Your New Neighbor

I have finally figured out how to turn rob and Dave into Build-the-Wall, anti-immigration, anti-globalization, pro-isolation, full-throated Trumpists:  the Joro spider.

That's a little one.  They can be up to 4 inches across.  The Joro spider, or Trichonephila clavata to the cognoscenti, is indigenous to Asia but a bunch of them snuck into a cargo freighter and wound up in Georgia.  According to the Washington Post, they tolerate cold weather and are migrating north, towards Leesburg and eventually Highland Park.  Here's an entomologist's take:

You'll know they're in your neighborhood when you start seeing giant yellow cobwebs on your power lines.

Apparently you will also encounter them while riding your bike, riding a horse, skateboarding, running, walking, really just doing anything outside--you will walk into one of their giant webs and the spider that lives in it will land on your face.  They are big and venomous, but don't worry!  Their mandibles are typically too small to pierce human skin, except for the big females' mouths, and their venom is irritating but not deadly.  You will survive the bite, if not the ensuing heart attack.

There's more!  They can spin a web like a parachute to catch the wind and fly for miles across the land.

On the plus side, they serve as an additional food source for native birds, and will help control other invasive species like the (dreaded) spotted lanternfly.  

Enjoy your time outdoors this summer!

Russell Crowe is really Dave Dogfoot?

I have determined that we have an impostor in our midst. The man we know to be Dave Dogfoot is really a famous actor with a different name of animal origin--he's Russell Crowe. This shouldn't come as a suprise given that he name-checked Crowe in song at least once before.

Here's a picture of Helen Hunt and Russell Crowe circa 1992, before Crowe hit it big. They were doing a summer stock revival of Grease in the metro Camden area. This photo was taken back stage. If you look closely through the eyeliner, you can see a striking resemblance to Dave.

Here's a much more recent photo of Dave juggling a ball at one of his myriad youth soccer events.

If you look closely through Dave's flab, you can see that he's the spitting image of Russell Crowe. This explains why he's playing soccer with a football--Australians take the whole "soccer is really football" conceit way too seriously. And who takes things a serious step too far more than Dave?

Not convinced? Fine. I have more facts, alternate facts if you will. Russell Crowe and his wife Danielle Spencer are divorcing. To make the division of assets easier, Crowe is auctioning off a bunch of stuff he "collected" over the years and will split the proceeds with his former wife. The auction is called "Russell Crowe: The Art of Divorce" and it's preposterous in so many ways that Dave has to be involved. In fact the whole thing is so insane that only Dave could gin up this fever dream of collectibles. Here's the cover photo for the catalog:

Sweet toupee Dave! Things get increasingly Dave as you dig through the catalog. For example, he's auctioning off a mosasaur skull that he received as a gift from Leonardo DiCaprio. Dave/Crowe notes that "The fossil relative of the monitor lizard family, which includes the Komodo Drago, the Mosasaur was a giant, serpentine marine reptile, which was prevalent during the Late Cretaceous Period, approximately 65 million years ago. Mosasaurs were formidable hunters, with a double-hinged jaw and a flexible skull enabling them to eat their prey whole. The Niobrara Formation is a geologic formation located in North America that was deposited between 87 and 82 million years ago." Dave totally wrote that--it's taxonomically perfect (mosasaurs were marine reptiles, not dinosaurs) and right on the line between interestingly informative and smarmily pedantic.

And who other than Dave would keep a dead lizard head in his home?

Another Dave-only gem is this antique leather athletic supporter. Who else would wear a used leather jock strap (read the comments)? In fact, on the night of the Tonka truck incident zwoman saw Dave staggering around the house, looking for the bathroom, wearing nothing but this very same cup. zwoman said "Dave wears a codpiece? I guess he really does teach Shakespeare."

Also up for auction: nineteen (19!) guitars. I have no idea why anyone needs nine guitars, let alone nineteen guitars, but a collection of nineteen guitars sounds like something Dave would amass. Some are acoustic while others are electric. I won't link to them all, and they all look more or less the same to (except for the colors). The most expensive is a limited edition Gibson Elvis Presley "The King" J-200 black acoustic guitar. According to Dave/Crowe "In 2000 I took a road trip from Texas to New York, via West Virginia, for the filming of A Beautiful Mind (2001). I took a detour via Memphis to visit Graceland and I bought this guitar from the shop there. It is no. 90 of 250 produced for 1997." Seems like it would've been easier to fly from Texas to New York but despite all his professed love of and advocacy for all things green and eco-friendly, Dave loves to burn inordinate amounts of fossil fuels by driving SUVs back-and-forth across the country so this is a very Dave story.

Dave's interest in oddball Euro sports like soccer and darts is well documented. As is his interest in cricket. Dave/Crowe's auction contains a batshit crazy volume of cricket memorabilia, including five signed and framed cricket batting gloves, ten game-worn sweater-vests, seven cricket bats, seven signed and framed cricket shirts, two bronze sculptures of Donald Bradman playing cricket (one of which is life-sized), and three framed cricket caps (one of which was apparently worn by W.A.S. "Bert" Oldfield and will allegedly sell for $50,000 to $60,000). Here's the pricey cap:

According to Dave/Crowe's catalog entry, this cap is:

green wool, embroidered with the Australian coat-of-arms worked in gold and silver wire and coloured silk, the series date below '1932-33', with a 'Farmers Sydney' label inscribed in ink 'W.A.Oldfield', framed with a black and white photograph of Oldfield, together with a copy of The Larwood Story: A Cricketer's Biography, (the dust jacket framed separately), opened at the page describing the infamous encounter between Oldfield and the English fast bowler, Harold Larwood, on 17 January 1933, when Oldfield was struck in the head off Larwood's delivery, suffering a fractured skull. An area of separation to one of the seams in the cap where Oldfield was struck, is a further reminder of the incident.

Sounds like a really pleasant piece of cricketing history to display in one's home--the hat hat Oldfield was wearing when he broke his skull, ripped seams and all!

I won't even get into the 1873 Sunbury Cup Australian silver trophy for greyhound coursing, attributed to Edward Fischer (1828-1911) for $10,000-$15,000.

Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence proving that Dogfoot is Crowe is Lot No. 5, a two-piece double-breasted purple suit worn by Russell Crowe in the movie Virtuosity.

Who would wear such an atrocity? This guy:

If you think this "slob with a football" ensemble is a one-off look you're mistaken. Historically, Dave looks like hell even when he's dressed up.

Pleated khakis, unzipped fly, rumpled shirt, oversized paisley print tie tied to a Trumpian length? Hell, this purple suit was probably the crown jewel of Dave/Crowe's wardrobe back in the 90's!

I think I can safely rest my case. Now that we know Dave is a wealthy movie star we should encourage him to pay for lunch at Tortuga's one day. All the more reason to attend OBFT XXV.

My Life as a Comic

Sometimes, when I’m in the shower, I fantasize about what life would be like as a stand-up comic. The club is packed and loud. Everyone is anxiously waiting for me to take the stage. I stroll out and grab the mike. The crowd claps and whistles . . .

Me: So when I was young, if I had a pimple on my face, it concerned me. I’d pick at it, squeeze it, put medicine on it. Really worry if that groovy girl in my chemistry class would notice it.

Crowd: Empathetically chuckling . . .

Me: But now that I’m old, if I get a pimple, I’m happy. I’m ecstatic. It means there’s still some life in me, some juice. I’ve still got oil.

Crowd: Laughing

Me: You never see a really old person with a pimple. Old-people skin has no oil, no life. No more juice in that skin. When I see a pimple on my cheek, I think: You’ve still got it, skin! You've still got some juice left in you. And nothing is better than getting a big white pimple on your back . . . as long as you can reach it.

 I contort myself trying to reach an imaginary pimple on my back.

The Crowd is eating it up, laughing  and mimicking my various acrobatic contortions. They are knocking drinks over in hilarious spasms.

Me: And when you pop that thing, when the white goop comes squirting out, it’s fantastic, like ejaculating, like blowing your load all over yourself.

Crowd: Screaming with laughter.

Me: It’s like you’ve just had sex with your back.

Crowd: Shrieking and crying hysterically. Guffawing. Actually urinating and defecating on themselves because they are laughing so hard, but not caring, just pointing at their soiled pants and laughing even harder.

Me: They never show that in a Clearasil commercial. The pimple money shot. It’s too pornographic. The other thing I love about my body-- you know I was going to tell a funny story about my dog, but this is better-- the other funny thing is that sometimes, during the span of one night’s sleep, I grow a giant white hair. It comes right out of my forehead above my eyebrow. When I go to sleep it’s not there, but when I wake up . . . there it is!

Crowd: Screaming in agreement. Large black women are shouting things like “That’s right! baby!” and “Testify it!” and “I know that hair!”

Me: I want to make a documentary about it. The money shot would be time lapse photography of actually watching the hair growing on my forehead. It would take years of filming to capture it. My film crew would be obsessed about it-- night after night-- the director would film so much that he'd go blind in one eye and need an eye-patch. He'd be monomaniacal over my follicles!

Crowd: Muttering things like “Huh?” and “What the fuck is he talking about?”

Me: Instead of hunting the great white whale, we’d be hunting the great white hair. We’d call it “Moby Cowlick.”

The Crowd is getting irate. Someone yells, “It’s a literary allusion!” The Crowd starts yelling things like, "Nerd!" and "Go read a book!" They throw bottles and food at me. I duck and cover, then run off the stage.

My wife yells, “What the hell are you doing in there? You've got to take Alex to soccer practice!"

At this point my fantasy dissolves. I get out of the shower, happy that I don’t have to work nights.

Dave's Definitive List: Seven Movies That Are Better Than The Book

Last week in English class, a student told me she was having trouble reading Hamlet on her own. She had been absent for an extended period of time due to mononucleosis and the class had finished the  play without her, but she still needed to write her final Hamlet essay. And I'm not the kind of teacher that offers to stay after school and help. Instead, I advised her to watch the movie. The girl sitting in front of her, who was eavesdropping, was appalled. "You're telling her to watch the movie instead of reading the book? And you call yourself an English teacher?"

Normally, an insubordinate comment like this from a student would require some sort of disciplinary action, but not in this case. Why not? Because this particular girl is a passionate reader and a frequent participator in class discussions. Not only that, she's extremely short. So short, that like Rob, she gets away with murder. She was so frustrated on her last Hamlet quiz that by the time she got to the bonus question, which she did not know, she wrote: I don't give a shit. Expel me. She knew that because of her diminutive stature she could get away with it. She did. I laughed.

I said to them both: "The movie is the book . . . it's not a novel. It's a play." The girl who needed to make up the essay was fine with this.

"Which one should I watch," she asked.

"The Kenneth Branagh," I said.

The other girl wouldn't give up: "She can't just watch the movie! You made us read it first!"

I explained to the short, contrary girl that I wanted the class to imagine how to act and direct the scenes before they saw a film interpretation, but that it wasn't absolutely necessary to understanding the play. In fact, I admitted, if you just need to comprehend Shakespeare, you're far better off seeing professionals do it on a stage. The script is simply Shakespeare's blueprint for making a play.

I asked her if she read the screenplay for The Hangover before she watched the movie. She remained unconvinced, questioned my dedication to my profession, told me I had no respect for literature, and then went back to eating her salami sandwich. (Each and every day, this tiny little girl eats a salami sandwich in my class; I allow snacking as long as there is no sharing of the food. In my experience, snackers are generally better students: they are planners and they keep their glucose levels up, which is what your brain needs in order to think-- but apparently our principal does not believe this, as he recently made an announcement reminding students and staff that there should be no food or drink other than water in the classroom. Rumor has it that there has been an invasion of mice. I told salami-sandwich girl she would have to be discreet with her sandwich, and if the principal walked in, she'd have to stuff it into her purse ASAP. Again, how do you tell someone that small that they can't eat?)

Despite her arguments, I still believe that a play is written to be performed; you don't need to read it first in order to appreciate it. But this debate opens an interesting can of worms. We have limited time in our lives. Sometimes we have to choose whether we are going to read something or watch it. Sometimes we don't have the time and the patience to do both.

Occasionally . . . miraculously . . . a movie or TV show perfectly captures the tone, theme, and plot of a book so perfectly, that you could say that it is a substitute for the written version. You could either read it or watch it, but you don't need to do both. HBO's Game of Thrones is an example of this. The books are excellent, the show is excellent . . . and the show is like the books. Take your pick. You could probably make the same argument for The Walking Dead. Great comic books, great show. I'd say the same about Watchmen, but then Alan Moore would come to my house and tear me to shred with his talons, so I won't.

Generally, the movie doesn't live up to the book. There is no bigger cliché than: "the book was better." The Hunger Games recently disappointed me in this fashion, but I can't say I was surprised. Igor recently explained why book to movie transformations rarely meet expectations:

Characterization, back-story, and thorough explanation are almost always the elements of a book left behind when transferred to film. Even The Shining, which Kubrick made one of the most truly terrifying cinematic creations out of (and gave me nightmares), couldn't approach the level of bone-chilling detail, explanation of paranormal activity, and contextual understanding for characters both major and bit that came through in King's book.

The most interesting and controversial category is when the movie is actually better than the book. And we're not talking about gimmes, which this stupid list is full of. Yes, I believe you when you tell me that Full Metal Jacket is better than The Short Timers.

This stupid list also makes the bold claim that There Will Be Blood is better than Upton Sinclair's Oil! It goes out on a limb and says the same about The Princess Bride, Wild at Heart, The Prestige, and Requiem For a Dream. None of these are classic works of fiction. None of these are must reads. So my comment is: So what? I'm certainly watching The Princess Bride before I read it, and I'm not feeling like I missed anything.

The stupid list has fifty movies that are better than the book, and there's generally no explanation as to why this is so. They have essentially listed any movie based on a book that isn't a piece of crap, without qualifying their opinion. The movie version of The Talented Mr. Ripley is decent-- a reasonably good thriller-- but it barely scratches the surface of Patricia Highsmith's masterpiece.

Trainspotting, Bladerunner, and The Maltese Falcon . . . these are at least debatable-- but on the stupid list there is no debate until the top ten, and even then it's superficial. As much as I love the Coen Brothers, they are no match for Cormac McCarthy and his crime novel No Country For Old Men. And James Ellroy may be the best crime writer of our generation, so though L.A. Confidential is good, it's not better than the book. It doesn't replace reading James Ellroy. And they have the balls to say that Apocalypse Now is better than Heart of Darkness. Philistines. Both are great works of art, but they are both incomparably great. You need to consume both of them. I am wondering if the people who made this list actually read any of these books . . . or if they watch so many movies that they don't have time to read at all.

So which movies are definitely better than the books upon which they were based? And we're talking about classic books, highly recommended books. Good books. Books you might actually read. And this means that you have to choose. Book or movie, and you can never go back and read or watch the other. So, with everything on the line, which movies sincerely supersede the book?

7) The Godfather, of course. No insult to Mario Puzo and his excellent, though melodramatically written novel, but seeing is believing . . . and Coppola's The Godfather looks like a documentary, despite Marlon Brando's wacky performance. You never forget the scenes, the characters, and even the quality of light in the film. A no-brainer.

6) One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. The book is great, but dated, and the psychedelic narration gets tiresome. Jack Nicholson and Danny Devito actually act in this movie-- they haven't become typecast as cartoon versions of themselves yet, and that makes it unmissable.

5) Lord of the Rings. Nothing puts you to sleep quicker than reading Tolkien's masterwork. It is epic, but rather tedious, with jests, but no jokes. One of my students created the perfect metaphor to describe reading it. Peter Jackson's adaptation is epic and entertaining . . . there's no comparison.

4) A Clockwork Orange. A weird, fun, and challenging novel, but Stanley Kubrick used it as a blueprint for one of the most visually arresting films ever.

3) Jaws. Peter Benchley is really good at writing about sharks. I enjoyed his non-fiction book Shark Trouble: True Stories and Lessons About the Sea as much as Jaws. But that stupid mechanical shark coupled with the most memorable theme song ever (a meme song?) will always trump Benchley's writing. Plus, you can't beat Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper.

2) The Scarlet Letter. Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic story of Puritan America suffers from an overload of Gothic bombast, but Demi Moore brings a wonderful sensibility to Hester Prynne's alienation . . . HA! JUST KIDDING! The movie version is horrible . . . atrocious . . . an insult to the original . . . but you do get to see Demi Moore wear a funny hat and get buck-naked in an old bathtub.

1) Lord of the Flies. William Golding creates an archetypal story of what happens to civilization when the rules are stripped away, but to get to the meat of the story, you've got to wade through pages and pages of monotonous description . . . tendrils and creepers and vines, oh my! When I taught this thing, we skipped chapters. The black and white movie, however, is perfect. Watch it and I promise you will wish you never read the book.

So what have we learned? First of all, books are great . . . I'm the first one to admit that. But if you get a first rate director, the proper casting, some truly inspired acting, and a tight script . . . and these come together in exactly the right way, then there's no question that a picture is worth a thousand words . . . nothing is more memorable than a great movie. And that's coming from an English teacher. And think of the time you'll save!

Once in a Lifetime Starts Making Sense

It looks like the new internet piracy laws are stalled in Congress, and so the G:TB and other venerable institutions will have no legal recourse when sketchy organizations like Sports Illustrated and Grantland rip us off. We'll just have to remain one step ahead of them.

Last month, I dreamed up a feature called "Songs I Am Loath to Admit I Do Not Loathe," which is not only grammatically instructional but also loads of fun for the whole family.  Soon after, Grantland debuted their ersatz version, which they lamely subtitled "Revealing the Tunes We Hate to Love." What can you do? It's the Wild West out here. Instead of complaining, I am going to turn the tables on those plagiarist fuckers and write about a song that I actually love-- a song I have always loved-- but a song that only recently started making sense. I'm talking about The Talking Heads' song "Once In A Lifetime."



This is difficult, as I don't want to betray G:TB's masthead and shibboleth, and take myself too seriously. It's much easier, in my old age, to be ironic about pop music. I rarely get the same profound emotional response from music now that I got when I was a kid. Though your bands may have been different, you know what I mean; your emotions were the same. Music could take you to a different planet: Houses of the Holy and Dark Side of the Moon. It could get you wound up: AC/DC and The Cult. It could make you feel subversive: The Minutemen and Black Flag and Minor Threat. It could rock: Sound Garden and Jane's Addiction and Alice in Chains. It could groove: The Clash and INXS and The Jam. And it could make you feel hip: Paul's Boutique and Public Enemy.

But as I got older, it got harder and harder for music to penetrate my consciousness. After college, I started getting into jazz and classical music, and my pop music taste tended towards the ironic psychedelia of Ween. And The Talking Heads. After a frenetic day of teaching math to emotionally disturbed kids, I would unwind by playing Road Rash on the Sega Genesis (I conquered that game, defeated every level, got all the way to the secret "cop level" . . . and the end of the game was so disappointing that I never played video games again). And while I whipped other motorcyclists with chains, beat them with clubs, or whacked them with nunchaku, I would simultaneously listen to either Ween's The Pod, or The Talking Heads.

These days I constantly need new and different music to even pique my interest-- obscure funk and baroque instrumental, Afro-Cuban jazz and underground albino hip-hop (thanks Mark!), mashed up masterpieces by The Hood Internet and Girl Talk. But there are a few of the old bands that still do it for me. While it's hard for me to go back to the days of "Fire Woman," I can still throw on London Calling or Exile on Main Street. And I can still listen to The Talking Heads.

And so I was listening to "Once In A Lifetime" last week and it really hit home. I am lucky enough to say that David Byrne's opening monologue literally applies to my life.

I have found myself living in another part of the world.
I have found myself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife.
And I have asked myself: well . . . how did I get here?

I am sure there are people that have never asked themselves, "How did I get here?" I am sure there are people who imagine this is how it should go down: nice house, cute wife, big car, but not me. I am always thinking: "This is not my beautiful house . . . this is not my beautiful wife . . . how did I get here?"  I have traveled the world. My wife is charming, slender, and attractive. I slice peppers on a granite counter-top in a remodeled kitchen. I have blonde kids. Blonde kids? I am swarthy. And hairy. My friend Melanie once said: "it looks like you stole your children."

I often feel as if I'm having an outer body experience, I'm at the pool, chatting with other moms and dads, my kids swimming around, and I can't believe it. It's like I've infiltrated a secret club. I feel as if I deserve none of this. I appear normal, successful. House, job, wife, etc. I go to dinner parties. How? And I wonder: "Is everyone else winging it? Is everyone else an idiot like me?" Igor gives his weekly report in the comments: he's working his ass off, attending fundraisers, finding employment for disabled folks. How did this happen?

In a week's time, we are getting a dog. A DOG. I love dogs, but it seems like another piece in this bizarre puzzle; now I'll be walking through the park with my two blonde kids and a dog and people will think I'm normal. They will have no knowledge of my actual record with pets, which includes losing a lizard for several months in the dorm room I shared with Rob; having to euthanize another pet lizard of mine because a friend's lizard paralyzed my lizard-- and my euthanization was more cruel than the paralysis-- as I unsuccessfully tried to drown the lizard (iguanas can hold their breath a long time!) and then gas him with with exhaust from my car (my hand starting burning before the lizard croaked) and then finally (and successfully) put him down with a large board. I lost a ghetto conure out an open window. I inadvertently and unknowingly kicked the plug out and froze a monitor lizard to death. I kept a pet box turtle in a house with eight other guys, a box turtle that was allowed to roam loose on the second floor, and would occasionally stumble over the foot of the stairs and clunk down them like a bowling ball. No one will know this when they see me walking my dog.



Getting a dog is even weirder than having children because getting a dog is so premeditated. You have a family meeting and everyone agrees that they want a dog and everyone agrees they will help care for the dog . . . even though you know it's bullshit, and that the kids will love the dog and play with the dog, but rarely care for it. This isn't like having children. Having children you have a different sort of "meeting," and there's not much talk of responsibility-- the meeting is quite fun, in fact, and then nine months later you wonder: "How did I get here? And how did he get here?" But with the dog, you choose to get there, and that's where I am. Living in the song.

And sometimes I think "MY GOD! WHAT HAVE I DONE!"

That's why I'm still driving my 1993 Jeep Cherokee. I've been shopping for a "large automobile" for four years or so-- we've saved the money, done the research, gotten quotes, talked to dealers-- but I can't pull the trigger. I can't add a mini-van to this equation as well. But I will. Things will become even more absurd. This Honda commercial is geared for me and people like me-- people who can't believe they are in the market for a mini-van. It's a brilliant commercial, as it both satirizes the desire and also makes it seem okay. But I'm smarter than an advertising campaign. Right?



My two blonde kids and dog will pile out of the mini-van, and I'll look at the situation and think: "Where does that highway go?" Is this really the life for me? Maybe I should drive my mini-van off the grid. Maybe I should be in a motorcycle gang or bumming around on the beaches of Thailand or helping refugees in Haiti or working as a fishing guide on the Mississippi. But David Byrne reminds us that none of this was actually in our hands to begin with, that we'll go "into the blue again once the money's gone."

It's the "same as it ever was." And so I will let the days go by, and try not to think about how weird everything is. And consider myself incredibly lucky that my life is like "Once in a Lifetime" and not this Talking Heads tune . . .



Talking Heads
Once in a Lifetime (1984)
Once In A Lifetime

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack,
And you may find yourself in another part of the world,
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile,
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife,
And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...

Water dissolving...and water removing
There is water at the bottom of the ocean
Carry the water at the bottom of the ocean
Remove the water at the bottom of the ocean!

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right?...Am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
MY GOD!...WHAT HAVE I DONE?

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/in the silent water
Under the rocks and stones/there is water underground.

Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
Into the blue again/after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground.

Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...
Same as it ever was...Same as it ever was...

I Draw a Line in the Sand . . . And Then Erase It: Arguments Against The Digital First Down Line

Sometimes, you need to draw a line in the sand. A real line, not a digitally rendered line. And sometimes you have to write a letter to a real person. A digitally rendered letter, not a real letter. Who can afford stamps? So Commissioner Goodell or President Reilly-- that's Fox Broadcasting President Reilly-- I hope you stumble upon this digital epistle and take action . . . real action against a digital enemy.

In the past, I have been unafraid to take a stand against things that are so deeply entrenched in our culture that they appear well nigh unassailable. Nut shots. Super Bowl Sunday.

But I have grown wiser in my old age; I realize that I don't have the political clout or the rhetorical skills to transform Super Bowl Sunday into Super Bowl Saturday. I don't have the courage of my convictions to quell America's thirst for nut shots (part of me still thinks they're kind of funny). And I can't fight the entire West Coast, so big football games will always air later than I want them to. Serenity Prayer Now!

So I have decided to take on something smaller. Something that's not even real. Something that can't fight back. I am going to aim my powerful persuasive skills at an imaginary digital line. You know the line I am talking about: the digital first down line that has been omnipresent in televised football for the last decade. It doesn't matter if it is Sportsvision’s orange “First and Ten” line or rival PVI’s “Yellow Down Line,” I am against it. I am against the concept of digital lines on the TV screen during football games. I'm not telling you that one digital line is better than the other. I'm not being paid to endorse one digital line over another, if that's what you think. Stop thinking that. And I'm not going to end this with some spurious logic, and tell you that the line should be pink, in order to promote breast cancer awareness. I'm certainly against breast cancer, but I am also against pink digital lines.

I did some research, and while I now appreciate the work that goes into drawing that line, I am still against it. I'll explain why in a moment, but first you should know that the line is not drawn by some dude. The line is digitally modeled. There are color palettes and and instrumented cameras with digitally encoding lenses. Four computers and a crew of seven people are needed to draw the line. It's complicated: the line can't move when the camera moves. The line has to disappear when a player runs "over" it. The line has to match the curve of the field. It's pretty impressive when you think about it. But despite its impressiveness, the line does not make viewing football on television a better experience. Allow me to explain why.

When you are watching a play-- especially a running play-- and the runner approaches the line, your eyes flit to the line. They flit to the line and then back to the player and then back to the line. You're either rooting for the player to reach the line or you're rooting for him to get tackled, but your eyes can't help flitting to that luminescent vertical target. Try not to flit. I dare you. You might be able to pull it off, but it's all you'll be thinking about. I tried it. Trust me.

I don't want my eyes to flit.

When my eyes flit, I miss things. Jukes and spins and cuts. I miss seeing wide receivers making blocks. I miss real things, fun things, the things I sat down to watch . . . and instead my attention is drawn to a garish pixelated yellow thing. I don't want to look at that yellow thing! I want to watch the play! But I'm weak, I'll confess it. I can't look away. It's like cleavage. If I'm poked, I have to peek.



I wish I could focus better, but to be honest, my eyes flit all the time during a football game. They flit to the book I'm reading and they flit to the scrolling ticker at the bottom of the screen. I'm not going to finish the new Neal Stephenson novel if I don't read it in between plays, and I'm not going to convince the Fantasy Football contingent to remove the scrolling, statistic-spewing ticker at the bottom of the screen.

My eyes flit to my children, to make sure they're not drinking bleach or figuring out the rules of baseball. I will not allow my kids to truck with baseball. "And what about the children?" you might ask. "How will you explain football to your children without the giant yellow pixelated line as a teaching aid?"

This is a good point. It is wonderful that my seven year old son now understands football and can watch the game with me. This is in part due to the various red, yellow, and blue lines that the computer generates. I can say to him: "They need to get across that red line or they lose the ball. Because it's their fourth try."

But maybe seven year old kids shouldn't understand football. Maybe they should still be playing tag, instead of contemplating the pros and cons of the West Coast Offense. And if they are watching football, then maybe-- just maybe-- they should be working on their mental math skills, they way the G:TB staff did when we watched football as kids. Third and seven? And they're on the thirty-eight? Okay, so they need to get to the forty-five. It's not Calculus, but it's still mental exercise.

At this point you may be thinking: what are you? Some kind of purist? The answer to that is "No!" If I were a purist, I would get a lobotomy and watch baseball. I love the lack of purity in football. I love the way it appropriates technology and inserts it into the game. Radio receivers in the helmets? Sure! Cameras in the sky? Cool! A sensor in the ball that can sense the first down marker? Go for it! I love the way dynamic strategies infiltrate and change the game from year to year. Forward pass? Sounds good! Tackle eligible? As you like it! Spread offense? Even better!



The other day in my Composition class, we listened to George Carlin's classic routine "Baseball and Football," ostensibly because I wanted to illustrate the pros and cons of point-to-point organization, but actually because I wanted to see if the students preferred the pastoral and traditional nature of baseball or the dynamic, military nature of football. This was an honors class, so I was interested in what they would have to say. Oddly, they had nothing to say. Nada. No opinion. Then I remembered! This was an honors class. I polled them. There were a couple of baseball fans and a couple of football fans. In a class of thirty. The majority of the students were wondering who had the time to waste on such frivolity, when the AP Physics Exam was only five months away. So I never got to explain to them how much I enjoy the paradox of football-- Chuck Klosterman pointed this out to me-- how the game seems so conservative . . . think Brett Favre and Vince Lombardi . . . and yet it's actually the most "liberal" sport, as it has progressed from that rugby-like ur-match between Rutgers and Princeton to the option, the read offense and beyond.

So don't call me a purist. I even like that Foxtrax glow puck, though I'd be laughed out of Canada for admitting it.

When the announcer of the Denver/Pittsburgh game last week explained that new play-off overtime rules would be utilized for the first time ever, and then went on to explain the changes-- which required a full screen of bullet-pointed text-- I didn't bat an eye. I was all for it. The new rules had a good intention: to prevent an early field goal from ending sudden death over-time. If the new rules involved a Hunger Games style battle-royale, with the surviving members of each team forming a super-team that would advance to the next play-off round, I would have had no problem with that either. That's good TV.

But not every innovation adds interest to the game. In a world full of information, the digital first down line is bad information. It's too much information. It is information that the player doesn't have-- he knows approximately how far he has to go in order to get a first down, but he's not running towards a giant yellow line, and we shouldn't imagine such. As an audience, we are certainly presented with plenty of information that the players do not have access to-- camera angles and statistics and wind velocities-- but none of these ruins the drama of the game. The digital line does just that. You know the player has achieved a first down before the player knows, and you know because your eye has been flitting to this digital monstrosity instead of watching football.

Neil Postman has taught us that just because we have a technology, doesn't mean we have to use it. This is valuable logic, whether applied to nuclear warheads, tar sand refineries, or the digital line. Important and powerful people, if you are reading this, please take action. Do it for your eyes, do it for football, do it for your children's math skills. End the visual tyranny of the digital line.

Errata

Errata in the Film Version of my Memoirs

I know it's a great privilege to have one's memoirs made into a feature film, and I realize that a film needs to have mass appeal and can't have the sophistication of a book, but (and I don't mean to gripe) I have a few complaints about the liberties taken with my work. First, the title. My memoir is called "Wasted Soul." Although the film retained one of the words from my title, "Waste of Space" has a very different tone. As far as casting, Rosie O'Donnell was perfect as my wife, but why resurrect a bloated Andrew "Dice" Clay for my role? I was thinking more along the lines of George Clooney (we both have salt and pepper hair and an inimitable way with the ladies.)

I am going to assume you've seen the film, and so as I set the record straight, I'm going to refer to everyone by the name of the actor that played him or her. It's easier for you—you don't have to strain your imagination—and it's easier for me, because I'm starting to forget what my real friends, enemies and acquaintances actually looked like. I guess that comes with fame. For the few of you who haven't seen the film version of my life, this will relieve any cognitive dissonance when you do—you won't have any uncomfortable thoughts like: I thought the janitor would look like Chris Cooper, not Morgan Freeman. You're welcome.

For minor characters (who may have been played by actors you don't know and therefore can't readily imagine) or characters that simply weren't in the film—and there were plenty of egregious omissions, such as my Canadian girlfriend—I'll refer to old sitcom stars, and you'll have to imagine them as they were in their prime. For example, if I say I sat down in a diner next to Arnold Drummond and Freddy "Rerun" Stubbs, you'll have to imagine Gary Coleman and Fred Berry, respectively, during their stints on "Diff'rent Strokes" and "What's Happening!," not the freakish model railroader and the sad (but still portly!) addict.

My affair with my high school French teacher is completely misrepresented in the film. First, Kirstie Alley is fat, not big-boned and athletic like Madame Pouncet. Madame Pouncet once coached a state championship field hockey team! Second, the scene in the boiler room-- when I penetrate a roll of Madame Alley's stomach fat rather than her vagina, and Morgan Freeman, the wise old janitor, who is surreptitiously watching from behind the electrical panel, says "Hey kid, if you need a road map, health class is right down the hall"-- that was completely fabricated. I did not need a road map. I had a girlfriend in Canada at the time, and we had had sexual intercourse several times. But where was she? Left on the cutting room floor, I suppose. Several times. If Madame Alley and I did anything, then it was in the back of the band truck during her prep period--but like I said in the interview in People, "I didn't do anything with Kirstie Alley, not in the boiler room, not while holding onto the tuba straps in the band van, and certainly not in the walk-in freezer in the cafeteria." Even as a teenager, how could you maintain an erection in a walk-in freezer?

The animal in the attic was not a stoat. It was a squirrel. I know stoats are scarier, but they're not even indigenous to central New Jersey. Accidental? Highly unlikely.

Although my parents really didn't let me watch R-rated movies when I was a kid, I still figured out how to curse properly. The scene in the school yard when I said to the bully, "Stop trifling with me, you yellow-bellied blowhard," and he punched me in the nose, knocking me to my knees, and then said, "Getting ready to blow me, faggot?" and everyone laughed? That didn't exactly go down like that. I talked to my friend Adam Sandler, who was there, and he said he remembered me getting a couple of good scratch marks on his arms. Also, my father, Robert Duvall, did NOT beat me mercilessly if I made noise while he was listening to classical music.

The scene where my wife left me home alone with both kids, but had her reservations? Never, while changing Chucky, did I intercept a stream of his urine with my open mouth, gargle it, and then spit it all over him to make him laugh. Even I'm smart enough to know that the uric acid would burn his eyes. That was just gross-out comedy.

I did build an automaton to model good behavior for my students; Beth would raise her hand before she spoke, and she always did her reading. She never wore t-shirts that revealed her navel or low rider jeans that revealed the top of her thong underwear (though she did wear thong underwear). She did once have a gravity-defying rack, but my puritanical wife called me a pedophile and made me reduce her to a B-cup. Automaton Beth even managed to have a social life outside of school—she was elected president of the chess club, the first time ever for a girl. She couldn't really chill at a party though, because she wasn't programmed to use slang or handle crystal meth. But I absolutely did NOT build an evil automaton named Ali to model bad behavior—nor did I make him have a raucous bout of flatulence during an exam or program him to sell drugs that he pulled out of his turban. Those were cheap and tasteless laughs. And I certainly did not decapitate Ali in front of the class with a softball bat to elicit fear and intimidation. Even with tenure, they'd fire you for that—even if it was an Arab automaton. Tasteless. No wonder the film got two thumbs way down.

The mortgage was actually a thirty-year fixed rate and the life insurance was twenty-year term. I know an adjustable rate is sexier, but using the amortization table to create dramatic irony was juvenile.

I don't drink Grolsch. It tastes like it's skunked. Total product placement. As was the Testor's model cement. Do you really think I'd start huffing glue because my roof collapsed? I bought the glue to make a dinosaur model with my son and I was checking inside the bag to see if I had dropped the change in there. The glue wasn't even open.

I researched four different roofers. Got quotes and references, the whole nine yards. The movie makes it look like I opened the yellow pages and called the first name I saw and then fell in love with Bronson Pinchot's wacky accent. Not true! The roof collapsing was NOT my fault. I did more than enough legwork for the job. And our roofer is from Portugal, not Mypos. Is this what passes for parody these days? The moral of the movie is NOT: if you don't check out your contractor then you're going to get ripped off and disaster will ensue. Or even: illegal immigrants don't know safety codes. The moral is that sometimes fate deals you a bad hand and you've got to be stoic and survive as best you can. And we did. The end of the movie? When I'm wearing a stained pair of boxers, chasing my wife amidst the ruins of our house, waving a copy of our life insurance policy, asking her why she couldn't have been hit by a falling beam? One word for that: hyperbole.