Everybody Wants You...

My love life is what can most generously described as flatlined. To stick with the medical analogy, it feels like it is beyond being revived by a crash cart or resuscitated with a shot of adrenaline like they did in the movie "Pulp Fiction". I have some theories for this of course. The first is general incompetence, as I have explained before. I also have another theory that is somehow linked to my pheromones. Whereas some men (not me) release substances that arouse women and make them want to mate with them... and fix all their emotional issues... I release a pheromone that makes them come to me for advice on how to fix those guys' emotional issues. I am somewhat of a professional friend as a result. But not for lack of trying. I mean it's not like I haven't made a move or two... but it's usually met with "awwwww that's so cute. But I need to run. I gotta help Jimmy get of the smack and hookers. But don't worry someday someone who actually wants to fuck you will think you're as cool as I think you are."

I probably will this on myself subconsciously, but why fess up to this when it's easier to cast blame elsewhere. It is a great American tradition afterall. And I consider myself a great American. And like most Americans, I have routines. One part of my routines is getting out of bed every morning. This is usually followed by scratching and then peeing. Not always in that order but enough times that I consider it a routine. Once I am done peeing I walk into my living room area, look around and then wonder what it all means. Not what my living room means, but what life means. And how I figure into things. And on the universal time frame are we in a period equivalent to the Neolithic period of Earth's history and hence we haven't gotten far enough to see aliens because we have not progressed far enough in terms of technology and know-how? And what is time really? Is it linear in nature or more like a mobius loop? You know. Stuff like that. But not on this Tuesday. Nope. Because my routine was interrupted by a small postcard slipped under my door. I picked it up and what I found is below:





Needless to say at first I was a little shocked. Not that someone had come up to my door to do this and I could have easily been walking out my door at the time. Not because I officially had a stalker (Yah!). Because that is kinda cool. Not that my stalker hadn't though enough of me that they would have used something other than a freebie postcard from a bathroom urinal to profess their love. Instead I was shocked that someone thought I was handsome. I mean that's pretty exciting when you don't hear it a lot. Then I got to the signature line and found it was signed by "Max". (As you have noticed, I have altered the postcard to protect the innocent and, frankly, myself.) Of course I figured it was a guy, because I do live in a predominantly gay part of town, but "Max" is also a slightly unisex name. So because I don't think of myself as gay, I held out hope that maybe this "Max" was a she. But how could I know? Thank god for the internet.

I am a very impressive cybersleuth. If you have put anything on the internet, I can most likely find you and what you look like. So if not Google, then Friendster. If not Friendster, then Facebook. If not Facebook, then Myspace. And since I had an email address, I just went to myspace and searched via email and, viola!, there it was her page. Except she was a he, which really wasn't a surprise, but what was surprising was I was on his myspace page. Right there under the "Who You Would Like Meet" section. Where is said, "The chubby guy with glasses next door. And other gays."

I couldn't believe that my stalker thought I was fat. Granted, I am not LA thin, but I'm no lard-ass. I work out everyday. I do the elliptical trainer. Or the stationary bike. And I lift weights. And I watch what I eat. For the most part. So despite all this effort, the person that has the most illogical attraction to me, my stalker, thinks that I am calorically dense.

And see, this is not exactly what I need. Everyone can use a stalker. Well, as long as their not dangerous. Or armed. Or both. Because there is something ego-affirming about someone who has an unnatural attraction to you. I mean it feels good that whatever fun-house image you see in the mirror, it is not what someone else sees. Especially someone who lives next-door and uses free postcards from a urinal and has you on their myspace page. But when you find out that they reinforce your illogical insecurity it's the emotional equivalent of scratching a mosquito bite too long. At first it feels good but then when you go too long it starts to sting. And bleed. And it might get infected. And all that sucks.

So I found myself no longer wanting a stalker. At least not one that thinks I'm fat. So I polled my friends and my sister. For the most part they all had the same answer, except my sister who assessed my present romantic condition and told me to "go for it." They all told me to ignore it. Which I have. And I haven't heard anything from "Max." Except that every now and then I wonder if someday I might get yet another stalker. Except this time it will be a chick, or post-op tranny, and they will understand that I neither fat or chubby but instead "big-boned".

Jim's Fix

I attended the University of Texas in the early nineties. This was the time of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and grunge. It was also the heyday of Lollapalooza, a music fest of diverse acts from Seattle that, to maintain its diversity, had a "which one of these is not like the others" band in the line-up. In 1993 between Primus, Rage Against the Machine and Alice in Chains there was this hippy-ish rap band from Atlanta... Arrested Development Their shtick was that they were not Mac-10-toting gangsta rappers from south-central but peace loving hippy agrarians from the south. So whereas the other acts on the bill had stages designed to resemble post-apocalyptic dystopias, Arrested Development had a stage that looked like a rural paradise complete with an outhouse. Because, as we all know, Utopia has bliss but no indoor plumbing.

The band had a monster hit in the early 90’s with the song "Everyday People" and a lesser hit with the catchy ditty "Mr. Wendle", a song about an otherwise brilliant homeless man that in between delusional bouts of talking to himself, drinking his own urine and eating the accumulated gunk in the cracks of the sidewalk, held an uncommon wisdom we would be privy to if only we would stop and pay attention. So inbetween bouts of incoherent shouting and alcohol-induced hallucinations, Mr. Wendel was a wellspring of uncommon wisdom and possibly even winning lottery number combinations. But we, the oblivious universe, would never know because we were too wrapped up in our minor dramas to look past a face covered in feces and really see, I mean reeeeaaaalllllyyyy see, the man behind the image.

I recently rediscovered this song on iTunes, a music service designed as a co-venture between Apple Computer and the Legions of Hell. Although it has an infectious groove that some might describe as bootylicious, the message seemed a little naive and idealistic. I mean... really... who buys that there is a brilliant mind under five years of accumulated grime. But as I was driving to the office the other day I noticed a dirty, shirtless man who happened to be waving and gesticulating to nobody in particular. He wore a back pack, his homeless kit I presumed, and shorts that were a little unfashionable in their length. He was at the crosswalk at the intersection and seemed to be caught in some odd rhythm, dancing to a soundtrack only he could hear. I just looked at him trying to figure out what the hell was up with the schizophrenic hand-jive when suddenly the “don't walk” signal changed to” walk” and he started... to jog. And it hit me. He was a homeless jogger. His shorts weren't walking shorts. They were running shorts. And not unfashionable, just filthy. And he didn't need an iPod. He had all the songs he needed right there, in his head, stored in-between the voices. The backpack kept him mobile. And maybe had a number for the LA Marathon.

Los Angeles is for the most part a wildcatter’s town, except that instead of drilling for oil, we drill for fame or fortune or recognition. Some of us even drill for self-worth, but most of that was drilled out of the region when the Native Americans left the area to aspiring actors. And like most prospecting towns, the line between bounty and despair is very thin. One day you’re up. The next day you’re down. Rinse. Repeat.

Being that we are a nation defined by a work ethic fueled by blind, irrational optimism it is important to be prepared for every and all possibilities. That means all possibilities. So as much as I like to spend time planning for my bacchanalian feasts, drug-fueled orgies and Saturday football in the mansion in the Hills I will one day own, I find that it is important to prepare for the other, inverse possibility... homelessness.

I have done a good amount of field research at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf at the corner of Sunset and Fairfax into the different kinds of homeless people. Generally they can be split into two large groups... male and female... and further divided into two subgroups... active and bat-shit crazy. Although both smell like urine, the females are distinguished from the males by a tendency to wear pink. The actives are distinguished from the bat-shit crazies because they are active where as the bat-shit crazy are bat-shot crazy. So to classify the jogger I mentioned previously… he would be a male, active homeless because he... and I have to assume this because I had the AC on in my car... smelled like urine, was not wearing pink and was jogging. The homeless guy on the corner of Robertson and Third Street is also a male, active because he, one, smells like urine, two, does not wear pink and, three, dances all day to the songs in his head.

So assuming my life takes a turn for the worse, it is important for me to be proactive in my choices and not simply settle into whatever homeless type presents itself. I would make choices. Bold choices. First, I would choose to be male as I do not own pink. Second I would choose to be an active because what I failed to mention is that both of the homeless male, actives mentioned previously had killer abs. I mean… their abs were SHREDDED! There was so much definition is would make Merriam-Webster cry. And I would choose to be a hybrid between the dancing and the jogging. So I would jog to various street corners where I would dance until it was time to jog to another street corner. And… see this is where preparation and planning come in… when the inevitable reinvention happens... because if Flav can do it, so can I… and I was able to stop jogging and running from street corner to street corner in Los Angeles... and I reclaim my mansion up in the hills... I would return to my life of bacchanalian feasts, drug-fueled orgies and Saturday football but this time I would do it with killer abs. Sick, crazy, defined abs. Simply, I would be better the second time around. Kinda like homemade soup that has had time to marinate in the fridge overnight. And that is what I call progress.

But It's a Dry Heat...

Los Angeles is in the midst of what can best be described as a scorching heat wave. The general topic of conversation has been either, one, complaining about the heat or, two, comparing one's relative suffering at the hands of the atmospheric inferno. Keep in mind that I am originally from Texas and this is nothing compared to what I grew up with in Houston. But this was not in the brochure when I signed up for California living. I want 75 and sunny. Not 85 and humid. I also don't want to sweat. Ever. Unless I am running. And then it should evaporate immediately. In fact, the weather should be so dry that I am personally at risk of turning into a wildfire at any given moment. But complaining really isn't the point of this. This is really about giving back.

The biggest problems facing America today are, in no particular order, immigration and global warming. Bear with me as I solve these with precision, verve and panache.

America is a nation of immigrants despite what the minutemen might think. If you were to take the average American's DNA and subject it to testing, you would most likely turn up at least three or four ethnic lines and at least eighty percent would be willing members of your double helix. We for the most part aren't what the Nazi's would consider ethnically pure. So technically speaking. We would be very hard to sort. So you might be asking yourself, "How can I solve the immigration problem in America without self-reflexively deporting myself? I just don't think it can be done."

But America is not about finding excuses. America is about finding a way. And that way is to simply declare "American" an ethnicity, patent it and begin signing people up. The only genetic test would be to play Kanye West's "Gold Digger" and see if a bootyquake occurs. Because only a pagan, factory-worshipping communist... or the French... would not instantly begin to groove to what my sister describes as "The Jam". Suddenly, viola! No immigrants. Just god-fearing, red meat eating, NASCAR watching, rump-shaking, gawddamn Americans spawned in the bowels of the US of muthafuckin' A. I'm surprised my keyboard didn't short out as my tears of ethnic, national pride poured down my face. So now you might be wondering. "OK, that was easy, but what about this global warming thing that may or may not exist depending on whether you are talking to someone who makes a living drilling, refining or reselling fossil fuels?"

For once, we must look to our neighbors... dare I say siblings... to the north, the Canadians.

Someone told me that 90% of the Canadian population resides within 100 miles of the border. So you might be asking yourself, "Doesn't that make for a tight fit? I mean, don't get me wrong, the idea of groovin' in a pile with some hot canuckians makes me quiver in my loins. And I have seen pictures of the night clubs in Montreal... but I mean at some point it's really not them, it's just that you know... we need our space... and it's not like we're really broken up... it's more like we are on a break... because even though I may not sleep with someone else... I mean I may fuck them... but definitely no sleeping... I will do that only with you and alone... it just seems a little... you know... tight."

But see... that is the genius of global warming. Canada will no longer be a frigid wasteland of polar bears, hockey sticks and Inuits. It will instead be a temperate paradise with Hockey pushed to the hinterlands and baseball taking its place in the fertile fields of what was once known as the Northwest Territories. We will have pushed the Canadians further north where they can occupy a 100 mile strip between America's new northern border and what was once the North Pole. Because we as a people should have the compassion to help the Canadians maintain a lifestyle that they, or at least 90%, have become accustomed to. The remaining ten percent, especially the ones that look like Natasha Henstridge, can live with us, the Americans as guest workers. That leaves the whole of what we once knew as the Unites States to be occupied by Mexican immigrants who have wanted to explore the area known to them as "El Norte". Subsequently we will have eliminated global warming as a problem and instead turned it, using American know-how and pluck, into an asset that will allow us to give Canada new meaning and Mexican immigrants a legal place to hang out.

And it is that simple. With a little desire, reclassification, optimism and suspension of disbelief... something that is in the very fabric of the American creed... we have wiped out two pressing problems which leaves us time to engage more pressing concerns. And we didn't even need a politician. Just some common sense.

I Want to Be an Anorexic

Los Angeles is a competitive town. It is also a vainglorious town. And it is a really thin town.

I am not per se... fat... but I am also not thin. But by this town's standards, I am surprised that Greenpeace isn't following me around making sure I don't get harpooned by Japanese tourists. Throw on top of that that everyone is also preternaturally beautiful and you create a breeder reactor for insecurity.

In the early nineties there was a school of educational thought that posited that best way to stem the inevitable soul-crushing insecurity of adulthood was to bolster a kid's self-esteem. So if you tried out for the football team... you're on the team. If you wanted to be a cheerleader... you made it. If you wanted to be a high class hooker with a heart of gold... done. The reasoning was that kids with amazing self-esteem, which was a result of not knowing failure and disappointment, would be incapable of insecurity because they didn't know what it was. It would follow that with a whole generation of children with amazing self-esteem would then go out into the world and be a force for good and unbridled capitalism. The whole world would be transformed into a utopian paradise of ideas where we would use sexually charged images to sell each other jeans.

Needless to say, the experiment failed. The reality is that even though you may not give something a name doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Kinda like not knowing Ebola is called "Ebola" doesn't keep it from melting your liver. Hence failure would eventually rear its ugly head in the form of college admissions. Apparently the very same colleges that had devised the whole self-esteem notion has failed to apply it to their admissions process. So the march to Utopia was halted by a scantron sheet and the SAT people. And insecurity would set in. So much for progress.

Today we find ourselves mired in Iraq, the economy is stagnant for everyone but the top one percent and it seems like there are no great challenges or big ideas. No moon to get to. No new political systems to try. No new calorie free sweeteners. Nothing. So the challenges must then be internal. Self-imposed. But also, it's not to say that self esteem isn't a cure for crushing insecurity. It is. But it must be gained honestly. By overcoming obstacles and adversity to reach a goal. The American way.

That gets me back to my weight. When I fell out of my mom I thought I was going to be thin. I was a beanpole up until the second grade. Then something happened. Not sure whether it was football, genetic factors or all the beige food I was subjected to growing up, but I was a rotund little kid. Dare I say husky? I am not saying that I was necessarily obese (and according to Time Magazine, if I went back today I would svelte compared to the juice-fattened kids of today) but I wasn't thin. Asking me to run a mile in the fifth grade was the equivalent of asking me to run the Boston Marathon backwards. An impossible task or at least near impossible.

In college I managed to drop a ton of weight and I looked pretty good if I do say so myself. It was a glorious three year period that was eventually derailed by the working world. When I first moved to LA, I was still able to mix into the crowd of attractive twenty somethings but before long the commitment to being bound to a desk caused an east-west expansion of my waistline. The next years were spent with a back and forth battle between "dude, you look like you've lost some weight." and "dude, you need to lose some weight."

I consider myself a goal-setter and goal-achiever. I think I learned it in football when I realized that I would not be allowed to quit no matter how much I wanted to and that I would never lose my virginity if I quit because cheerleaders don't fuck fat kids. But they do fuck football players. Every year I would set a goal. And that goal was to make it to the end of the season without being paralyzed. Was I succesful? Let me put it this way. I can get around without blowing into a tube.

It was this ability to realize goals that helped me get ahead. It got me through college and it got me to LA. But somewhere along the way, I became lax in maintaining this practice. So as part of a self-improvement regimen I picked it back up. I first implemented it in my professional life and things are going swimmingly. But that old bugaboo still haunts me and that thing is my weight. It has always been the major source for my insecurity and I have made up my mind to not let it beat me anymore. So this is a new year and it is a new year of challenges and that challenge is weight. I want to lose weight and there is no sure fire way to drop pounds like simply not eating. And what is the most effective way to not eat? Anorexia.

It's really a straightforward plan. If I can simply succeed at starving myself to emaciation I will have not only solved a practical problem, weight gain, I will have solved some existential problems as well. I will not only be thin, I will also know internally that I can... one... achieve anything I set my mind to and... two... suppress any self-doubt by achieving a goal. I will have created a colossal store of self-esteem that will not only keep me thin but will also bleed over into other aspects of my life. As the pounds melt off of me, I will suddenly find myself amazingly capable and successful in so many other aspects of my life. I will be the self-actualized man. I will be the Nietzschean Uberman. And I will be strikingly thin. And popular. Because thin people are popular. Although you can say that really fat people are popular too, but just not as long lived.

So when you are driving down the street and you see a walking skeleton with a distended stomach but an amazing air of confidence, honk and give me a big thumbs-up because what you will be witnessing is the absolute destruction of self-imposed limits and the creation of a boundless fountain of self-esteem. And that’s a good thing.

You Can't Stop Progress

I really don't consider myself much of an adult. Granted, I am starting to get wrinkles, I don't rebound from debauchery the way I once did and 18 year olds think I am someone to be mocked as opposed to emulated. But there seem to be subtle suggestions that I might be slowly but surely entering adulthood. For instance, I recently bought a toiler paper holder. There I said. I bought it. And I even went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to buy it. I... get this... intended to buy it. A plastic and metal cylindar designed to store and hide in plain sight three additional rolls of toilet paper besides the one already available to the bathroom user on the dispenser. I got in my car. Turned the key. Got on the road. And walked through the door of Bed, Bath & Beyond with one thing on my list - toilet paper holder.

There is a book called The Tipping Point which I am sure you have heard of but if you haven't it examines how trends begin and reach critical mass. When they really explode is what is called the tipping point. I think that adulthood for a guy has a tipping point. It occurs when you voluntarily enter a Pottery Barn as opposed to being coerced by someone... most likely someone you are trying to nail. Or at least see naked. Without paying them for that. And love.

I've always considered myself to have some level of design-conciousness. When I was a kid I liked giant japanese robots with swords. Then I got into D&D. Then I collected comics. OK. I was a geek growing up. In fact, I used to were the same colored shirt everyday in the eight grade. My friends called me "Blue Shirt". I convinced myself it was a style choice, but frankly money was tight and blue pinpoint oxford short sleeved shirts were inexpensive. But it did give me some indavertant level of stylistic simplicity, allowed me to know at an early age what pinpoint oxford was and, most importantly, reinforced my geekdom.

In High School, I was able to start shedding my outward geek tendencies even though I harbored geek tendencies internally. (I closet collected transformers in the ninth grade - seriously) Eventually in college I came into my own and found some measure of style by working in a hip clothing store. So again, I had an external presentation of cool. And at that point 18 year olds thought I was cool. They even said so. And I could date them without looking like a pedophile. Finally I was spurt out of the college system into the adult world which at that point means that you start in what some of us call "the working world".

And therein lies the rub. I am supposed to be an adult but if a FBI profiler went to my apartment, they would conclude that it was occupied by a kid. Mismatched furniture. Black furniture. Sheets under 500 thread count. Non-natural fibers. So you could really say that while I was maintaining the appearance of an adult, the lair was giving me away. And it was like that through most of my twenties.

Then it occurred. Not sure when. But it did. I walked past a Pottery Barn and as opposed to being deflected like an up-quark in a partical collider... I walked in. Not only did I walk in... I liked it. All of it. The furniture. The window treaments (I didn't know that phrase before Pottery Barn). The candles. All of it. And thus began a subtle transformation wherein one externally presented adult was becoming and internally registered adult.

So it began with pottery barn and then led to overstock.com then to me getting in my car to go buy a toilet paper holder at Bed, Bath & Beyond. And as I was walking in the store I walked past a group of 18 year olds and as they looked at me in what I interpreted as an internally mocking manner I thought, "Dude, pull up your pants."

Golden Years

I was in the third grade once. Although at the time is was somehow committed to guaranteeing that I would one day say I was in the third grade twice.

Grade three is where you ostensibly begin your journey into what will hopefully lead to true higher learning. You are introduced to cursive. You are introduced to complex sentences. You are introduced to multiplication tables. You are introduced into the abject humiliation of not being able to do any of these well and having them memorialized in silly displays designed to be fun and educational. Like the parachutes we made for our multiplication tables in Mrs. (but it could have been Ms.) Emmitt's third grade class.

In case your wondering what in the hell I am talking about, one day in class we had made these cool little parachutists out of construction paper, cloth and yarn (which is cornerstone of elementary school arts and crafts). I am pretty sure I thought mine was cool. He had a cloth shoot with yarn cords holding his construction paper body to it. Cool is not what I would be feeling in the upcoming days.

A day after we had completed these little guys, Mrs. Emmitt started to erect a rather ominous mural on the wall. Except it wasn't really much of anything except a bunch of horizontal lines with a number next to them. They started with a zero on top and ended with a 12 on the bottom. I left that day wondering what in the hell that wall was for. When I returned the next day I noticed that all of our little parachutists were at the top line, zero. Mrs. Emmitt then explained to us that we were to learn our multiplication tables, or times tables in the common vernacular. We would start on the zero line and as we passed the test for that level, we would descend until our parachutist hit the twelve line. Keep in mind the test were timed (no relation to "times"). Twelve would be our final test and if we passed that we would get a passing grade and a gold star. Those damn gold stars. In the third grade I would've killed a man with my bare hands for a gold star. The only thing better than a gold star was a scratch and sniff sticker. You would of thought the blueberry one had brown horse in it. In the third grade I would've fucked my priest voluntarily for a scratch and sniff sticker.

Anyways, my adolescent mind assumed that the task of these "times tables" would somehow equate emotionally with the joy that making that little parachute had brought me. So I figured, how hard can this be? We started with the zeros. Anything times zero is zero. Duh. Those were a breeze. As were the ones. The twos were really easy as well. Then came the threes.

The reality is you have to memorize the tables. I, being a somewhat bored and lazy kid, was actually just doing quick addition on the twos. The threes were not so quick to be added up. So when I got to threes my ability to add quickly fell well short of the time limit. And there I stalled. My parachutist in space.

If my little guy had been actually flesh and blood, he would have cried to the heavens for the largess delivered by a benevolent god to keep him suspended in mid-air. Scientific publications in this parallel world would have rushed to figure out the principals behind the parachutinal mid-air suspension. Time Magazine would have put one of those scientists on the cover. But my little guy was wasn't flesh and blood. He was string, construction paper and cloth. And although he was not in any danger of hitting the ground, my self-esteem was starting to reach terminal velocity as it plummeted to the cold, hard ground. And there he was. Just floating.

Most of the kids in the class eventually started to work their way down. Some did better than others. The class genius, Robbie L., was done in what seemed like hours, although I think it was a few days. I took refuge in knowing that his parachutist in that parallel universe only cursed his name as he rocketed to his impending doom. But that was little comfort as my guy hung there, suspended with fewer and fewer parachutists to take the attention off of him.

A week stretched into weeks and my guy had only managed to drop to the fours. Again, I knew I was supposed to memorize the table, but my hard-headedness only forced me into learning to add threes really, really quickly. I stalled on four. There was some company for my misery. Rex, the class... uhh... slow one had stalled out on three. At the very least I was saved the complete humiliation of knowing I finished last. But you can never hide from yourself and underneath all my self-deception I knew I sucked at math. And a lot of other things by extension. The fact that Rex's parachutist hung perilously close to mine on that wall was proof I was almost clinically retarded. At least that is how it must look to the outside world. And test after test... no dice. Until one day when I came in and those parachutists were gone. Taken away by the same force, Mrs. Emmitt, that had put them there in the first place.

I am not sure how I managed to get past that year, but somehow I pulled it out. Considering that the majority of that year's recesses were spent doing equations behind the teacher while the other kids played, jealously looking onto the playground and seeing the kids frolic while I tried to remember what five times six was. But I must have made up for it somehow and somehow I passed. And even though there was some joy in knowing I would go to fourth grade, I have always wondered what went through my parachutist's mind as he sat suspended in space and suddenly was crumpled and blown to dust by an extension of the god that had held him there for all those weeks. Because he, much like me in that recess, sat exposed.

For those of you who believe in destiny, it might have been that gentle stranger who delivered what you see below. That’s right. My third grade class picture. And in it you will see a little kid in a brown shirt with a horizontal stripe. Like Charlie Brown with hair and about the same self image. But don’t let the smile fool you. It is a smile to hold back the tears that only that kid, and a particular parachutist, could truly understand.

Apparently I am Complex

Who Should Paint You: Pablo Picasso

Your an expressive soul who shows many emotions, with many subtleties Only a master painter could represent your glorious contradictions

I guess my mother wasn't lying. Or maybe she was. If I knew who my mother was.

St. Valentine, Your 'Tine not My 'Tine

Today is Valentine's day. In case you haven't been reminded by the d-day like deluge of targeted advertising, it is a day in which we buy cards with roses on them for the one person who matters the most in our life... and let's us have sex with them without pressing charges. Which is great. If you're coupled or potentially coupled. But if your not, Valentine's is simply a reinforcement of your inability to find or build or maintain love.

I have been single for about four years. Before that I was in a two year relationship to someone who in retrospect was not a good match. Which allows me to revise the figure. So I have been single for about six years. There are prevailing theories as to why and they can be generalized into three areas. The first, is general incompetence. I have never been a great dater, or pursuer for that matter. I don't know if it because I never learned this skill from anyone or my paralyzing fear of personal rejection, but the reality is that I just suck when it comes to the courtship phase. Inevitably, the sociopath who is both aggressive and pathologically charming inevitably wins. Go figure.

The second theory is that in the gene pool that is Los Angeles, I am not what you would consider a prize catch. Now I don't know whether this is true, but the great thing about living in this sunny landscape of narcissism and showy displays of assets is that it can make anyone, and I mean anyone, feel grossly inadequate. You're ravishingly handsome? Wait, there is the more ravishingly handsome guy across the coffee bean from you. You're rich? There is the guy who makes a Saudi prince look like someone who chooses his houses in sizes like double-wide. You're successful? There is the guy just bought your company and put you in a cardboard box. And the kicker? They all inevitably drive a better car than you. And it's a convertible.

The third theory is gender confusion. I don't think I am gay. I have never been attracted to men. I've never felt a sexual yearning for a same sex person. But maybe I am gay. Maybe my soulmate is a guy... in Sweden... who wears hush puppies and turtlenecks and assembles furniture with hex head wrenches. You know soulmate, that mythical creature that powers the fantasies of Harlequin readers and makes Fabio a star. And much like it's cousin the unicorn, who makes us buy plates with rainbows on them, it forces us to contemplate otherwise outre theories. Like I am gay. But hey, you never know.

I am not sure which one is probably the most true (a shrink would probably say one) but to maintain an egalitarian consistency I will say there might be some truth to all three, although I really don't think I am gay.

But anyways, the intended behavioral results of Valentine's day is to drive love mad consumers to the stores to by the aforementioned cards with roses on them in the hopes of getting laid. The unintended result is to drive us singles into the canyonlands and labyrinths of internal dialogue where we wonder "what's wrong with me?"

And maybe there isn't. And it's just the price we must pay so that another segment of society can enjoy a day of warm fuzzies before they go back envying us and our carefree lifestyles and crushing self doubt. But it certainly beats mowing the grass.

My Sister vs Batman

I recently discovered a new sushi restaurant not far from my house. Because I insist on walking as much as possible in Los Angeles, a city not noted for its inhabitants willingness to use bi-pedal motion, I am thrilled. And it's actually pretty good on top of that. So I have that going for me. At least I think.

My sister was visiting this weekend. She has a job that brings her from the East Coast to the West Coast quite a bit. So I get to see her a lot. And I figured we'll walk over to my new find, this sushi restaurant, where we only have to walk and the food is pretty good and it's not that badly priced. I don't know what happened last night, but the fish didn't swim in my stomach too good. It's not that I had to throw up or suddenly wound up hanging onto the toilet like a golden ticket in the Willy Wonka movie, but I just didn't feel so well. I figured I could sleep it off.

I took my place on the couch in front of the window in front of my apartment and closed my eyes. I should have figured something was not quiet right when I started to have some weird thoughts start darting through my head. I don't remember the specifics but they did involve in order... my business partner, a girl I went out on a date with and a colleague. Oh yeah. And my sister.

For those of you who don't know my sister, she is no pushover. My dad used to say that if he were to ever get in an alley fight he would bring my sister. Despite the immediate emasculating properties of this statement, the additional ancillary emasculating property is that I pretty much have to agree with him. And it's not like my sister is some bruiser. She is pretty, petite and not incredibly tall. It's not as if she would ever be mistaken for a lineman on the Pittsburgh Steelers. I easily outweigh her by 100 lbs. But pound for pound, she her Roy Williams to my... I don't know... Richard Simmons. She is a take no shit, get things done kinda woman. And she spent the first twelve years of my life kicking the shit out of me. Seriously.

So as I finally was able to doze into a deeper sleep, the recesses of my brain started to take me on a peculiar journey. I know so many people who really, really, I mean really, like Ultimate Fighting Championships. Even my best friend, who is a lover not a fighter and someone I would never peg as an enthusiast, and he loves the shit. He is completely mesmorized by the large hunks of meat trying to stop each other's breathing. Me? I can't stand it. For a lot of reasons, most of them being the ones that cause people to drink tea with a pinky in the air.

So as I am paralyzed in my subconscious state, I find my mind wandering into a Mexican style bullfighting ring. My sub-subconscious is wondering what the hell I am doing there. My subconscious tells it to shut up because it's in the driver's seat, and quickly maneuvers my mind in front of a fight poster. I was like any fight poster you would see at a boxing match, expect this one featured my sister with her multi-toned hair and one caped crusader with his pointy ears. A woman with a common touch and a large bat-themed champion of the common cause.

Flash and suddenly I am on the inside of this arena and now it resembles the manor in Wuthering Heights. With a lot ditches. I mean a lot of them. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. And there they are. Going at it. My sister and the big bat. And my sister is kicking the living dog shit out of this over-sized man in tights. Oh I forgot to mention that my sister was also able to fly. And they take flight and my sister continues to to unleash a torrent of living hell. And suddenly she has the bat guy down. And all I can do, in the paralysis on my dream state, is think, "Man, I gotta make this stop."

So I run up to the two of them and I realize that my sister has the dark knight's head under her heel. Which, btw, looks like a wrestler's boot circa mid-south wrestling days on the gulf coast. And I realize that there is something not right about about this and I am able to pry my sister's boot of this poor abused superhero's head. And maybe what I was really doing was rescuing my manhood from a inadvertent and nascent emasculation by my father years earlier. And then I woke up... itching. Not sure if that was my wounded pride, that had been wounded all these years or just some upholstery cleaner I was allergic to.

Hooray for Hollywood

I post to a UT sports site. The socio-political factions boil down simply into the conservatives and the liberals. The neocons (or repulitards as we like to call them) always take the position that Hollywood is polluting the country, blah, blah. Mind you, they have a very selective way of ignoring what Exxon, McDonald's and other corporate behemoths do, but the general theory is that Hollywood is a liberal cabal designed to push a liberal agenda. I got tired of hearing this pablum and responded with the following:

I work in Hollywood. You might want to even call me some level of insider. Started my career at one of the big five talent agencies (it was the big three when I started) sequed to film production/aquisitions/development. I now own a production/management company.

The thing I love to hear is people talk about the liberal agenda in Hollywood. That there is a cabal of entertainers that wring their hands and devise an agenda of counter-cultural ideas. The reality is we give the audience what they want. This is not called show friends, show agenda, show values... it's show business. Emphasis on the business. We are here to make money. Period. For every Brokeback Mountain there are 20 Starsky and Hutches. For every dysfunctional family drama there are 20 Lethal Weapons. We play to your blood lust, sexual titillation... whatever turns you on enough to sacrifice a dollar.

The reality is that if we gave you what you say you wanted, we would go out of business. If any of you guys watch The Simpsons, there is an episode where Marge Simpson gets the Itchy and Scratchy show to change their content. Instead of hacking each other to pieces they instead serve each other tea. Know what happens? Ratings plummet. It's not any different in the real world. The essence of dramatic tension is conflict. Without it, storytelling falls flat. And without the dramatic tension there is nothing to see. So if you think people would run, not walk, to the theater to see a family get along, you need to stop huffing paint.

On top of that, the major studios/distributors are owned by huge multi-national corporations. Universal by GE. Fox by News Corp. Paramount by Viacom. Warners by Time Warner. Columbia by Sony. You think any of those corporate parents give a s**t about anything other than the bottom line? Then I have a bridge I want to sell you. The average studio feature has a negative cost of maybe 50-60 million (I am guestimating that figure). Throw in marketing and you add another 20 million at least. That is 70 to 80 million dollars per picture. That is not chump change. You think movies that don't play to the red states get a green light? Hells no they don't as they like to say. They stay in the strike zone of sequels, books, pre-existing properties or chock full of the holy trinity of america (sex, violence and American hegemony). Businesses do not gamble this money. It's not good business. The reality is that for every person that talks about films that need to be more "family-oriented", they are saying that as they throw their money down for Basic Instinct. As an aside, it is not a coinkydink that the porn business is a six billion (that's right billion with a "b") business. They give the audience what it wants beyond what hollywood is able to deliver. And trust me, there are not that many DVD's in California.

In Hollywood, we are business people, and pretty good ones at that, and we give the audince what it wants. If it wanted Jill and Jeremy go to Bible Camp, you would get seven sequels for it. But you don't. Because the audience doesn't want it. And that's the facts. By the way, here is the top box office for 2005 and I don't see a gay cowboy anywhere. But I do see a lot of dead bodies.

1 Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
2 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
3 The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
4 War of the Worlds
5 King Kong
6 Wedding Crashers
7 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
8 Batman Begins
9 Madagascar
10 Mr. & Mrs. Smith

The response to this was the typical obfuscation and subject changing. The next assault (after failing to address any of my points) was to talk about how the Liz Taylor's of the world being on the public stage are corrosive to american society. The unstated thesis is that these qualities are the purview of liberals (or the Loony Left as we are called). My response follows:

The serial marriage/anti-social behaviour has less to do with the political inclinations of people in this business than the personality types it attracts. This business is filled with thrill seekers, risk takers, insane artists and attention seekers. You might want to call it "colorful" personalities. Do liberals predominate in Hollywood? Yes. I would be lying if I said they didn't. But the rightwingers out here, and there are rightwingers out here, exhibit the same social pathologies as the lefties. Trust me, the same people voting for Bush are not missing the Party Train when it leaves the station. And with that said, you would be surprised at the number of stable married people here in Hollywood. Most of my friends are married (I am thirty four for the sake of disclosure). Observationally I have noticed that on average people in this biz get married later, not fresh out of high school, and have a tendency to be highly educated. My old roommate (one of the producers of the movie "The Ring") went to Duke and has a law degree from UT. That is more typical than atypical.

Now with all that said, let's talk about actors. They are a breed unto themselves. Generally emotional. Very fly by the seat of their pants. Constantly inhabiting different personas. This is not a person you should look to for long term stability. Now throw in the personality traits from above and it's a miracle most actors are married three weeks much less thirty years. There is a certain amount of narcissism that propels you infront of a bunch of people. That type of narcissism however, also makes you a lousy mate. And that is irrespective of profession. But to complicate matters even further throw in fame. I have seen the taste of fame make people do stupid s**t. And if anyone tells me they would be different, I call bulls**t on that. The people who always talk about how level they are, are the first to push their grandmother in front of the bus to get the spotlight.

Ok, so where is this all going... politics. What happens in DC is not so different than what happens here. It's is just a more message controlled business. But all the stuff that Hollywood gets accused of happens in DC, left and right, because it attracts the same personality types. When I hear politicians rail against this business, all I can think is "The lady doth protest too much."

This response led to a more microscopic examination of Liz Taylor. What Liz Taylor has to do with globo-political intrigue I am not sure. The typical attack pattern of the cons is to engage in an ad hominum attack. In this case it is about Liz Taylor's inadequecies as a role model. My response:

Is she an Icon of liberal Hollywood? You can make the case that she is an entertainment icon, but for my leftie friends I guarantee (sp?) that I have yet to walk into an office or room or whatever and see the liberal tiger beat pin-ups of her on anyone's wall.

Here is the issue, why are Hollywood celebs held to a different standard than any public figure? I can make the argument that sports stars, some politicians, pundits are more in the public eye than most celebs. If I went to rural Texas I am willing to bet that more people know and listen to Rush Limbaugh than Alec Baldwin. And Limbaugh is a opiate addict (oxycontin is not that far of an extension from heroin). So what does that say?

Again, I love the idea of this liberal Hollywood agenda. You know why we know so much about Liz? Because she was a strong actress/box office draw for many more years than the average movie star. (Wanna do a fun exercise, count the number of stars whose careers span more than 15 years as driving box office) Being in the public eye for so long causes people to want to feel intimate to her. Hence they want to know about her life. And the more we know about her private life, they realize that she is a little nutty. And tempetuous. And we love it. So want to want to hear about it. And subsequently she sells gossip rags. And that aint a bad thing for the magazines. And for some there is the argument that any publicity is good publicity. And you know who buys those gossip rags? The people b****ing about the dissolution of marraige. Now with that said, I have never witnessed a divorce that was caused by Liz Taylor nor have I heard of an addict who started gulping Oxycontin becuase Rush did it.

So what's my point? The great American prediliction is to look for simple solutions to complex problems. Blaming Hollywood celebs for the weakening of the social fabric is as useful as, to borrow a phrase, dancing about the architecture. There are many reasons for this degridation of our social/family cohesion. Liz Taylor isn't one of them.

This leads to dissertation on the reach and span of Hollywood into the general cultural fabric. Now the Cons are trying to have it both ways. Hollywood is not that influental but they are when I don't agree with them. Whoever them may be:

Again, we get back to the basic equation. You keep saying that Hollywood has a significant impact on American culture. I say Hollywood is a significant reflection of American culture. I am not saying, that we have no impact. I am just saying that the impact is mostly overstated. Again, if the market won't tolerate it, we won't give it what it doesn't want.

Where did this racism argument angle come in? I have never touched that subject as it doesn't have anything to do with my general thesis. It's like suddenly an alien saucer landed in this wheatfield. Racism in Hollywood is another subject and one, that much like this one, is not as obvious as it seems.

And Scot, does the consumer have any power? If you don't want to watch it on TV... Turn it off. If you don't want to see it in a theater... don't go. If you don't want to have your kids be raised by the TV... don't let it. Take your kids to the park. Tell them why what they see is wrong and monitor their viewing habits. You had kids, raise them.

These are all very emotional responses, but frankly there is not a lot of substance to them. It's not like their is a 'bloid fairy putting issues of US Magazine and People Magazine under people's pillows. Or a large bunny dressed in a pink cowboy hat and a**less chaps forcing people to watch Brokeback Mountain at gunpoint. These are all consumer choices. You vote with your dollar. We see it everyday. This is a consumer driven business.

Back to the impact argument. Again, I am not saying Hollywood has no impact. But it is way back in the order of pivotal influences. Show me a racist and I will show you racist parents. Show me a wife-beater and I will show you someone who grew up in that environment. Show me a criminal and I will show you someone who learned that behaviour from their immediate surroundings, not watching episodes of CSI.

And finally, I am trying to avoid marketing terms. Marketing terms are generally charged and elicit a desired behaviour or emotional response. In an earlier post I used the word Tempetuous. (I was accused of clever wordplay by one of the respondants) You called it a marketing term and inserted Vainglorious Bitch. Which one of these terms is charged?

Again the response is a dogged persistance in maintaining Hollywood is responsible for weakening American marraige. My response:

Hollywood led the way with the disposable marriage attitude that is now mainstream. To make this type of statement there seems to be a few suppositions:

1) America was a pristine landscape of spousal fidelity until Hollywood came along and showed us how to cheat on our spouses and make leaving them acceptable.

2) America is a victim to the depraved forward thinking leftist agenda aimed at under-mining the cultural mores that pre-existed Hollywood.

3) Hollywood is the predominate moral leader in the USA.

There is such an amazing tennent of paternalism underneath all of this coupled with an emotionally based appeal. Like America is being preyed upon by the lowlifes in Hollywood. Are Americans self-determinant or not? This position strains credibility to say the least. Following this logic, did husbands and wives sleep in separate beds until Hollywood decided to put spouses in the same bed and the rest of America followed suit? When June Cleaver wore high heels when cleaning the house, were all American women wearing high heels? Again, Hollywood reflects American values. It doesn't set the table.

Divorce is acceptable in the mainstream for many reasons, none of them having to do with Hollywood. People in Hollywood get divorced. It gets documented in the press. But that doesn't force Americans to run, run like the wind, to their lawyers to get this new-fangled divorce:

Int - Lawyer's Office - Day

An auto-mechanic, clothes stained with car grease, runs breathlessly into his Lawyer's office. The lawyer sits at his desk and looks up. The mechanic runs up and leans over him.

Man
(breathless)
I just saw Movietone news and that Liz Taylor just got this thing called deee... umm... duhhh... Veee...


Lawyer
That would be a divorce... pronounced "d-vors". And it's all the rage in Hollywood. In fact, let me hand you this pamplet put out by the Screen Actors Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union. There is even a testimonial on the back by Ronald Reagan. You should get one for yourself. I think you're gonna like it.


I am not trying to be a smart-a** (ok, maybe a little bit) but the reason divorce became acceptable has everything to do with the rising social changes coming out of World War 2. Women hit the work place. Husbands dissappeared overseas. Then you have birth control. And so on and so forth. I mean the list is multitudinous (sp?), but Hollywood is not the reason. To blame Hollywood as being the instigating factor in the decay of marraige is intellectually lazy because the reasons are many and complex.

Anywho, you get the gist. I am all for trying to do better. But the way to do better is to get to the real issues and the real reasons. Following the path of least resistance or making unsubstantiated leaps of logic is not the way to get to the roots of any situation. They say the path to hell is paved with good intentions. And I maintain that its road signs are written in the blood of straw men.

Stranger in a Strange Land

I am a UT grad and I love UT football. Since I have no children, my love of UT football borders on the love I would have for a child that I know about. I also live in ground zero of SC country, West Hollywood. It is now almost four weeks since the Rose Bowl and the SC homers still can't come to grip with the fact that UT won. It is amazing. I was a buddy's b-day party the other night who happens to be a SC grad and being a little drunk the usual subject comes up, the Rose Bowl. I get regaled (sp?) with the reason that SC lost having to do more with SC mistakes than UT's effort. That was followed up with a trip to a computer where my friend pulled up the rivals rankings that shows SC's 5 five-star recruits to UT's 3. So according to my friend, the wheels are falling off the wagon at UT while SC is simply reloading. Being that is was his birthday and frankly there is nothing more stupid than fighting over whose future team is better than the other, I let it go.

Cut to this afternoon. I was at a friend's 30th b-day party. It's more of a production that I anticipated with a sit down meal, etc. So my plan to pop in say "hi" and "bye" was ruined. So I am seated at a table with yet another SC grad. Topic of conversation? You guessed it. The Rose Bowl. Again the guy is going on about how it is more a testament to SC's mistakes than UT's proficiency that UT won. I was also told how much better a player Bush is than Young and that Young was a one man band, and yes, the wheels are falling off the wagon at UT. But not SC where they are replacing three crucial starters on there team. Again SC is reloading and UT is wandering like in the desert like the jews in biblical stories. The kicker was when I said (frankly to be nice) that if the game was played ten times it would be an even split at five a piece. I was actually being nice because, in my opinion, Texas would win seven or eight of ten because I feel our D didn't play its best game. So when I throw this out there, the guy goes "I'm not so sure about that. We had an off day." I hate to say it, even taking into account that UT is a world class flagship state school, we really don't get any respect. Is it asking too much that the football gods deliver another championship just to shut these people up. Jeez o' Peeze were we watching the same game? Unreal.

Why We Fight

I am a big fan of documentaries. I am especially a big fan of historical documentaries. Or current event documentaries. Or sports documentaries. Ok. I pretty much like them all except the ones about people who overcome the odds to turn into painters. Paint cost not that much and I can't imagine that the canvas is all that expensive either. At least not to anyone who has access to a subway bathroom and a pair of lips. Trekking an egg 70 miles in the snow and then dying, now that's impressive.

Tonight I went to watch the documentary, "Why We Fight". Despite what my friends might think, it is not a character study on my family. I know why we fight. We're fucked up. What it is about is why America fights. Why do we find ourselves in seemingly endless minor conflicts around the globe. It trys to answer why we as a country, The United States of America for those of you too lazy to read your currency, find ourselves embroiled in so much conflict. And once everything is boiled down, it's a pretty depressing message. In a nutshell, we fight because we have whole industries devoted to war and warmaking and subsequently it is how they justify their existence. And in a capitalistic society that is one thing... money. We fight to make money.

That's a pretty depressing message, so as I walked back from the theater (people do walk in LA - especially when the theater is around the corner from your place) I instantly thought of sex. I would love to say that sex popped into my mind because there was a huge Joe Jeans billboard with a naked chick on it, but I would be lying. I thought of sex because I am guy and that is what I do. I think of sex. Then I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to talk myself out of the stupid shit I do in the pursuit of sex. In other words, why do I fuck?

I think we fuck because we are simply wired to be that way. That is the reason we make out with the person we shouldn't. Wind up naked with the person we shouldn't. Wind up in jail with the person we shouldn't. And kill the hooker that we shouldn't. It's all because underneath this we are hardwired to want sex. Prolong your gene pool. So it's why we go the gym. Or wear fancy clothes. Or drive a nice car. Frankly it's why we make money. Or try at least. So if you really want to get right down to it, we fight to make money so we can Fuck. We fight to Fuck. And if we are fucking to prolong our genes, then I am worried about the ol' US of A.

It's Amazing What You Can Learn on the Internet

Your Birthdate: December 21

You're a restless rebel with an unpredictable nature. Bright but unbridled, you tend to seek out wild experiences over new ideas. People are frustrated by your great potential, but you love your unconventional life. You're a heartbreaker. People get attached to you, and then you're gone. Your strength: Your thirst for adventure Your weakness: Not taking time for slow pleasures Your power color: Hot pink Your power symbol: Figure eight Your power month: March

The internet provides so many resources for inner journey. I don't think that even HG Wells could have anticipated what the marriage of ones, zeros and silicon would have in store for the human sole. Well at least not nearly with the command he had of the intermingling of alien death rays and human flesh. But computers are not just great for a rolodex (rolodexxx for those over the hill from me) but they are able to shine a piercing light to your psyche. Take the above example (see diagram... you know... above). This personality profile was compiled using a website that takes your birthdate and using a very complex and totally opaque algorythm, cranks out a pretty specific profile. I was anstonished by the results. What an erie and precise evaluation of my character. I mean really.

Myspace. No, our space.

I love myspace. For the less than one percent of the population that hasn't heard of it, Myspace is a networking site where people post their profiles and accrue friends. Granted, these friends have never met and most likely never will, but there is a shared bond in the ether of cyberspace. Like herpes amongst strangers. But like any good thing, it is only a matter of time before the usual suspects show up: dumb services, get-rich quick schemes and porn. Oh yeah, and bands. Lots of bands. Seeing that I was starting to get more and more of this stuff, I posted the following on my profile:

I am not interested in loans, mortgage products or tax services. Also, I would like to make a lot of money in little time, but your proven method is only proven to line your pockets and not the dolts dumb enough to think that the system is designed to enrich the buyer of the system and not the seller of the system.

Even though I think I am a pretty cool guy, dashing, charming... those things... I am pretty certain that if you liked my profile and would like to get to know me better you would just send me a message. If you were smart enough to send me the first message then you know all you need to know to get to know me and I don't need to subscribe to your webcam or contact you on Yahoo Messenger so I can get to info about your webcam. In fact, if I wanted to see you use a cucumber on your cooter in a clever manner, I can probably see that for free on the many sites that let guys who want to see cooters and cucumbers do that for free. Like cootersandcucumbers.com... or something like that.

If you are a band, I actually listen to your music. If I like what I hear I'll approve you. If I don't then I will I won't. I don't approve bands with umlauts in the name. Unless your lead singer is Vince Neil. And he's dead and has been replaced by the tiger woman with all that surgery on her face.

I know it's not much, but as they say little, bitty bricks build big, big houses and although one man can't stop a deluge, he can use an umbrella and shunt the rain into the neighbor's yard.

Apparently I do Some Bad Stuff in the Near Future

According to a random Quiz generator I am to be offed by the mafia. I disagree as concrete is not my color.

Fond Memories or Stand Be Proud of Elsik High School

I grew up playing football in Texas, the epicenter of coach worship. I even went to UT, where the mere mention of Darrell Royal is enough to bring a tear to the eye of the most hardened cowboy. But unlike a lot of people, the head coach of my high school team was someone who I neither admired nor respected. I found him to be a dense, petty tyrant who played political games with the kids on his teams. He also had a tendency to choke in the big game and frankly, played scared. He was the master of the mixed-metaphor and an expert at the malapropism. And he loved to chew us out. Loved it. Like a pedophile loves a school zone. So there was one day when he gathered the team into the weight room for some perceived transgression. This being Texas, the weight room was big and well-stocked and made a great meeting room for the whole squad. So we made our way in and took our places amongst the workout equipment. He then went into some harangue about what we were doing wrong... and how we were setting the program back... and how we were responsible for stagflation... and the boycott of the 1980 summer Olympics... You get the idea. So the culmination of this tirade was that we as a team did not have sufficient pride. In the pantheon of winning ingredients, pride is like the Formula 409 of intangible elements. It can cure anything. So in his words:

"You know what you men are missing?"

That was obviously a rhetorical question and we were "proud" enough not to answer.

"Pride! P - R - I - D. Pride!"

I turned to my buddy, "Prid? (think short i) We're missing Prid."

Whatever point he was making was lost on us as either his emotion or, my personal theory, his lack of education gave me and my teammates a good chuckle. That years team went on to disappoint in so many ways (That team was what you might generously refer to as "underachievers") but I could never get over the fact that our coach was an idiot.

Gig 'Em

Out on the left coast I run into quite a few Longhorns and Texans in general. I don't, however, run into many Aggies. Considering that both schools are pretty big, I always wonder why that is. My theory is that their cartography department doesn't produce maps that chart anything outside of a 150 mile radius from the Collie breeder reactor that is College Station. I have a mental image of a medieval type map with everything outside of that radius simply shrouded in mist with a vague outline of a man and "There be Giants There" written in Old English. And of course the map legend that has a dragon, a sword and a compass with North pointing down. Remember we're talking Aggies here.

Anywho, I was at a friend's barbeque to watch the Steelers/Bengals game (I have a lot of friends from Ohio) and I am wearing my burnt orange Texas hoodie. As the day progresses and the USC alums get over the fact their team lost (btw SC fans, that game wasn't a tree falling in the woods, everyone saw it) a guy comes up to me and says, "Hey! I went to A&M and I was saying Hook 'Em. In fact I was a scholarship tennis player there. But it was good to see a Big 12 team win. So Hook 'Em!"

The first thought that came to my mind was, "A&M has a tennis team?"

My second thought was to look for the hidden camera, because I could not believe an Aggie was complementing the Longhorns. Needless to say, I wasn't on "Punk'd".

So I thought to myself that I must have found the one sophisticated, levelheaded Aggie in all of creation. So I ask him, "What do you think of Coach Fran?"

He answers, "Fran is gone. He has turned this team into a mess. There are times the team quit and, I mean, what was he doing in the Clemson game?"

I nodded my head. It seemed like a pretty reasonable stance.

"I mean," he continued, "before the season it was Reggie, Vince one and two as QB's in the Big 12..."

I don't know what hit the ground first, my jaw or his credibility. I could not believe my ears. After all the empirical evidence to the contrary, the gomers still think that Reggie was a better talent and somehow Fran had taken A&M's vast and glittering resources and run them into the ground. Unbelievable. No matter how reasonable an Aggie may seem, there is a blind spot the size of sun when it comes to a fair evaluation of things pertaining to Aggiedom. But I guess it is the willful disregard for the obvious that makes an Aggie an Aggie. It is also a willful disregard for the obvious that puts kids into the classes that require you to go to school on a little short bus. Which I guess is what going to school in Aggieland really is in the broader perspective. So I walked away and got another beer and hoped whatever those Aggies have isn't contagious.