Saturday, March 31, 2012

Song/Video of the Week

I was at a party for a friend at a local establishment a few weeks ago, and everybody was trying to get everybody else to sing karaoke. I flipped through the book and found this song and just laughed out loud. "Well, this would bring the place down in a hurry," I shouted over blaring club speakers. I've never sung karaoke, and I didn't get the chance to do this song. So here it is for you now. The Police. "Invisible Sun" live. The original video is nowhere to be found.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OSIrJbkrPQ

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Of prayer and tornadoes

Whether you live around my area or not, I'm sure by now most of you have seen the video of a woman on her front porch, facing down a full-blown tornado heading straight for her, while she prays for it to go away.
It first debuted earlier this month on a local television news broadcast, but I understand it's been making the rounds elsewhere, in some cases as a testament to the power of prayer.
It is a powerful image. An elderly woman, who should have been in her basement or bathtub, standing on her front porch and seemingly willing away a tornado that's about 50 yards from taking her to OZ bearing down on her house.
All of a sudden, the tornado changed course. She and her home were spared.
She talked to the television reporter about how she had faith and how God channeled her to pray the tornado away.
Unfortunately, there is a postscript. An epilogue.
After the tornado took a hard turn from this woman's house, it descended upon the town of West Liberty, Ky., a small community of about 3,200, and blew it off the map, killing six in the process (see photo at the end of this column).
On the original newscast, the anchor included this information and said the woman who was saved was praying for the family of the six victims.
Gee, thanks.
All right, so it's not this woman's fault. She did what she believed was the correct thing to do.
But did God really say "OK, you've reached me. Let's turn this thing loose on West Liberty and see if they can do the same."
Look, I'm the last person to claim to understand God. In fact, as a human (some have called me worse), I don't think I'm meant to.
But I don't think God sends tornadoes, or house fires or (are you listening, Pat Robertson?) planes flying into buildings as punishment, or a way to test faith. Floods? Well, that's a different topic depending on what you believe.
I don't think spiritual prayer, of any faith, is meant as a means of sending a tornado away, gaining wealth, harming someone else, or having your kicker make a last-minute field goal.
Now, the hundreds of thousands of dollars that have poured in from individuals, organizations and what have you for food, clothing, materials and funding to put people on the ground who can help; the thousands of volunteers who have shown up to do whatever they can, the residents saying "We can rebuild," that's where I see God at work.
This whole thing is a philosophical can of worms, so I apologize for opening it. It's not easily summarized in a few words.
Other than that, I hope that the people all over our region who have been affected by this can recover. In fact, I'm praying for it.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Friday, March 23, 2012

Why I'm glad Tim Tebow is out of Denver (Or, how to lose friends through your blog)

I couldn't be happier that Tim Tebow was traded by the Denver Broncos to the New York Jets.
I will explain why, but first I want to make one thing absolutely clear: It has nothing to do with his outspoken beliefs on his faith. I know that sounds like a neo con saying "I don't dislike President Obama because he's black, it's because of his policies," but please, please, bear with me here.
We will get to that. But for me, this is a complex story, so we have to begin at the beginning.
I have been a Denver Broncos fan since the age of 5. When I was in first grade, I knocked out a friend's teeth with a Denver Broncos heavy canvas duffel after he slapped me with his backpack.
Growing up, John Elway was my hero.
And if you remember the Broncos in the mid- to late-1980s, Elway basically put his team on his back and willed them to win. This resulted in three Super Bowl appearances, all of which were blowout losses because one guy can't win the Super Bowl. I was heartbroken after each loss.
I put up with merciless heckling in school on the days after those games.
"I think the turning point in the game was the coin toss," quipped a friend after the 49ers just decimated the Broncos, 55-10, in Super Bowl XXIV.
But I still wore my burnt-orange No. 7 jersey faithfully throughout the years.
Finally, in 1998, vindication would come when Elway and the Broncos defeated the vaunted Green Bay Packers, who were looking for a repeat, in Super Bowl XXXII, 31-24. The next year the Broncos repeated, knocking off the Atlanta Falcons, and Elway was named Super Bowl MVP.
Realizing it would never get any better than that, and now an elder statesman of the game who showed crows feet when he smiled, Elway retired on his terms.
The Broncos spent the next decade looking for someone, anyone, who could play quarterback for the team.
Brian Griese showed flashes of greatness, but was too inconsistent (and too drunk most of the time) to cut it.
Jake Plummer had his moments, then just up and retired from football.
I thought that the Broncos had found the answer when they drafted Jay Cutler. Cutler played at lowly Vanderbilt in college, and, like Elway, had to do just about everything himself to make the typically wretched Commodores respectable.
Turns out he was a total prick, and a pouty one at that, so the Broncos traded him, and put Kyle Orton, a guy from my school who followed Drew Brees in the Cradle of Quarterbacks chain at Purdue, under center.
Then, a guy the same age as me who happened to wind up as the Broncos head coach, drafted Tebow.
If you can glean anything from some of my statements above, it should be that I follow college sports much more closely than the pros.
And, even though I went to a different university, I did most of my growing up in Kentucky and can't help but root for UK, especially in football, where they are typically the underdog.
I watched Tim Tebow run up the score on the Cats for three years. He and coach Urban Meyer did it to a lot of other teams, too.
Simply put, Tebow played for an opposing team and I didn't like him.
Then he gets drafted by the Broncos, and within a short period of time, unseats the guy I'm rooting for in Kyle Orton, who had put up 4,000 plus passing yards the previous season.
So, in summary, hated player from college goes to my favorite NFL team and knocks a Boilermaker out of job in doing so.
It was clear from the outset that Tebow didn't know what to do when looking at a secondary defense that wasn't comprised of guys from Mississippi State.
Also, his questionable throwing mechanics pointed out during the draft were on full display once he made it to the league.
I had never, in all my years of watching NFL football, seen a guy short-hop a wide receiver by two to three bounces. If the ball wasn't short, it was 10 feet over the intended receiver's head.
Despite all of that, Tebow was able to win with the Broncos, even beating the Steelers in the playoffs. Then, they hit the New England Patriots and got exposed.
Tebow was not the next franchise quarterback for Denver. At the same time, I'm not sure what the Broncos are doing in signing Peyton Manning, who is 36 and coming off of four neck surgeries. I also wonder what playing now will do to Manning's health later in life. But, I've seen him complete passes, so I'm all for this experiment.
Now to the issue off the field.
I've had more than one person tell me that I should support Tim Tebow because he is a Christian and a role model for the youth with the way he displays his faith in a league where the news is more often focused on which Cincinnati Bengals player got arrested this week or how much the Saints defensive coordinator was paying players to try and hurt the guys on the other side of the line.
I think that it's great that Tebow is a decent human being who has his priorities in his life and has the freedom to express that on a national stage.
The late Reggie White of the Eagles and Super Bowl champion Packers, and former Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner did the same thing.
The difference? White and Warner could play football in the NFL.
The jury is still out (but nearing a verdict) on Tebow, so that's great that he has his value system, but I'd also like him to be able to throw the ball.
I think, with Tebow, it is a sign of the times we are living in.
The country is more polarized than ever, and is getting worse every day.
Tebow, who generated a lot of hype in college and coming into the NFL, is a symbol for some to hold up as a shining example of how our athletes and role models should be.
In sports, it's nice to have a few good guys to root for. It's nice to have the anti-Cutler. But if they can't play, it makes it difficult.
To me, sports heroes are guys like Robbie Hummel, who tore his ACL in consecutive seasons and couldn't play with a team that would have probably gone to the Final Four with him. He still gutted it out, stayed on the team, and played his last year with less talent around him but gave the effort to make things happen and did it with dignity and class.
A hero is someone who takes three Super Bowl drubbings only to rise from the ashes a decade later and come out on top in consecutive seasons, all the while exhibiting class and a sheer joy for the game.
Tebow has the class, but he needs the game. Maybe he'll go on to win four Super Bowls with the Jets and be revered as the best quarterback ever. More power to him if he does.
But he's not my guy.  

Thursday, March 22, 2012

It's my hutch in a box, baby, it's my hutch in a box

Part 1
It's not that I'm totally useless with my hands.
They know their way around the fretboard of just about any stringed instrument with a certain degree of proficiency. They know how to murder a drum kit, and plunk about on a keyboard.
They're fairly useful for cleaning out gutters, writing checks to NCAA Tournament pool organizers and, well, various other duties ... ladies (wink, clicking noise and pistol fingers). My buddy Christian Alexandersen was right when he said you can make any sentence creepy by adding "ladies" at the end.
Back on topic, while I'm not incompetent when it comes to stuff around the house, I am not what you would call "handy." I've never sanded and stained wood flooring for the hell of it, or pressure washed our fence without my wife saying "You should pressure wash the fence."
Now, I have assembled various desks, tables and patio furniture around our abode when my wife would come home with something from Office Max or Lowe's.
But, until today, I had never dealt with Ikea. I know most of you probably know what Ikea is, but, if you don't, it's furniture manufactured in Sweden, packed into boxes, shipped and sold at Ikea stores around the world.
They've been doing it for decades, we're just a little late to the party.
Like I said, I'm comfortable assembling stuff for the home, although I usually miss a page of directions or look at something upside down and have to redo it, what have you. The process is generally fairly slow.
When it took me 15 minutes just to get the Ikea box open, I knew I was in for trouble.
Then, I realized that the Swedes have mastered TARDIS technology as there was way more stuff inside the box than it should have been able to hold.
I started unpacking, and found the baggie full of hardware. I instantly recognized my nemesis, the Allen wrench (or as it is known in Sweden, the Mats Sundin wrench).

I started going to work on the project, which, when complete, is supposed to resemble a set of drawers.
I followed each illustration meticulously, making sure I knew which end was up because I didn't want to go through everything again.
I laboriously put screws and slats and beams into place (that's what she said?), occasionally correcting for something that was out of place, and constantly pushing endless pieces around me so I could move.
My beagle watched me from the comfort of a sunbeam with her head propped on her paws and slightly cocked to the side, as if to say "Why are you doing this? Find a chew toy and hang out with me in the sunbeam. It's delightful."
Eventually the call of a prepared lunch halted my work. I now have something that resembles a structure meant to hold drawers. I'm on step 10 of 27. So far, no catastrophe, no swearing and, surprisingly, no Mats Sundin wrenching. I'm sure they save that for last. 

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Song/Video of the week

Time to shift into high gear after a couple weeks of slow, albeit insightful, songs. I have a lot of history with this week's tune. It's the way I felt last night after I couldn't calm down after Purdue barely won and Duke got knocked out. It's the way I felt in high school and college when I had the metabolism and unfocused energy of a spider monkey with ADHD. And, I used to play it in a band I was in called "The Showgirls." It's the Ramones. "I Wanna Be Sedated."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Ptd_X5sTA

Thursday, March 15, 2012

March "Trademark infringement" (Super fun basketball day)

Today is my favorite and least favorite day in sports.
It's the day when I realize I've invested far too much in tournament pools, but I don't care. Because it's the first day of March (can we say it?) Madness. Uh oh, a phalanx of lawyers from CBS just arrived at my door.
The first weekend of the NCAA Tournament is the best because you have wall-to-wall basketball games and people are asking "Where's Creighton?" (Omaha, Nebraska my friends)
And, thanks to Google, I no longer have to defend my argument that Gonzaga is in Spokane, Washington, not California, and their team name is the Bulldogs, not "The Zags." You have no idea how many people have been willing to fight me to the death over that one in years past.
In the end, I don't really care about my brackets because I've filled out so many that I'm rooting for every team (except, of course, IU, Duke and Notre Dame).
I usually do well until the Sweet 16, when my crazy picks start falling apart. But, hey, you've got to be different to win these things (of course, I have Kentucky winning it all like almost everyone else).
My craziest pick this year? Duke losing to Lehigh. It will never happen. But I hate Duke that much.
Ok, so let's get away from the brackets and talk about the tournament itself, which is, perhaps, the greatest drama sports has to offer (I would rank the World Cup just a notch higher, but I'm weird).
BEST NAME EVER: Each year, the tournament introduces us to a crop of players from around the world with some interesting names, but, in my book, none have ever come close to 6'6" point guard God Shamgod. And if you think his name is blasphemous, consider this: he led the Providence Friars to an Elite Eight appearance in the mid '90s (doesn't get any holier than that).
WORST TOURNAMENT MOMENT: The Laettner shot. I'm glad that he's now an assistant high school coach in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and is apparently $30 million in debt.
RUNNER UP: Purdue as a No. 1 seed losing to Georgia in the second round in 1996.
BEST TOURNAMENT MOMENTS: There have been several of these. Of course, Kentucky's championships in 1996 and 1998. Georgia Tech's Final Four run with "Lethal Weapon 3" in 1990. Purdue's run to the Elite Eight in 1994 and again in (I think) 2000 as a low seed. Duke's loss to Cal in 1993. Going to the first rounds of the tournament in Nashville in 1993 and watching UK play, going to Lexington in 1994 and watching Purdue play. Every IU and Duke loss ever, and every Bobby Knight press conference meltdown after a first or second round loss by the Loosiers.
Enjoy the tourney, everyone. Go Cats, Boiler up, or whatever your battle cry is, enjoy the Madness. (All right, all right, I'll stop saying it. Where do I sign, lawyer guy?)

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Song/video of the week

Sometimes a song isn't rock, or pop or R&B or classical or hip-hop. It's just a well-written, well-arranged song that tugs at your soul. This is "I Can't Own Her" by XTC off of their 1999 (and second-to-last) album Apple Venus Vol. I. The video is fan-made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7NlgcczIKw

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Rush Limbaugh: Too fat to fail

So why hasn't Rush Limbaugh been fired?
Why hasn't calling a Georgetown University researcher (one of those "women with brains" the hard right has been hearing about lately) a "slut" and suggesting women who want contraception covered by their health care plan be required to make sex tapes everyone can watch been enough to kick Limbaugh off the air?
After all, Don Imus was fired a few years back for making derogatory remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team.
When Keith Olberman became too much for anyone to handle, MSNBC gave him the ax.
So why has Limbaugh been allowed to continue, not even suffering so much as a suspension for making remarks from the lean of politics that supposedly takes the moral high-ground, family values approach in this country?
Because he reaches 50 million listeners/viewers a day.
Like our auto industry, Limbaugh is too big, or in his case, too fat, to fail.
As sponsor after sponsor has pulled their advertising dollars from Limbaugh's show, he has arrogantly announced that he will simply find others. And he's probably right.
Limbaugh is almost bullet proof. From his bout with prescription addiction, to his failed marriages, he has still been able to speak from the high pulpit of hypocrisy daily without skipping a beat.
So, let's put all of the political junk aside for a second, and simply ask the question, why is he so popular?
Well, I for one, even enjoyed listening to Limbaugh once upon a time.
I was in middle school, and my dad and I were taking a lot of road trips together at the time.
Dad always likes listening to talk radio on long drives.
When I was a young kid strapped into the back of a brown Volvo sedan, it was NPR.
By the time I had moved up to the front seat of a sportier vehicle, it was Limbaugh.
Limbaugh really appealed to me. He was funny. He had everything figured out. He was hateful.
Do you know why that appealed to me? Because I was in the seventh-grade.
That is Limbaugh's target mentality. He makes things easy to laugh about. Easy to hate. He puts it all in a neat package that avoids the unnecessary complexities of the real world.
And in a country that's been dumbed down to the level of a coma victim, it's easy pickings.
Have you ever had a conversation with a Limbaugh fan in which you try to put forth an opposing view? It's not much of a conversation. The few times I've done it, the other person just yelled at me and called me names.
Sound like a middle-schooler to you?
By the way, the last time I called a girl a "slut" it was in middle school and I got called into the principal's office. Repercussions for my actions? What the hell? If only I had 50 million classmates who would vouch for me.
So let's bring the political stuff back in here and demonstrate how this works.
Welfare: Every Welfare recipient is too lazy to work and would rather sit at home, have more kids for more Welfare money, and reap the benefits that we taxpayers provide. See? It's easy.
Unemployment: People, especially the Welfare people, need to get off of their duffs, pull themselves up by their boot straps and get a job. Any job. If they don't like the job or their wages, they should simply apply more effort and change careers. Solved.
The Middle East: This gets into the area of George Orwell's "doublethink." If a Republican is our Commander in Chief, we should go in and bomb the crap out of people. If it's a Democrat, we should just let those people destroy themselves. Next.
Women's rights: Women (or "feminazis" as Limbaugh calls them, and you know how cute and funny it is when an entire group of people are compared to the Third Reich) have rights? When did that happen? Oh well, the ones that do are sluts who should be making sex tapes for our amusement.
Laughable right? But if you can boil down incredibly complex issues to one phrase, people will lap it up. And they will repeat it.
Limbaugh's theme song might as well be "Popular" from "Wicked."
Now, after reading all of this, here is something that I want you to consider. I am not a straight-ticket Democrat. Ssssshhh, save your screaming for later.
I voted for Bob Dole in the first presidential election I was eligible for. I voted for George W. the next time. I didn't like how W. marched us into Iraq, so I voted for John Kerry in 2004. In 2008, I voted for Obama. I probably will again, mainly because we were both born in Hawaii and are constantly having to prove our citizenship. Oh, wait, I'm white, so that's never happened to me.
Basically, even though I have a more liberal mind-set, I vote for whoever I think is the right person for the job.
And that person has never had a one-line answer to a complex political, social or economic problem.
Which brings us back to Limbaugh. It's ironic that the only network that ever had the backbone to fire him was ESPN.
You remember, when they brought Limbaugh in as a side analyst who could throw a "challenge flag" to points made on ESPN's NFL preview shows?
Do you remember when Limbaugh suggested that Donovan McNabb was receiving more media attention than he should, because he was black, and the media had an agenda to put forth a successful black quarterback?
His motivations and logic were questionable as ever, and ESPN had the good sense to can him and move on.
I wish his current employer would do the same.
I'm tired, so very tired of all of the hate. All the name calling. All of division on both sides that is pulling this country apart. I'm tired of crosshairs over congressional districts and people telling me I'm going to hell if I vote one way or another. That's not America. That's Iran.
If we don't wake up, people like Limbaugh are going to have a great view of this country collapsing from atop a large pile of money.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

Song/video of the week

Perhaps my favorite Sting song ever, "Why Should I Cry for You?" from the "Soul Cages" album.
A bit of self-admission here, I used to listen to this song in the dark when I was down about something, which is weird, because it isn't a "happy" song. However, I do feel, while it's a rather personal song for Sting, the empathetic effect it generates makes one feel better. Enough yapping. Please enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHhZKSoePio

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Veterans Field House memories

After some 60 years of use, the Veterans Memorial Field House in Huntington is being torn down.
I don't have a whole lot of memories of the Field House, but the ones I do are pretty vivid.
I played indoor soccer at the Field House for a couple of seasons, and I remember when it would be raining outside, it was also raining in certain spots on the indoor pitch (which was a slab of concrete).
Same thing for snow, although my teammates and myself were never sure if it was actually snow or flakes of asbestos drifting down. I never caught a Field House snowflake on my tongue to make a firm conclusion.
So, when I heard Marshall University was tearing the Field House down to make way for a new soccer complex (a clever subterfuge for a new indoor football practice facility) I wasn't heartbroken. I just don't have the catalogue of memories so many others in the community possess.
I do remember my buddy Christian and I getting fired up for indoor soccer.
I didn't really pick up soccer until college, so I'm not great, but I'm not terrible either (opinions may vary, side effects include streaky goal scoring, occasional bad passes in the defensive half and temporary lack of energy. Ask your doctor before adding Ben Fields to your soccer team)
Of course, no one remembers the goals I scored, or the shots that I stopped when I was in net as keeper.
What they do remember is a single incident that proves I am in no way sexist when it comes to sports.
A teammate and I were on a break away. All he had to do is make one square pass. All I had to do was get my foot on the ball. An easy goal.
But I made the classic mistake that applies to every sport, I took my eye off the ball. I saw the goal before I actually scored it. So, I whiffed.
I was flooded with embarrassment. In a split second my mind hardened on the idea "If someone else gets this loose ball before me, they are going to pay."
The ball careened off of the hockey boards that were still in place around the "pitch," a leftover from the former arena football team that had once occupied the Field House.
This time I kept my eye on the ball, not my opponent.
Turns out she was a young woman, slight of frame.
I took her into the boards. Hard.
Christian's girlfriend, who was in the stands above, said she actually saw the boards buckle inward with the impact.
"Jesus Christ!" the girl yelled from the ground. Someone else helped her up before I could. I just looked at the ref, who had pulled out his blue card (indoor rules are different from outdoor) and asked how long my penalty was.
"Two minutes!" he declared with a look of disgust on his face.
I was on the far side from our bench, so I had to make a walk of shame back to our side. My teammates were jeering me.
"Wrong sport, Lemieux!" one of them yelled.
"Hey, Wendell Clark, you left your gloves on the ice," another shouted.
The manager of the other team actually came over and apologized to me for some reason.
After the game, I apologized to the girl. She was wearing an Ohio State shirt, so I made the lame apology "I went to Purdue and whenever I see a Buckeye shirt I lose it."
She was well over it after the game. Although the next week she did have a bruise running down the entire right side of her body.
But let it never be said that I treat female athletes any differently than male athletes.
Well, that's not entirely true. 
In softball during the ensuing spring, I hit a grounder to first and the woman playing the position tried to tag me out instead of stepping on the bag. I slowed up and let her tag me.
As I headed to the far dugout, my teammates (many of whom were the same from soccer) were jeering me again, saying they expected me to take the woman out.
That's not the kind of tag I want hanging on me. The term "lady killer" isn't bad if you spend a lot of time in bars. On the pitch, it's not so flattering.