day and recently stopped to read them while digging through some old scribbles I've kept. I’ve kept them around for their significance because that experience changed me. It changed the way I looked at the strange rituals we humans have around death and presented me with a new attitude toward them going forward. I finally realized that day that funerals are not for the departed. What do they care what suit you put them in or how fancy the casket is because we can’t ask them anyway. The important part of the whole ritual I came to see is the bringing together in one place those people who had their lives touched by this man. I spent a good part of that day sharing stories about him with people I had never met previously that come to appreciate him as much as I did. It was truly a noetic experience realizing that this was what the ritual was about. Our common bound shared through one individual and the lives he touched by being who he was allowed all of use to come together to celebrate and remember our friend.  I'm sure others have come to a similar conclusion , so I guess I'm a little slow on the uptake apparently when it comes to some things. We can only understand what we can understand. 

     My views on many things have changed since then though I'm still not the first person in line when the time comes for a funeral. The one thing I do know now is a funeral really is an opportunity for those of us left to carry on a chance pool our spiritual resources so no one ever truly dies. So keep sharing stories of those who have moved on to keep their memory alive. I 'm going to.