Testing my personal conviction that I have something to say. Joining the fray rather than criticizing from the bleachers. Keeping in touch. Writing to write.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Music vs. Lyrics
Edit: When I embedded the songs in this post, it didn't occur to me that doing so would incur a very high data transfer rate from my online storage account. As such, I've removed the embedded players and replaced them with links to the files. If you want to listen to any of the songs mentioned, just right click on the link and save the file to your desktop. Thankee.
There are some very unintentionally hilarious things in this world. The other night, I was watching TV when I saw an ad for Cadillac's SRX crossover vehicle. You need very badly to see this ad. It's called "Morning Ritual." Click the link to watch it.
As soon as the ad came on, I thought, "Oh, hey, the Pogues!" It is always surprising when apparently non-commercial-appropriate bands/songs that you like show up in ads. I had a similar moment when HP used the Cure's "Pictures of You" in one of its brilliant ad campaigns sometime last year (For the record, I thought the ad totally worked. Not surprisingly, it made some people sad.) Rather than being revolted by the apparent sell-out, I find myself rooting a little bit for the band, as though my team has finally made the big leagues or something.
This is especially true about the Pogues, for reasons I will now explain.
In your life, there is at least one band or artist or even just a song that you really love and that everybody else you know doesn't like. For me, that is the Pogues. There is literally nobody I know that likes them. Before they broke up in 1996, the Pogues were a hard-drinking, brogue-spitting bunch of Irish guys who mixed punk and straight ahead rock and roll with a deeply traditional Irish sound. They played interesting Celtic instruments and their band members had cool names like Spider Stacey and Jem Finer. Their lead singer, Shane MacGowan, was a self-centered drug addict and alcoholic who could not enunciate if his life depended on it, but he could write a mean song. Consider, for instance, "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" from the album of the same name. So you can see why people don't like the Pogues. I, on the other hand, have always been drawn to...ummm...something about this band. They don't fit with my musical tastes at all, their lyrics (those that I can make out, anyway) are not always the most uplifting, and I have no genealogical or cultural connection to Ireland, but they've remained in my musical rotation for almost fifteen years now. Partly because, in that inexplicable way that some art just does it for you, I really like songs like "If I Should Fall From Grace With God," but also because they have some musically fascinating stuff like "Thousands are Sailing." And yes, Shane's voice is a love it/hate it proposition, in my experience. There is no acquiring of a taste for it. You will either enjoy his slurring mouth of gravel or you won't. It is, however, exactly the kind of voice that you would expect to come out of somebody who looks like this: In defense of my appreciation for Shane, I would point out that there are literally millions of people in this world who think that Neal Young can sing, so obviously there is no accounting whatsoever for taste. Also, because there were about nine guys in the Pogues, sometimes other people sang, as on one of my favorite songs, "Loreli." In any event, when "Sunny Side of the Street" started playing in that Cadillac ad, I thought warmly of the good old Pogues, and was happy that this bizarro bunch of Irishmen had created something that could possibly sell luxury automobiles. And then I recalled that:
1. "Sunny Side of the Street" was from their album Hell's Ditch, a booze and opium-fueled romp through the South Pacific, complete with songs like "Summer in Siam," "Sayonara" ("Oooh, she gave me Mekong Whiskey, Oooh, she gave me Hong Kong Flu, Put me on a breeze for Katmandu") and the title track ("Life's a bitch and then you die, black hell"), which seems a strange choice for Cadillac to associate itself with.
2. Nothing that the Pogues have to say on any album could possibly make somebody want to buy a Cadillac, unless it was to get really drunk and drive it into the river.
All of the above flashed quickly through my head as the music-only portion of the commercial was playing. I was having a hard time reconciling what I knew of the Pogues with the scenes of suburban bliss being played to their music, but also thinking, "Okay, the music does kind of fit, maybe this will work." And then the lyrics kicked in, Shane's gravelly voice actually sounding a little bit endearing and cheerful. And incomprehensible, or at least I hope so for the sake of the ad execs who approved this spot. Watch the commercial one more time, then come back here and read the lyrics that you've just heard:
Seen the carnival at Rome Had the women I had the booze All I can remember now Is little kids without no shoes So I saw that train And I got on it With a heart full of hate And a lust for vomit Now I'm walking on the sunny side of the street
Needless to say, I nearly fell off the couch laughing. And somewhere, in a dank, smoky basement pub in Dublin, with the few teeth he still possesses, Shane is laughing too.
Edit: When I embedded the songs in this post, it didn't occur to me that doing so would incur a very high data transfer rate from my online storage account. As such, I've removed the embedded players and replaced them with links to the files. If you want to listen to any of the songs mentioned, just right click on the link and save the file to your desktop. Thankee.
Music is a pretty important part of my life. I won't go into the reasons for that right now, but the point is that where possible, I like to have a soundtrack playing. Probably nothing else sets the mood of a moment quite like the tunes that are playing in the background. Unfortunately, I am incredibly easily distracted. As such, I can't listen to any music with lyrics in it while I'm studying, reading, grading papers, dissertating, or anything else that requires a higher-level mental function. If I know the words to the song (and I usually do), I start following along, analyzing them and re-enjoying the meaning. If I don't know the words, I try to learn them.
But I've got to have music, so over the last few years I've collected a frighteningly small number of albums that I listen to while studying. They serve simply as background music, and I can listen to them nine times in a row without really noticing, but each album has its own kind of mood and purpose.
The best and most reliable homework music has always been Bach's Brandenberg Concertos. This is what got me through the reading of My Antonia in 9th grade, and I've been relying on it ever since. The Concertos have this wonderfully structured air to them, which just makes you feel instantly productive and intelligent. Plus, they have a solid, forward moving pace throughout, which keeps you going.
Also in the classical vein but much more stripped-down are Bach's Unaccompanied Cello Suites by Yo-Yo Ma. It doesn't get any purer than this: one guy on a cello. The same forward-moving spirit is present, but the singularity of the instrument is just wonderful when the Brandenberg Concertos feel overwhelming. I think that "Prelude" might be one of the most beautiful pieces of classical music ever written.
Sometimes my studying brain is in a classical music mood, and sometimes it is in a mood for jazz. There is a lot of jazz - especially a lot of the free-form, frenetic bob stuff - that is just too distracting to work well as background music. Dave Brubeck's album Time Out, however, has an excellent balance of structure and free-spirited jazz cool. Sometimes it is good to be a little chilled out while working, as "Take Five" often helps me to be.
And naturally, some dissertation sessions last long into the wee hours of the morning, which is when it's time to switch from Brubeck to Miles Davis. There is nothing in this world as cool as Kind of Blue. It is relaxing, but still contains that late-night energy, that jazz buzz that will keep you going and going. Soothing, smooth, and most excellent. "So What," the first track on the album, might be the perfect jazz song.
Some days the whole damn world is coming down on your head. You don't care a damn bit about what you're supposed to be doing because you're not going to get it done anyway, and even if you do get it done, it's going to suck. But you have to calm down and do it anyway. For those days I have the score to the Indiana Repertory Theatre's production of a play called The Drawer Boy. It is a fantastic play, and the IRT commissioned a musician named Greg Coffin to create a score specifically for their production. People liked the music enough to justify selling CDs, and I bought one. This is the album that I can listen to on repeat for probably six or seven hours without really noticing. It says, "It's okay. Keep going, you'll get there."
And those are the five albums to which I've been working for as long as I can remember. Any suggestions as to what I might add to my play list?
1. I have mentioned previously in the this space that lunch is a meal that, for me, does not require any variety whatsoever. This is not to say that I don't like lunch, but rather that if I ate the same thing for lunch every day until the end of the universe, I would be okay with that. (In this example "the same thing" is roughly: turkey sandwich, possibly with some ham, possibly with cheese, definitely with mayo [chipotle mayo or Miracle Whip, actually], with a side of either fruit [oranges, pears, apples] or chips [Sun Chips, Wheat Thins]) Dinner, on the other hand, is a different matter. Dinner is variety time. I can handle eating the same thing for a few nights in a row, but I do so out of pure convenience. When possible, dinner should be different every night, with repeats coming only weekly.
One thing that I can eat just about every week between October and April is that classic, dependable, tasty, simple MVP of American cuisine, grilled cheese and soup. Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy the hell out of some complex Thai-French-Moroccan-Fusion-style ultra-modern cuisine where the food is stacked cleverly on the plate and words like "rémoulade" are involved, but few things compare to a can of Cambell's Chunky Chicken Corn Chowder and two pieces of American cheese melted on slightly-crispy bread. First of all, the Chicken Corn Chowder is the absolute Cadillac of canned soups, with its fantabulous chunks of chicken, delightful kernels of corn, and other assorted vegetables swimming gleefully in a heavenly cream base. Add to that the perfect simplicity of gooey, meltey, crispy grilled cheese, and for about fifteen minutes, the entire universe is in darned good shape. Also, if you are watching "Jeopardy" during this time, life is even better. To sum: Yum yum, grilled cheese and soup.
2. Men are dumb. I mean, we strive daily to lower the bar of dumbness, to the point that it is now somewhere below the sub-sub-basement and not even the freight elevator will take you down there. I was reminded of how dumb I, a man, am this past weekend when I was talked into completing the late-night food trifecta. To wit: After a good ol' time shaking our asses at a friend's wedding reception, a group of friends and I went to Steak-n-Shake to get some satisfying late-night grub on. It was at this point that Brad and Lou brought up the Trifecta. This is sort of like the Triple Crown for Dumbasses Who Really Hate Their Digestive Tracts. The idea is to, in one night, visit and eat food from the three major outlets that sell food for morons after 11 p.m.: Steak-n-Shake, White Castle, and La Bamba's. Long story short, the Trifecta has passed from the realm of myth to that of witnessed, recorded fact. Each in our own way, Nate, Lou, Brad and I accomplished this feat, as did Lou's wife Heather, who deserves many many medals and probably a gift certificate to a very nice spa for her willing participation in and shockingly open-minded tolerance of the Trifecta.
So, you ask, was it worth it? Clearly, no. I would strongly, strongly, strongly and in other thrice-repeated harsh terms recommend against doing this to yourself. There is literally no reason on earth to do this, aside from the fact that your idiot friends think it would be a good idea. I have no idea what is wrong with Brad and Lou that they would invent the Trifecta and then actually decide to accomplish it. As Lou says quite often, "I hate my friends." Well, he is right do to so. Looking back, I still am baffled at how I was talked into this, and more baffled at how little resistance I offered to the idea. Perhaps I was in an impressionable state at the time, or perhaps I am, despite my attempts to be otherwise, merely a sheep. Good Lord.
Among the enjoyable aspects of having dinner over at my mom's house is the pleasure of spending time with my four-year-old nephew Elijah. He is one of the five or six most fantastic children in the universe, and we have some excellent adventures together. When I walk in the house tonight, he is nowhere to be seen. I learn that he is downstairs playing with Gabriella, my sister's husband's daughter. I walk down to the playroom and find Gabriella on the stationary rowing machine, casually rowing away. Eli is, of course, on the elliptical trainer. He is alternating between pedaling (running? What exactly is it that you do on an elliptical machine? Elliptify? Ovalate? Wait, scratch that last one.) as fast as he can and taking short breaks where he goes slowly or, sometimes, backwards. The picture of a four-year-old working an elliptical machine is entertaining in and of itself, but then I hear him call out to Gabriella, "We need more bullets!" I've got to find out what the story is here, so I interview him:
Me: Hey, buddy! Eli: (Does not stop pedaling) Hey Uncle Tyler! (Note: All of his dialog should be imagined in the cutest, most hilarious four-year-old accent possible, complete with the occasional substitution of "l" for "w." In this case, "Hey Unka Tywa!" Seriously, I love this kid so much I could pop.) Me: So, whatcha doing there? Eli: We're star attacking! Me: Oh yeah, what's that? Eli: We chase down the bad guys and attack 'em! Me: Oh, of course! Eli: And Gabriella ("Gabwee-ewwa") is making bullets! Me: I'll bet she is! How's the bullet-making going, Gabriella? Gabriella: (Completely at ease with the entire situation) Great! (By the way, Gabriella is nothing short of fantastic. She will make a great babysitter someday soon.) Eli: (Suddenly) Bad guys ahead! (Pedals frantically) Get 'em! Make more bullets, Gabriella! Gabriella: Okay! (She rows faster)
Later, I am recruited to be the bullet maker:
Eli: Okay, Uncle Tyler, you get on and you make bullets now! Me: Okay, let me just get my feet strapped into the bullet maker. Eli: Yeah, strap your feet in so you don't fall out into space! Me: All strapped in! How many bullets do we need? Eli: Well, we already have lots. Me: Oh yeah, how many? Eli: Like a million zillion million zillion! Me: Wow, that's a ton. So you don't really need me to make very many, do you? Eli: (Pauses to think about this) No, you need to make more because we need a million zillion million zillion million zillion million zillion! Me: (Starts rowing faster) Okay!
Later, after the Star Attack mission has concluded successfully (albeit with only a million zillion bullets to spare), we decide to trick the family into thinking that Eli is a hat. I drape him around my shoulders, go upstairs, and start showing people my Elijah Hat. He is very quiet and tries not to laugh. He is deeply entertained to find that the entire family thinks that he is a hat. They even compliment me on the wide brim of my hat, and its stripes. And the fact that it appears to be wearing socks. When my sister asks where Elijah is, he whispers in my ear that Elijah is at home. I relate this information to my sister, who feels silly for asking such an obvious question. After I've shown my hat to every member of the family, we go to the back bedroom and revel in our success:
Me: We fooled them all! They thought you were a hat! Eli: I know! We fooled them all! They thought I was a hat! Me: That was pretty good! Eli: That was great! (Pause) Okay, let's go fool them again! What can I be this time? Me: Uhhhh.... (considers ways in which a four-year-old can be worn) How about a belt? Eli: (Explosive giggles) Yeah!
Our brilliant ruse works again! I spend the rest of the evening showing off my Elijah Belt (buckle curiously shaped like a small boy's hand), then my Elijah Boot (definitely waterproof, but would rather not be taken outside to demonstrate this), and finally my Elijah Backpack. My sister puts an apple and two dishtowels in the backpack (well, in the outer pocket of the backpack, which happens to resemble pants). The backpack does not move or squirm at all. He is committed to his role.
I think that Eli would agree with me that while it is a little embarrassing to have a family who can be so easily fooled, we must forgive them for their gullibility. We are, after all, a very good fooling team. The bonus here is that Elijah's younger brother has just turned one, which means in a year or two we'll be a three-man fooling team, which drastically expands our repertoire of fooling options. My family will not have any idea what hit them.
Having friends back in town is always a good time. Last night, we stood around somebody's kitchen and told old stories about ridiculous exploits, marveling at the shockingly low number of emergency room trips and arrests that have accumulated over the years. There is nothing like being with those people that you know best, feeling completely at home, and just loving every minute of it. And, to be clear, I don't wish it were like it was. I'm not spending this weekend pining for the olden days or lamenting the fact that my friends live in Detroit, New York, Cincinnati, San Diego, Singapore, and lots of other places I can't think of right now. The stretching of friendships is natural; it's the way it's supposed to be. But the getting back together is also the way it's supposed to be. When you find the people with whom you still have a strong bond even after long periods of no communication, then you have found the right people. I am lucky to have found them in my life, and it is a very heartwarming feeling on a weekend such as this to be reminded that distance and time are unstoppable, but really, these are my people, and they always will be.
My siblings and I have a genetic condition that requires us to read while eating breakfast. This first manifested itself sometime around age eight (mom? Exact dates here?) when I started reading the back of the cereal box as I ate. We had a severe sugar content restriction on our cereal, thanks to my parents' conviction that our teeth would rot and fall out if we were exposed to the joys of Cap'n Crunch or Fruity Pebbles. (I think that at least 20% of the reason that I love my grandparents so much is that they fed us Golden Grahams when we went to visit them.) The upshot of this was that the cereal box reading material was less often a fun, illustrated adventure story or puzzle and more often a story about the long-term health benefits of Grape Nuts. I read it anyway, because I had to read something. Maybe this need was related to my aforementioned unwillingness to be awake, I don't know. A reading brain is less likely to quit on its owner.
At some point, I abandoned cereal boxes and started reading the paper, and I have been doing so ever since. It's to the point now that if the unknown forces of the universe intervene and I don't have a paper to read while eating breakfast, I get inexcusably grumpy. The order in which I read the paper - and this probably says a lot about me - is, and always has been, as follows: Life/Style/Entertainment section (its name changes, but it's the section with the crossword, jumble, advice columns {which I do NOT read - they are the reality TV of the newspaper}, outdated articles on fashion or entertainment, and, of course, the comics), then the sports section, then, if I have time, the front page section. Yes, learning about the real world takes a back seat to keeping up with rich guys playing games and the adventures of illustrated animals.
I've been reading the comics for so long that the activity is almost reflexive. I read in the same order every day: Start on the bottom of the left column, read to the top, then from top to bottom of the right column, then turn to the second page of comics and read bottom to top in the right column (the second page only has one column). There might have at one point been a logic to this order (leaving the best ones for last?) but it is now just pure habit. In the last few years I have finally started doing something that initially felt like a betrayal, but in the long run was a very good decision: I stopped reading certain comics, because they were never ever funny. Let's go over some of the illustrated daily humor options available in my newspaper, from worst to best:
Actually Makes Me Angry Family Circus: This is the worst comic ever created by a human being. There are probably even some comics created by animals that are better than this single-frame vomitingly-faux-cute portrait of oval-headed morons. The freaking dog's name is "Barfy." Oh, Jeffy drew the comic today! See how poorly drawn it is? Isn't that cuuuuute? (Hits self in head with ball peen hammer)
Some Others That I Finally Stopped Reading Cathy (I'm fat! Shoes! Clothes! Irrrrrving!), Marmaduke (That dog is soooo big! Isn't he big?), Dennis the Menace (Mr. Wilson, you so grumpy!), Ziggy (His nose makes me uncomfortable).
I Couldn't Say This S**t If I Were White Boondocks: Seriously. Seriously.
The Old Guard, Same Joke Every Day, But I Still Read Them For Some Reason Beetle Bailey (Oh, that Beetle, he's so lazy!), Hagar the Horrible (Husband-Wife stereotype, but he's a VIKING!), Hi and Lois (The "Full House" of comics), Wizard of Id (Modern issues, medieval setting! Ha!), Garfield (See yesterday's comments), and Blondie (Dagwood's sandwiches are so tall! And he's always late for the carpool! And his wife's breasts are enormous! Wait, that last one isn't actually discussed in the comic.)
As Bland As "The Cosby Show" Except Not Funny: Curtis: It actually bothers me that this comic makes a running joke out of the main character's inability to get his dad to stop smoking in the house. Ha ha ha! Giving your kids cancer is funny! (And yet, every day, I read. Why?)
When You Write About Things That Aren't Political, You're Actually Really Funny and It Makes Me Even More Annoyed That You're Such A Snarky Leftist: Doonsbury
Walking a Fine Line Between Kind Of Funny and Wanna-Be-Poignant-"A Very Special Episode"-Style Sitcom Content: For Better or For Worse: Getting waaay to heartwarming lately. Plus, they're Canadians, and you know how I feel about that.
Funky Winkerbean: This one has abandoned funny altogether and basically become a TV drama. Today, Funky got blown up by an IED in Iraq. I'm not making that up. In fact, today is the day I stop reading Funky Winkerbean.
Because the Creator Is Dead and the Published Reruns Come From All Throughout Its Very Long History, You Never Know What You're Going To Get: Peanuts: Is there any comic that varies more from day to day? Some days it's funny, some days sentimental (anything involving Snoopy fighting the Red Baron and quaffing root beers in a WWI French bar and I'll be happy), and some days it's just inexplicably bizarre, as though Charles Schultz went on a bender for a month in 1977 and handed the reins to Terry Gilliam. But I love the Peanuts, and will stop reading them the day that Charlie Brown actually kicks that football. Lucy, I hate you.
I Wish Conservatives Were As Funny As Gary Trudeau: Mallard Filmore: He tries, he really does, and he gets some good satirical jabs in there, but the main character is a duck whose name is a terrible presidential pun, so it's a little limited.
Newer Old Guard That Occasionally Draws a Smile: Baldo, Jumpstart, Crankshaft. Although Crankshaft is moving downwards.
New Additions That Are Weird Enough To Keep Me Interested: Fuzzy: There is some very strange humor in this one, but it's usually unpredictable and dry, which is a rarity with comics. It's a relatively new addition to my paper, but I'm pleased so far.
Pearls Before Swine: Another newbie, I'm giving it some leeway because it does unconventional things like feature the creator of the comic as an occasional "Breaking The Fourth Wall" character. This week has featured some of the "unemployed" characters from Foxtrot, which is a rip-off of an old Bloom County idea, but it's still funny.
Good Solid Family Comedy That Often Makes Me Grin: Baby Blues, Zits, and Foxtrot (until the creator quit doing daily strips): They're fairly standard in terms of content, but let us not take for granted that family humor in the comics is not easy (see above examples). I'll especially give the creator of Zits credit for writing a teenage character that is actually mostly current and realistic. Chip of Hi and Lois, please take note.
Office Comedy Dilbert: Really, this is one of the best ones around these days, and I don't even work in corporate America. It goes so far beyond the one-dimensional office jokes and does a lot of really strange and excellent stuff that usually rings true. I would not, unfortunately, recommend reading Scott Adams's blog on a regular basis unless you want to hear relentless circular arguments about how free will does not exist.
The Quirky, Post-Far Side One-Panels That Do A Darn Good Job Filling The Void: Bizarro: Really, this is the most appropriate title ever for a comic. Good stuff, always out of left field.
Non-Sequitur: Except when it gets politically preachy and cynical and tries to do too much by dividing one panel into four tiny squares.
Speed Bump: Also wonderfully left field. You never know what you're going to get.
The Bestest of The Best, Look Forward To Them Every Morning Like A Mini-Christmas: The Far Side, Calvin and Hobbes, Bloom County/Outland. Damn.
"I am not a morning person" is not a terribly original sentiment. Garfield has been expressing it for going on, what, twenty-seven books now? Its lack of originality, however, does not make it any less true. Let me state for the record, unequivocally, that probably the worst moment of every day of my life is the one when I wake up and have to get out of bed. (This does not include actual horrible real-life moments that drop in every now and then. For instance, on the day in 1993 when meat-head football player Brian Miller backed his jacked-up muscle car into my yellow Volkswagen Thing, waking up was only the second worst moment. But not by much.)
There are a number of dimensions to waking up, each with its own set of painful elements. The first is my excessive, rabid, fanatical love of the snooze button. I have, on more than one occasion, snoozed for over three hours. That is a staggering amount of laziness, but it stems from not only my extreme dislike of waking up, but my devoted love of going back to sleep. There are few subtle pleasures in life more lovely than the thirty seconds after hitting that snooze button. I lie cocooned in the covers, perfectly warm, without need to consider any of the material facts of my life, waiting patiently for the bliss of darkness and peace to overtake me for another ten minutes. And another ten minutes. And maybe ten more minutes after that. Some people make use of transcendental meditation or yoga or shiatsu massage to center themselves and bring about a soul-cleansing sense of peace and beauty. Me, I snooze.
There is also, of course, the fact that hitting the snooze button delays the moment when I have to be awake. This is not to say that I fear the world or hate my life or want to stay in bed all day. I clearly do not. But for some reason, God designed my body to embrace the world and love my life at a time beginning approximately two hours after it leaves consciousness behind. I wish there were some choice about any of this, but there is not. It is as genetic as being left-handed, I'm pretty sure, although it comes without the constant feeling of marginalized inadequacy that that condition must surely engender. (Zing! Man, picking on lefties is as easy as picking on Canada. Or maybe I'm just jealous. Wait, no, I'm not. Weirdos.) I have done repeated experiments on the pain of being conscious, and it does not matter if I'm awakening from a luxuriant eleven hour slumber or a panicked, "Oh crud this paper is due tomorrow morning" 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. catnap of terror. It physically hurts to wake up. I don't want to open my eyes, so they remain mostly closed, slitted lids begrudgingly taking in the foggy universe. My brain is borderline non-functional, which is good because it dims the pain but bad because sometimes you have to do important things in the morning, like shave or make breakfast or go downstairs and warm up your girlfriend's car. It is nothing short of a shining testament to the sheer power of luck and the grace of God that I have not cut off my nose with a nine-bladed razor, slathered my English muffin with wasabi salad dressing, or somehow set my girlfriend's car on fire. There have been mornings when I have gone to do one of my very few morning tasks, only to find that I had already done that task thirty seconds ago. So the pain plus the overall incompetence is a strong motivator for the snooze button.
Additionally (yes, we're waaaay over ten minutes of writing here), my brain's favorite thing to do after it wakes up and moves around the world is to go back to sleep as soon as possible, regardless of what the body is doing at the moment. In college, the earliest classes started at 8:30 a.m. I often actually went to most of my 8:30 classes (My roommate may dispute this), but I almost never stayed awake through them, regardless of subject or teacher. If Jolly Jim Davis and his energizing discussions of British Literature couldn't prevent a relentless need for my forehead and desktop to be good friends, then there are very few things that could. Roller coasters, maybe. Since college, I have discovered the wonders of coffee, a heaven-sent substance that has probably saved my life as well as the lives of whatever wildlife might be inhabiting the highway medians and drainage culverts between here and Illinois. Coffee helps, but it still does not curb my emotional desire or physical ability to go back to sleep. For instance, at this very moment, I am working on six hours of sleep (not bad) and one large mug of coffee (about three cups), and I could, without hesitation, go lay down on the couch and take a two hour nap.
Although this has not worked exactly well in the past, I would like now to solicit opinions and input from the morning persons out there. See, aesthetically and conceptually, I like the morning. I really do. Sunrises are quite inspirational, the dew on the grass is always beautiful, and the general peace and bird-chirpingness of the early a.m. is lovely. I know this to be the case because I have stayed up all night on numerous occasions in the past. I have also seen these things from the traditional vantage point of having just awakened, but I was too angry and deranged to appreciate any of them.
(Thunder rolls in the distance. The air crackles with lightning. An ominous wind swirls leaves in that ominous way that leaves are often swirled.)
In the spirit of Lent, and as a possibly interesting life experiment, I'm going to try something that I believe will slightly decrease my chances of setting myself on fire between now and then:
I'm going to give up the internet.
Well, sort of. This isn't pure cold turkey, because really, that would be insane. The internet is wonderful in about six million ways, and I can't dispose of all six million in one fell swoop without suffering from major communication and information withdrawal. I don't want to end up in a candle-lit room paging frantically through the 1987 World Book Encyclopedia and writing longhand letters to my friends, so this pledge of webstinence will come with a list of caveats. I am allowing myself access to:
1. E-mail and IM. I want to focus, not be cut off from my friends. Besides, think about the nightmare of an inbox that has not been checked for a month.
2. This blog. I would like to keep posting. Writing is good, and I need to do more of it. We'll come back to this in a bit.
4. Any specific page links sent to me via e-mail or IM. This caveat might sound like cheating, but I think it will do a lot to limit my internet time wastingness, and it will have some interesting side-effects. Most of my problem comes with rabbit hole interwebbing and over-browsing of front pages. You can only gain a limited amount of relevant knowledge from reading every article (and there are waaaaay too many) on the front page of ESPN, Slate, and the like. By limiting myself to specific articles only, I'll cut down substantially on time wasted learning about NBA trade rumors or the intricacies of the Scooter Libby trial. The second benefit will be to see the internet through the filter of my friends - or rather, through the filter of whoever the hell is still reading this blog. So, friends and strangers, if you stumble across a news item, sports article, video, or blog post (including new posts on your own blogs, please) that you feel is worth sharing, kindly send it along. I'm curious to know what you are looking at these days. And, okay, this whole may seem a little arrogant, ("Minions! Bring me the internet! Only the good stuff! And fetch me some more grapes!"), but just bear with me.
So that's the story. The fast ends March 16, the minute after I turn in the dissertation. And yes, this will probably guarantee that I completely waste the $20 I put into my annual NCAA tournament pool (no internet = no research resources = no chance at picking that sweet 16 sleeper). On the other hand, it's all pretty much wild guessing anyway.
Also, this: starting today, with this entry, there will be ten days of ten-minute writings. Because it's just about time, and it doesn't take that long, and really, there is no reason not to. So tune in tomorrow for ten minutes worth of unedited babbling about whatever I feel like. As always, thanks for playing.
On the one-week anniversary of a certain sporting event, I feel the need to put into words some of the joys that I am experiencing. This is incomplete and poorly edited due to serious time constraints, but I wanted to get something out there before the moment fades. Well, okay, this moment is never really going to fade. Here is the current state of affairs:
The Indianapolis Colts are Super Bowl Champions and I am very happy about it.
I would empty the thesaurus trying to communicate to you how I feel about this, and the superlatives would wear down from overuse. Instead, in no particular order, here are some specific reasons why I’m very happy about my World Champion Colts:
(Disclaimer: I am, in true fan-style, frequently going to refer to the Colts as “we.” I am not going to apologize for this or justify it.)
I love that Indianapolis finally got its first major league championship in my lifetime. We only have two major league franchises in this town. Both have been remarkably above-average for quite some time, but neither has gotten over the hump, usually thanks to perennial-evil-nemesis teams like the Patriots and Knicks. We have our championship at long last, and we did it with class, heartfelt joy, and a total lack of burning cars or riot police. Some people will continue to put forth the never-ending cynical contention that professional sports serve merely as resource-sucking distractions to the things that really matter in life. Those people were not present on Monday night inside the packed-to-capacity Hoosier Dome or along the crowded streets of sub-zero Indianapolis as a joyous population screamed its lungs out congratulating our team in person on its triumphant return to Indy. That sense of community energy and raucous rejoicing was exactly why sports matter. As Indianapolis Star columnist Bob Kravitz put it, “Championships are more than just parties that last deep into the night. They are generational keepsakes.”
I love that this year, of all years, was our time. For the three years leading up to this one, our season looked like this: A great deal of offensive beauty and grace, serious ass-kicking of teams of all sorts, and then some manner of playoff debacle loss to the eventual Super Bowl champ. There have been near-undefeated seasons (we were 13-0 last year) and record-breaking seasons (Manning’s 49 TDs in 2004) but they’ve all petered out in the postseason. This is unspeakably disheartening and will do major damage to a fan's psyche.
This year, however, the Colts started 9-0 and had some quality wins, but then things fell apart. We finished with the fourth-worst rushing defense in NFL history and lost for the first time in ten meetings to the freaking Houston Texans, one of the worst franchises in professional sports. We got destroyed by Jacksonville to the tune of 375 yards rushing, a game that I didn’t actually watch because I sensed the impending disaster (and because I was playing street hockey at the time). It got so bad that I actually said to a friend, “I’m not giving up, but I am reallocating emotional capital from this season to next season, because I can not go through last year’s heartbreak again.” Well, as it turns out, there is a lot to be said for losing. Apparently my dad was right, and you can build a ton of character from heartbreaks such as being dumped by Jenny Meeks in 8th grade, not getting into Northwestern, or allowing a career-high rushing total to Ron Dayne. Through all of that sports muck, our faithful coach stayed the course, believing that things would come together when they needed to, believing in his players, his staff, and himself. And it worked. Each and every time in the playoffs that the Colts had every reason to panic, they didn’t. The just kept on grinding it out, believing that the best outcome was still within reach. It always was.
I love the way we plowed through the postseason. After dispatching the overmatched Chiefs, we went on to beat the first, second, and third ranked defenses in the league. That accomplishment is nothing but pure grit. For a team that had been dismissed as finesse and timing and a little soft, the Colts showed up game after game, read the defense, made adjustments, and just ground out three showcase wins. They adjusted, took what they were given, and found a way to keep moving, converting a postseason-record 56% of their third downs. They wore down defenses with long drives of pure will, keeping the other team’s offenses off the field for absurd lengths of time. The defense showed up, stuffed the run, hit hard, and forced turnovers. It was a wonderful thing to watch.
I love that our beloved quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning is – at least within the subset of NFL quarterbacks – somewhat of a dork. He is an anal, obsessive-compulsive preparer, as evidenced by this bit of inside observation during Super Bowl week (scroll to the bottom, start reading at the second-to-last paragraph). He is a consummate student of the game, the sort of guy who believes that there is no ceiling to the harder-you-work/better-you-get curve. He doesn’t date supermodels, he has an enormous forehead that often develops a red helmet-rash during games, and, in the words of my friend Brad, he “slowly shakes his head like a bobblehead when he talks, makes tens of millions of dollars a year yet has focused no time or money toward controlling his adult acne, and he has an elementary school haircut.” In fairness, let me be clear about two things:
1. Peyton’s dorkiness is not an absolute fact, it is just the opinion of some people. Others make the very astute observation that Peyton is, after all, one of the most famous sports figures in the world, has great relationship with the press, appears in multiple national commercials and also sometimes plays onstage with major recording artists. My friend Nate’s counter-dork point regarding Peyton is very simply, “women want him, and men want to be him.” So, yes, “dork” is a relative and contested term.
2. There is not a hint of negativity or derision in my assessment of Peyton as Dork. It makes me love the guy even more, in fact. He is in many ways the anti-Tom Brady. I mean, would Peyton ever attempt something like this? No, he would not, and we Hoosiers thank the sweet Baby Jesus for that. And likewise, Brady could never pull off this:
Heh heh heh. Seriously, this makes me laugh every time.
I also love Peyton Manning because he could have been Ryan Leaf. Colts fans should take a moment every day to imagine the train wreck that would have ensued if we had drafted the big-mouth/tiny-talent combo of Leaf over the studious, determined Manning. That train wreck looks like this: The Los Angeles Colts.
I love the rest of the team too. I love the bone-jarring hits of Bob “The Belt Sander” Sanders (nickname invented by my brother, somebody still needs to tell Bob). I love the impossible catches made by Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne, game after game after game. I love the simian way that Dallas Clark stands at the line of scrimmage, and the ridiculous catches that he makes despite being a big goofy Iowan. I love that Cato June’s Fantasy Football Team was called “Juneimus D Great.” I love that Booger McFarland can weigh nine hundred pounds and still put a ballerina-quality spin move on Olin Kreutz to sack Rex Grossman. I love that Hunter Smith is the most accurate holder in NFL history, even though there is no such statistic. I love that Joesph Addai is only a rookie, and that I get to watch him juke tacklers for years to come. I just love this team, inside and out.
I love that this postseason contained the single greatest sporting contest I have ever witnessed, the 38-34 AFC Championship victory over the New England Patriots. With all due respect* to Bears fans, this game was our Super Bowl. Everything after that not quite postscript or a foregone conclusion, but it was pretty close. I won’t go into depth regarding this rivalry. If you know about it, there is no point in discussing it, and if you don’t know, the closest I can come to it is this: Imagine the neighbor kid beating up your kid once a year and having to sit inside your house and watch it. I cannot overstate how much this team has been the bane of our existence. And in the middle of the second quarter of that AFC title game, it looked like the same story all over again: Every bounce going the Patriots way, our QB looking rattled, our defense unable to stop the run, down an impossible 21-3. You simply do not come back from 21-3 against the Pats. But nobody panicked. I mean, sure, at my brother’s house we were mostly dead inside, but we did not give up, and neither did our coach, our QB, or anyone else. What followed was the most beautiful, gritty, unpredictable, hard-earned comeback that I have ever seen. It was joyous and terrifying to watch, every second of it. My pulse was well over 100 for the entire fourth quarter, and I was sitting down most of the time. This city will always remember the 32-yard strike to Brian Fletcher, Reggie Wayne reaching up, practically in slow motion, to bring in a bobbled ball, and Joseph Addai running untouched into the end zone for the game winning score.
The outcome was in doubt right up to the end, but when Tom Brady’s final pass landed in the arms of Marlin Jackson, fear died in the heart of every Colts fan. The little crew of diehards assembled at my brother’s house simply exploded. Adam, Ash, Mr. and Mrs. B and I leaped around the room, screaming and hugging each other, tears in our eyes, hoarse from the shouting, hardly able to believe that it was actually over. That, friends, is an epic sporting contest, and the good guys won. *Note: Amount of respect due varies depending on specific Bears fan.
I love the fact that like all championships, ours rested on a knife-edge, hanging perilously in the balance on more than one occasion so much so that to look back on it makes me a little nervous. The Baltimore and New England games could have turned out so differently if just one single play, one bounce of the ball, one fingertip, one thrown flag, one dropped pass had gone the other direction. That’s how hard it is to win the whole thing in any sport. You have to be excellent in everything and overcome the narrowest of margins with skill and, no doubt about it, luck. And we did. Finally.
I love how hard it was raining during the Super Bowl, one of those relentless South Florida downpours that soaks you to the bone in under a minute. It was scary at first, but in the end it only emphasized how unstoppable we were this year: not even a flood was going to stop us.
I love our coach. Grace, class, kindness, leadership, and an unapologetic Christian. We are fortunate to have him. This victory celebration quote sums him up perfectly: “There’s not one guy out here that you wouldn’t want your son to be like, and that’s probably more important to me than anything.” You know he is not saying that lightly.
I love that my emotional investment in this team – this group of highly-paid strangers who play a game for a living – is completely out of proportion, because it is important in this life to be joyfully ridiculous about some things. This is one of my things, and oh how sweet it is.
I love that this team and this title make me believe that there will be more Super Bowls headed our way, and soon.
