Three Things

3 New Generations of Idiots

2012-01-20T00:34:00.000-08:00

Just because the syntax that reliable pop-culture mavens use to inform us about trends is available to everyone, does not mean everyone is qualified to use it. With that said, I am hard-pressed to think of a phrase more popularly abused than the declaration that (something old) “is the new” (something better). You know, brown is the new black, pale is the new tan, smart is the new sexy, etc? (believe me, I could go on - and if you can’t, go ahead and Google “is the new”) Even in an age where simply saying something in a public forum is about 80% of the credibility you need to make people believe it, these announcements hardly qualify as trendsetting. Nowadays, these notices seem more wishful thinking than actual trend reporting, and are usually bald attempt by folks who want to make what they have look more like something they want.   But nowhere is this facile pronouncement more frequently abused then when talking about aging. Pundits everywhere are trying to shave off a decade (or two) simply by hoping it so. There’s no doubt that technology, medical care and healthy living have increased not only how long we live, but how much we enjoy it. But even with that said, we are still very much the ages we achieve, and in the interests of reminding everyone just how young they aren’t, here are 3 ages which are aren’t the new anything:

1.   The Golden Age. The Baby Boomer generation has always taken great pride in breaking stereotypes, and redefining their generation as it grows older. But no matter how great they were, 60 is not the new 40. 60 is the official age to stop: stop dying your hair, stop wearing anything low cut, low rise, push up, etc, and stop using the word “sexy”. 60 is the age where you can no longer be insulted by someone calling your “sir” or “ma’am” - or for that matter, “grandpa” or “grandma”. 60 is when “incontinence” stops being something you think you may have forgotten from Geography class and the most embarrassing reason you’ve had to visit the drug store since you were buying condoms as a teenager. 60 is the age where you can legitimately look at new technology like it’s some kind of dark sorcery that you should mistrust at all costs and call all professional athletes ‘kids.” More importantly, 60 isn’t the new anything. At 60 you’ve had all of the new you’re going to get. The only thing “new” at 60 are the occasional new diagnoses from your doctor and the “new” friends and family members that you’ve known for years that only senility can offer. Wake up and smell the AARP card, 60 is just 60.

2.   Stuck in the Middle. Middle age is about as much fun as the Middle Ages; which is to say that it’s not a particularly enlightened time, and it’s marked mostly by unfair and unexpected persecution and pain. And so, it makes sense that everyone who is going through this trying time has a fair bit of denial going on. But all the hoping and believing in the world can’t change the fact that 40 is not the new 30. Take it from someone who’s in between those two ages - the speed/strength peak that you hit when you’re 30 feels more like twenty years away than the ten it will be at 40. 40 is officially “creepy guy at the club” aged. 40 is realizing the closest you’ll ever get to a pro athlete is at a fantasy camp for other middle-aged guys like you. 40 is realizing how good it sounded to tell people you were 32 (back when you were wishing you could still say 28). 40 is excellent credit. 40 is every band you really love being on a “reunion tour” and a solid collection of khaki pants. 40 is the minimum age to be a “cougar” and the maximum age to wear anything with writing across the butt. But the most important thing that 40 isn’t that 30 is, no matter what you dress it, drive it or party with it in, is plain old cool. But look on the bright side, at least you’re not 60.

3.   Adding it Up. No generation likes to acknowledge its shortcomings, no matter how small. This is how the last generation of widespread American racists refers to itself as the “Greatest Generation” and a generation defined by nearly universal drug abuse prefers to be known by the obsession with flowers that these hallucinations caused (rather than their more deleterious side-effects). But Generation Y, which collectively holds about as much promise has a Hanson reunion, seems to have only two marketable skills: declaring its own relevance, and noting the unprecedented difficulty they have to endure just to be, well, themselves. However, no matter how important they they think are, 20 is not the 30, the new 40, or the new (insert relevant age here). 20 is the enduring belief that the programming on MTV is both interesting and relevant (it's neither). 20 is recovering from a night of drinking with a stiff cup of coffee and an extra hour of sleep (rather than an entire next day). 20 is finding yourself, 30 is trying to make money off of what you found, and 40 is trying to keep what you found a secret. While 20 may suck, it’s certainly not difficult. The only thing difficult about 20 is having to deal with it when you're 30 and/or 40. Don’t worry though, 20-somethings, you’ll have those extra decades soon enough - and then you’ll know why we're laughing.

* * *

I am, if nothing else, a lover of new things. I have never really understood the appeal of antiques, remakes or rebuilds. The idea of newness, hell even the smell of it, inspires an optimism in me that little else can match. New houses, new cars, new gadgets - all a testament not only to how far we’ve come, but also to where we’re going. But not all new things are so universally good. In fact, if I’ve learned nothing else in the years preceding this writing, that the one thing that indisputably gets better as it gets old, is us. Time spent declaring the faux youth of your old age is exactly as productive as simply wishing yourself younger. Why bother? What you're really looking for, youthfulness, if nothing else, is the ability to live in the moment where you are - not longing to rush forward or look back. Besides, the real message of the age-old command to act your age is to not live by someone else's definition of what that age is, but rather to make sure you’re not acting a different one - especially one that’s off by a decade or two.

3 Communication Failures

2012-01-10T08:42:00.000-08:00

It’s no secret that the genders often struggle with communications. Despite common languages, we speak in different dialects, and the nuance which is plain to our same-gendered friends can often be completely invisible to the opposite sex. Every year we devote hundreds of books, thousands of periodical pages and millions of television minutes to this constant battle and yet, despite this war of words, we seem no closer to resolution. However, as a trained mediator and negotiator, let me offer what is often the most important step to resolution: a view from the other side. There can be no more vast chasm than the difference between what you ladies believe you are saying and what we men are hearing. Your light-hearted expression becomes a crushing burden, and your thoughtful insight becomes a throw-away observation - each to your grinding chagrin. Perhaps, however, if you understood precisely what it is we hear, you might be able to rephrase, restate or simple relax - and cut us a little slack. And so, in the interest of inter-gender diplomacy, here are 3 things lost in translation:

1. Where in the World? During my since past online dating phase, I trolled through thousands of profiles, and found one nearly universal “interest” amongst women: travel. Now when you say “travel” you mean spending time with someone special, far away from the rigors of home and work, getting to know them, long walks on the beach, etc. You think it makes you sound cultured, adventurous and fun. Wrong. It makes you sound expensive. You want to know what a man thinks when he hears you say that you like travel? He thinks about double airfare, hotel suites, fancy meals out, nightly entertainment, solely funded shopping excursions and no televised sports whatsoever. “Travel” is code for two thousand dollar weekends, five thousand dollar weeks and a 50/50 shot at seeing you naked. “Travel” isn’t a hobby, it’s an expense. We know you’re not talking about splitting the cost of the trip, because that’s not romantic. And we know you don’t mean weekends at the lake, because you are careful to also mention your favorite destinations, which always include someplace international (i.e. Paris, Rome, London), and usually someplace tropical (i.e. the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Hawaii). Here’s the deal, everyone likes vacationing - and listing it as a hobby is like listing “money” on a list of favorite things. It doesn’t make you sound interesting. In fact, it’s one of the few things you can say (along with enjoying the Twilight series of books) that actually makes you sound less interesting. Trust me, if we like you, we’ll be planning a trip with you soon enough - just spare us the knowledge that you’re already expecting it.

2. The Panic Button. Despite the numerous protestations to the contrary that I have received when raising the specter of almost universal female knowledge of this next miscommunication, deep down I feel like women know precisely the level of anxiety they inspire with the most terrifying four words in their entire lexicon: we need to talk. There is nothing that recounts a man’s deepest fears of the trauma that can be inflicted by the often-fickle female psyche like this painfully vague premonition. What’s worse, even if we’re not particularly worried by the potential consequences, the pain of the process can prove just as worrisome. Having a conversation with a women about “feelings” is like having a conversation with your first-year Spanish teacher, in Spanish, after just a couple of weeks of class. Sure, you might know a few words here and there, but for the most part, you’re just nodding your head, trying to keep your eyes from glazing over, and replying to every long-winded soliloquy as meaningfully as you can with “si.” The universe of potentially bad subjects that can be covered by “we need to talk” runs from breaking up to getting married, from possible pregnancy to where-do-you-see-this-going. Each of these is comparably enjoyable to a Lifetime movie marathon, watched during a baby shower and while simultaneously undergoing a prostate exam from Dr. Big Hands. And so, giving us what you might think is “fair warning” is actually sounding a recognizable death knell - only one that leaves us to wonder just how and when it’s going to happen. If you care anything for us (and want the same in return), do us a favor: when you want to have a heavy talk with us, just start talking. We’ll gladly take a little surprise over a lot of dread.

3. Keeping the Resume Updated. It is a strange time we live in with respect to dating. It used to be, on some level, a relatively innocent pursuit. It was charmingly clumsy and awkward, but we were all, in some way, invested in the magic it promised: that we’d find someone in the midst of dinners, movies, dance halls and kisses goodnight, that would be our one and only - and there’d be some happily ever after, even if it wasn’t happily for-ever after. But in the intervening time from when I started dating to now, it has since become a commodities and futures market: fast-paced, ruthless and stripped down to nearly bare economic efficiencies. And of all the things that trade well in this market, nothing seems to trade quite so well as an impressive dating resume. After all, what could be better in proving that you’re a hot commodity than demonstrating just how important, well-heeled, famous, etc. previous buyers have been. I mention this because, every time I have the audacity to believe that maybe I’ve gotten it all wrong, and that maybe there is still a little magic left out there, I am greeted by a lengthy dating resume. Most girls seem to bring it up with all the subtlety of an air horn, and run through the list of minor celebrities, band members and private jet owners that they have dated (or who at least wanted to date them) in the past as smoothly as though they had memorized it for an audition. Which I suppose, in fact, is what it’s supposed to be. The intended message being: Hey, these impressive men wanted me, so obviously I’m worth wanting. Unfortunately, what we hear is: I have standards that vastly outpace my worth; I’m expensive, high-maintenance, and if our first date doesn’t involve “shopping” or a $300 dinner tab, don’t even bother. The only thing more emasculating than this exercise would be an actual castration, so unless you’re applying for the position of regrettable mistake, leave the dating resume at home.

* * *

On balance, women are still vastly better communicators than men. In fairness, they usually get a whole lot more practice, and just by sheer volume, it makes sense that they might actually, therefore, engage in far more dialogue mishaps than their woefully under-skilled counterparts. Which is to say that, on average, we are probably much more likely say stupider things, but we’ve also learned (to compensate for this handicap) to keep our mouths shut. Because for as dumb and simple-minded as we are, we still ultimately learn our lessons (albeit the hard way) and we’re just as difficult to fool twice. Despite what you may think, we do know what you’re saying when you’re not actually saying it. And the problem isn’t that we aren’t getting the message, it’s that we are. And so, as the moral to the story, we arrive at a new twist on an old axiom - as there’s little use anymore being careful what you say, to avoid sending the wrong message, be careful what you mean.

3 You Oughta Know By Nows

2012-01-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

Traditionally, the turning of the calendar page to a new year inspires forward-looking resolutions which embody the optimism that always surrounds this celestial recurrence. I, of course, am not immune to these seductions, and have renewed almost all of the resolutions from 2011, which each failed miserably in its own right. It is in the spirit of this failure which I look over the landscape of the past to see just how far we haven’t come. In an era where stupidity is celebrated in its own right and we enjoy the benefit of innumerable technical advances which make that all the more surprising, it is not what we understand that merits note, but rather, what we don’t. We are over a decade into the new millennium, and we appear to have all but wasted it. Almost every day, I see people handling decade-old developments with all the dexterity of a drunken chimpanzee and only half of the impulse control. It makes me wonder if the Information Age has inspired a point we never thought we’d get to, a place where our brains are actually full, and if we want to put anything new into them, we’ll have to call in one of those doctors from Hoarders to help us clean out the mental Beanie Baby collections and diaper stacks to make room for it. And so, in the interests of helping a few folks into this brand new year by teaching them something they should have learned ten years ago, here are 3 things you ought to have figured out by now:

1. Does That Go Any Louder? In 2012, Smart Phones have become nearly ubiquitous, as marked by the fact that I can be video called by both my father and my niece & nephew - who are, at last count, nearly sixty years apart in age. So now, when someone says “It seems like everyone has one of these phones”, they don’t sound like as much of an asshole (well, ok, maybe a little bit). But, more importantly, it marks the time where the generation of technology behind it (the standard cell phone) has become what the home phone was to it - something in literally every household. As a general rule, anything that you can buy in a 7-Eleven can be considered available to everyone, regardless of your station in life. And with the omnipresence of cell phones has come the omnipresence of cell phone ringers. Of course, early in the life of this technology, the projected public cacophony of a ringer in everyone’s pocket led to the development of a silent ringer (the “vibrate” function) which appears to have been the most widely ignored bit of genius since Arrested Development. I regularly hear someone’s obnoxious ringer go off in an otherwise quiet setting, and not only long enough to remind them to silence it, but repeatedly as though they suspect they’re the only one that can hear it. If you can’t figure out how to silence your phone, you don’t deserve your opposable thumbs, let alone that device. If your phone rings audibly more than once without you answering it public, everyone within earshot should be permitted to slap you with a rake.

2. Easy as 1,2,3. Long before I was a regular flier, I still took a flight every now and then. And back then (when flying dollars were tight), I was always searching for discounted fares - and so, I flew Southwest long before I had to be wooed with my bag flying free or online self-booking. And while Southwest has always had open seating, their current seating procedure has now been around for over four years (which is longer than the current President, and two thirds of the acts on the Billboard Top 100). This carefully tested process was dubbed “foolproof” by the consultants which implemented it, proving only that they have no idea what kind of fools are flying these days. For the uninitiated, this unimaginably complex process includes the assignment of an alpha-numeric code to each passenger with the letters A,B & C, and the numbers 1 through 60. Impossibly enough, the passengers are then queued by letter (boarding group) and number (place in line) and invited to board the plane and select their seat in order. They truly couldn’t make this any easier if they had written the instructions in crayon - and yet, I see grown men and women look at these letters and numbers as though they are alien glyphs that they can’t possibly decipher. Seriously, if this confuses you, please stay home - because if we crash on a desert island with no food, we’re eating the dumb people first, and that means you.

3. It’s Electric. If you’ve been to a wedding, bar mitzvah, corporate holiday party, country bar or decently-sized birthday celebration in the last thirty years, you have probably heard this song and seen this dance. It’s the Electric Slide, and is commonly done to the Electric Boogie by Marcia Griffiths. In fact, the Electric Slide was first choreographed in 1976! That’s right, this dance is older than you are. Hell, it’s almost older than I am, and that’s saying something. And just like your public schooling, it’s only got 18 steps (well, maybe a few more for some of you - but the same step twice doesn’t really count as two, ok?). But to my point, you probably take more steps than that getting from your bed to your shower, and they’re probably more complicated. However, despite this dance being older than your creepy uncle, and easier than your drunk aunt, I still see people messing it up like it’s some kind of complex tribal rite. Notwithstanding what passes for dancing these days (don’t even get me started on that), if you can’t manage the same 18 steps over and over, you really should stay as far from the dance floor as possible. Seriously, nothing that was cool in 1976 should be even remotely challenging for the modern-day socialite. And yet, I’ve seen this particular dance butchered more routinely than Journey songs at karaoke. No matter what your friends have told you, if you can’t do the Electric Slide, you can’t dance - and the place where you need to be if you’re out, is the bar (where you can show off the Electric Lean).

* * *

It’s not that I’m not hopeful for a better world in 2012, because I am. It feels like we’re waking up from a horrible national (maybe even global) hangover, after spending most of the previous decade partying like nothing could ever go wrong. And like any hangover, no matter how bad it seems, you ultimately come out of it a little smarter and just as spry as you were before. I guess I’m just hoping that we all take the opportunity whilst looking forward to take a brief look back and make sure that before we go trying to build our hopes and dreams, that we’ve got a foundation that includes the ability to operate basic consumer electronics, keep from looking foolish in a basic airport queue, and maybe, just maybe, dance a little bit. After all, what good is being successful if you don’t got the boogie?

3 Holiday Humbugs

2011-12-06T22:48:00.001-08:00

On its face, I suspect this topic will be about as popular as a second William Hung album, but I have strong suspicion that I’m not as alone as you might think. And in interests of just putting it out there without further delay: I hate the holidays. It feels like every year we’re expected to amp up the good tidings and holiday cheer to even more asinine and inhuman levels as some sort of panacea to an ever-more-depressing “real world” (otherwise known as the other eleven months) which appears to be on the brink of crashing down around us at any moment. Doomsday clocks are counting down, international economies are failing more rapidly than kids being videotaped skateboarding and there are so many currently-occurring global pandemics (medical and social) that you have to Google them to keep track. Makes you long for the good old days when there was only one plague at a time. And because we seem to have universally decided that we’ll use December to forget all this horribleness, the holidays have grown much larger than their humble religious roots - they are a pandemic all their own. So, for my fellow Scrooges out there, those out in the open, and even more so for those who suffer in silence, here are 3 things I hate about the holidays:

1. The Loneliest Number. For single people, the entire month of December is a crescendo of loneliness, worthlessness and self-loathing that culminates in a globally-celebrated reminder that you’re going to die alone. If it didn’t know any better, I would swear that they actually truck happy-looking couples into the cities, just to walk around the shopping haunts I normally frequent looking like an endless collection of Eharmony testimonials. Seriously. Because under normal circumstances, Wal-Mart is the most reliable sign of the coming social and intellectual Apocalypse since the Jersey Shore made it to a second season, but during December, there’s more hand-holding and smiling than the couples‘ skate song down at the local Roll-o-Rama. I swear I actually saw a couple holding hands at a gas station this week. C’mon, man! Even the commercial time during my normal televisions programs, usually devoted to beer, erectile dysfunction and hand tools has suddenly got more diamonds than a Joan Rivers jewelry box, and enough sappy love scenes to officially qualify as a Lifetime Original Movie. For eleven months out of the year, I’ve got daily reminders of the terrifically bad idea that it must be to get married or have children (e.g. the skyrocketing divorce rate, the “Real Housewives of Wherever-the-hell“ and the feral children at the aforementioned Wal-Mart), and then, all of a sudden, the calendar turns its final page, and everything looks like a Normal Rockwell Christmas card. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be happy during the holidays on account of me. I’d just rather we all decide whether we’re happy or not, and do it that way all year ‘round.

2. Not In The Cards. To honest, if it wasn’t for Hallmark.com, I don’t think I would have sent a greeting card to anyone in the last ten years. And even then, it’s really only been for kids and close friends on their birthdays. But Christmas cards are a beast all their own - a universal mass-mailing which we have apparently all unwittingly subscribed to as a kind of penance for not keeping in better touch with friends and family during the rest of the year. What’s worse, the entire process has become so corporate that even corporations are expected to send out cards to customers, clients, and other businesses. And so, as I dismiss this practice every year, with the promise that if I ever get married it will have to be to someone who will gladly assume this responsibility on our behalf, I collect these cards in my mailbox like Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons and Val-Paks. Once I do finally get around to opening them, no matter who they are from or the utter absence of any personalized sentiment within them, I post them in my office like some kind of obligatory guilt totem, reminding me every day of what a selfish bastard I am for not wishing people I hardly know a happy holidays with a similarly trite token. Look, it’s never been easier to keep in touch with people, and we’ve never been any worse at it than we are currently. Time is a precious commodity, and I’m often told that it’s the time it takes to send these cards that makes them mean something. For me, I’d rather take that same time and send someone a quick personal note, or (as antiquated as it may seem) actually call them to catch up. Sure, you can’t hang those on your wall, but they also won’t be worthless on December 26.

3. Grown Up Gifting. If there is any demographic that gets a raw deal during the holidays, it’s grown men. Because as a grown man, the only way you’re getting what you really want for Christmas is to buy it yourself - and let’s be honest, that kinda sucks. And please spare me the it’s better to give-than-receive nonsense. First off, getting something you don’t want for Christmas is infinitely more awkward and painful than getting nothing at all; especially if you have to unwrap that something in front of the person who gave it to you. Second, if there’s any group of people who shoulder the “giving” burden, it’s that same group of grown men who definitely aren’t getting that one thing they secretly covet - dads, big brothers, uncles, etc. And while the joy on the faces of those to whom you are fortunate enough to give to is irreplaceable, just try to understand that Christmas is still only half a holiday for us. The problem with grown men and their gifts is that we don’t ever outgrow our toys, our love for toys just outgrows our budget. Trust me, the folks that sell expensive toys know exactly where to find us, and they know full well that we’re not making that purchase until after the new year - but we’ll damn sure be in to get it as soon as the holiday dust settles. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve gotten some great gifts over the years - from people who knew me so well that I didn’t even know I wanted what they gave me until I unwrapped it. But take it from one very serious grown-up toy lover, unless you’ve got that kind of gift in mind - stick to cash and gift cards. You’ll save us both an awkward moment, and ensure that you keep your spot on the “giving” list.

* * *

At 37, I’m keenly aware that I may have fewer holidays in my past than in my future. After all, if the beating I’ve given to my mind and body don’t shut it down before 70, I may be part cockroach. And with that in mind, I’m remiss to want to time to pass as quickly as I did when I was sixteen and in a big hurry to grow up. But all it takes is the horror of the holidays to have me wishing for the weeks to pass by like so much summer vacation. Every year, as soon as the calendar flips over to December (or Brooklyn Decker, if you mark the months like I do) I’m instantly ready January 2nd, and the sweet sting of starting the year with a wicked hangover and a head start on a year’s worth of regret. But if this merriless season of false mirth is good for nothing else, even with the cold, the darkness and the pending return to work, it makes the start of a new year look a whole lot better. Here’s to January!

3 Guy Secrets

2011-10-24T11:07:00.000-07:00

As a general rule, men are extraordinarily simple creatures. We wear our appetites, attitudes and aptitudes on our sleeves so plainly, it’s a wonder we ever fool anyone about anything. There hasn’t been this much depth attributed to something so plainly shallow since The Dark Side of The Moon (or for the younger generation, since the Jonas Brother’s lyrics). If you don’t believe me, just sit down and read Maxim and then Cosmopolitan. One is a glossy appeal to the basest of instincts - an ode to beer, breasts and booze (and how to get more of each), and the other is an intricate web of subtle psychological marketing, advice and abject domestic fantasy which is as confounding as it is charming. As I have frequently argued before, there are two kinds of women in this world: those who have figured men out, and those who refuse to admit it because they’re disappointed with what they found. But despite this nearly universal disclosure of what’s going on inside our heads, we have managed to keep a few secrets; a precious few nuggets that we can hold on to in the face of our overwhelmingly enigmatic sisters. And in the interests of disclosing these last few, for no better reason than to get you to read on, here are 3 of the last great guy secrets:

1. Groomsmen. The hardest look for any man to pull off is the one that looks like we just don’t care. Now don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about the “I haven’t showered” look, or the “I haven’t purchased new clothes since college look” either. No, I mean grooming so subtle that you really don’t notice. And the secret behind that look is that it takes a ton of work. We are forced to do the vast majority of this grooming privately so as to maintain the illusion that we can still get ready to go out in ten minutes, and all of our down time is spent watching sports, playing video games or surfing the web for bad videos and worse jokes. Amongst these secret elements are the following: A haircut that costs more than thirty bucks. No one notices a great haircut, but nothing stands out more than a bad one. No matter how “simple” you think your guy’s hair is, trust me, if it looks good, he didn’t get it at SuperCuts, Fantastic Sam’s or anyplace that advertises with a sandwich board. A hair removal regimen that involves at least two or three different tools, and more than one dedicated shower. You have no idea all the horrible places that hair grows on a man’s body, and you shouldn’t have to. We’ve got trimmers for our ears, nose, eyebrows and armpits, not to mention the delicate work that takes place in the “crotchal region.” A pedicure. Look, I know the idea of us sitting in one of those chairs and being chatted up by a Vietnamese girl isn’t the kind of thing that gets you all hot, but having dirty, calloused and otherwise busted feet is definitely the kind of thing that can prevent it. If your guy has feet that look like they’ve been professionally taken care of - no matter what he says - they have. An outfit which he spent a couple hundred bucks on. It’s not how it looks but how it fits that makes it pricey. That t-shirt that looks like he’s had it for years, and fits in all the right spots? It’s not old, and it wasn’t cheap. Those “casual” jeans - yeah, they weren’t so “casually” priced. And the hip, but not too hip, shoes, belt, jewelry, etc.? You don’t even want to know.

2. The Only Thing We Have to Fear. Guys get a lot of mileage out of being the more fearless sex. Sure, it’s long ago been established that we don’t have the higher pain threshold (i.e. childbirth, menstruation, having to put up with us), but when it comes to bravery (i.e. killing bugs, heading downstairs with a bat if there’s a noise, a hand to hold during scary movies), that’s one of the last bastions of male usefulness (here’s hoping they never start making pickle jars easy to open). But there are some things, no matter how big and bad we might be, that men are afraid of. Now before you ladies go shouting out the answer like that one annoyingly smart kid in math class, turn down the volume on The View and let me let you in on a big secret that you’ve got all wrong: we’re not afraid of commitment. We’re afraid of what comes after commitment. Guys love commitment. We’ve probably been committed to the same sports teams since we were kids, we’re committed to the movies we grew up with (you can tell by how many lines we’ve memorized) and we’re committed to the same music we loved in high school (really, does AC/DC ever get old?). But these things largely remain constant as time goes on, and there’s a realistic chance that you won’t. And I’m not talking about aging. I’m talking about losing-half-it’s-value-as-soon-as-you-drive-it-off-the-lot-like-a-new-car kind of not constant. For every happy marriage that you’re hearing about from your friends, we’re listening to some guy tell us about how his wife’s sex drive dropped like 2008 housing prices before the ink had even dried on the marriage certificate. For every cute baby picture you show us, we have a buddy complaining about how his wife is carrying her “baby weight” when she’s sending that same "baby" off to school for the first time. Trust me, the reason we want to meet your mom is not so that she can cast disapproving glances at us, or demonstrate our excitement at joining your family. We’re trying to get a preview, mentally and physically, of what your future looks like - and whether we want to sign up for it. Look, take Kirstie Alley, who’s 60 and bears a striking resemblance, even facially, to Jabba the Hut - and used to be smokin‘ hot - then take someone like Stockard Channing, who is 62 and could steal your boyfriend from you just by walking into a bar, and who also used to be smokin‘ hot. Back in the 80’s we would have counted ourselves lucky to tie the knot with either of them - and if we were still married to them today, only one of them would not want to make us kill ourselves rather than seem them naked. Now that’s something to be afraid of.

3. Not So Secret. This might be the biggest secret of all, so brace yourselves, ladies. We know a lot of your secrets. I know, I know. It doesn’t often seem like we have any idea. But amongst the many other things we learned from you, we also figured out the power of “playing dumb” sometimes. I mean, let’s be honest, you’re not really that good at keeping secrets. Gossip is like your fifth food group - without it, you’d probably die. And we can’t help but overhear, right? We know about the amazing ability of black stretch pants to hide otherwise less-than-spectacular booties. We know what you’re really talking about in the bathroom with your friends. We know how to tell when you’re faking. We know you don’t like hearing about our ex, but talking nicely about her is one of the few ways we can get back at you without you being able to get mad at us. We know you poop. We know you don’t really want a salad for dinner. We know you told your friends everything - no matter what you said you did. We know ours isn’t the biggest you’ve ever seen - but it’s still nice to hear. We know how you look in the morning, so relax and soak in some bed-head every once in a while. We know how much time you put into hair removal, and we’re still not willing to oblige in-kind (but we’re still very grateful). We know those shoes aren’t comfortable, but we’re still glad you wear them and we know that sometimes it’s just the bra. We know that half the time it takes you to “get ready” is devoted to outfit selection, and believe me, it totally pays off. But we also know that you probably know that we know all of this. Try figuring that one out.

* * *

In the end, a little mystery is good for the soul. After all, it is that glorious and frustrating mystery of the opposite sex which makes relationships so damned fun anyways. If I ever really figure out what’s going on in the mind of women, I’ll probably just spend my days sleeping out of sheer boredom. Perhaps the greatest mystery of all, is why women have such a hard time figuring us out, anyways. Diagramming the male mind seems like the kind of exercise that would only be mildly challenging for the average junior high school student, and even then wouldn’t produce anything overly surprising or impressive (and likely best rendered in crayon). But perhaps it takes that kind of deep-seated confusion to really love us. After all, once you know all of our secrets, we’re really not that lovable after all. And maybe that’s a secret worth keeping.

3 Political Problems

2011-10-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

I have been a registered Republican for nearly twenty years, and in that time, I like to think that I have always maintained at least some kind of interest in the political process. After all, one cannot readily pursue a career in the military, higher education, even higher education and a legal practice without caring about the way the country is run. But the past three years of politics have been like nothing else I witnessed in the decade and a half that preceded them. To put it in the simplest terms, everyone seems to have lost their damned mind, and the rhetoric on even the most banal matters approaches a level of acrimony usually reserved for global, armed conflicts. I have spent a lifetime enjoying vigorous, political debates and now frequently avoid substantive discussions of matters of national importance because the diatribe becomes so instantly caustic and personal so as to obviate any real exchange of ideas and certainly any enjoyment from it. Of course, as many of you know, I can only hold it in for so long. And so, in the interests of damning the consequences and going ahead anyways, here are 3 problems I have with the state of American politics:

1. Simple Is As Smart Doesn’t. Civic administration on any level is a complex and challenging matter. Even the politics of the smallest Texas hick-town are comprised of intricate webs of economic interdependencies, the interests of constituencies and balancing of equities between deserving matters and limited resources. At higher levels, these concerns are rendered impossibly more intricate and difficult to understand, let alone influence. And at the federal level, they require the efforts of thousands of talented, intelligent individuals just to make it run, not to mention improve it. The bottom line is that we need really smart people to make government run and we need brilliant people to fix it. The notion that there are simple solutions to these infinitely complex problems that somehow everyone in Washington D.C. has missed is as dangerous as it is stupid. Mr. Smith has long since gone to Washington, and he’s learned a thing or two. Sure there are things that simple “country” logic can solve, like relationships, misbehavin’ kids and even a cheatin’ spouse. But the things that aren’t on that list include a multi-trillion dollar economy, a massive employment downturn, and an unsustainable interventionist foreign policy. Turning over the government to someone “simple” and stupid to fix it because the current smart guy is mucking it all up is like taking your car to your buddy who took auto shop in high school to fix, because the certified mechanic can’t seem to get it running. No, stupid - you take it to a BETTER MECHANIC!

2. Double Coverage. I remember when CNN was brand new. The evening and morning news, delivered by hyper-groomed and minimally tolerable anchormen and women was no longer adequate to satiate our news appetite and we were given 24/7 access to the news of the world. Whether illusory or not, this news always seemed to be reported with no angle, spin, or slant. It was no-nonsense, just-the-facts-ma’am news - and I liked it. No waiting, no delay. The news when I wanted it. But in the intervening decade cable news has become a cesspool of transparently partisan journalism so bent on delivering a political message as to nearly disregard any commitment to factual reporting. On the rare occasion where new facts are actually reported, they are followed so immediately by the requisite spin that it is difficult to know where the news stops and the opinion begins. And that’s exactly how they want it. The same American appetite for news when we want it has devolved into an appetite for news that says what we want it to say. A national paradigm of ever-greater consumer convenience has given us some extraordinary advances, but has also given us Crocs, KFC’s Famous Bowls, and children’s backpacks with wheels on them. So it should come as no surprise that when the news networks start offering up content that doesn’t require any thinking (where they provide an opinion for you), that we slurp it up like so much dinner smoothie. As for me, I’m reduced to the AP feed online to get some actual news, and some noise-canceling headphones to keep from hearing the shouting on Fox attendant to the volume-makes-right school of thought.

3. The Politics of Hate. Opposition in politics has always been integral to the American governmental process. We have been a two-party system for as long as any of us can recall, and we polarize ourselves along broad idealogical lines by way of identity. The broad platforms of each party seem impossible for any real person to agree with fully, which used to give rise to a majority group we used to call “moderates” who liked a little of each, and usually declared by tallying which side they agreed with most. But yesterday's “moderate” is today’s “flip-flopper”, “hypocrite” or worse yet, “traitor.” Belonging to one party is less about loving that party and more about hating the other one. It is no longer enough to simply think that the other side has got it all wrong, has bad ideas, and doesn’t seem to really understand things. Now, true party members are required to believe that the other side is literally out to kill them, take everything they’ve got and drive the nation into anarchy, chaos and despair. The other party isn’t just wrong, they’re un-American - and if you don’t think so, you might be one of them. The kooks we used to marginalize and simply tolerate as a function of otherwise enjoying our First Amendment freedoms have become mainstream - and woe be unto the person who can look across the aisle and think the other side may actually have some good ideas. The rhetoric used these day so plainly outpaces the intellectual capacity of those using it, it makes me think the only way to really get a handle on this runaway extremism is to require everyone to spell and/or define all the words they’re using (or else, keep quiet).

* * *

The likely misattributed Edmund Burke declaration: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” remains true regardless of its origin. It is the idea that keeps me thinking in an era where ignorance has become a cult and keeps me talking when you’re less likely to find civility in a political discussion than a cute girl at a Star Trek convention. Because there can be little doubt that if the smartest and most intellectually capable amongst us sit back and do nothing, ignorance will ultimately triumph and then we really will be in trouble. It is, after all, that still, small voice in our mind that often quiets the roar of nonsense, temptation and intellectual malaise which might otherwise consume us. Who are we to expect anything differently in the world around us? So here’s to the still, small and smart voices - and those with the courage to keep using them - in the hopes that in our best times, we will all start to listen.

3 Slow Goers

2011-10-12T10:20:00.000-07:00

I don’t know who first said “slow and steady wins the race,” but I’m fairly certain that whatever they were watching was not really a race. These days, everything is timed, scored or rated, and it would be a much simpler exercise to find something that isn’t a race rather than something that is. Whether its how fast you can get to work, how quickly your food is served to you, or how long you have to wait in line - we’re all trying to save a little time, either for ourselves or for others. Time has become the world’s most valuable commodity, and it is in short supply. And while I see this new paradigm reflected almost universally, there are those precious few souls who seem wholly and maddeningly unaffected by it. You know who I’m talking about, those folks who don’t seem to be in any particular hurry, and don’t seem to care too much that everyone else is? I am hard pressed to come up with a class of individuals who more quickly or completely make me want to reach for my rake, and so, in the interests of fair warning, here are 3 slow folks who need to speed the hell up:

1. Luke Slow-walker. It’s not that I can’t appreciate the visceral quality of a nice quiet stroll - I can. But there is a time and a place for those types of walks, and that does not include any shopping locations, transportation hubs or city sidewalks. Basically, anywhere you might have to be around a fair amount of people that you wouldn’t normally choose to be hanging out with. You see, pedestrian traffic, like regular traffic, is a linear system - meaning that I’m not able to go over or under you, I’m (technically) not allowed to go through you, and so if there’s no way around you, I’m stuck behind you. Now I realize that you don’t know I’m back here. I know that because you haven’t turned around to see the look on my face - which is something of a combination of just having consumed some week-old milk and the utter disbelief I’m experiencing from wondering how someone with your complete lack of spacial awareness has survived any number of busy intersections, crosswalks or other high-traffic situations to this point in their lives. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not talking about the infirm here (assuming that we can agree that obesity is not a handicap), I’m talking about otherwise mobile individuals who just seem incapable of the multitasking required to both breathe and walk at the same time. If this is you, maybe just hold off on the breathing for a while and get moving - at least that way there’s a 100% chance you won’t be keeping the rest of us from getting where we’re going.

2. Tipping Point. Vegas is a car town. I used to think that Los Angeles was a car town, but for average quality - you can’t beat this desert oasis. I would say the luxury car per capita around here is somewhere around .5 - or one really nice car for every two people. It’s not uncommon to see a Bentley, Maserati, or Lamborghini just while running errands and nowhere near the Strip. There are also an astounding number of large and fancy SUVs - especially given the extraordinarily flat nature of the city’s landscape. And the one thing these expensive cars all have in common is their exceptional handling. Responsive steering systems, anti-slip and anti-lock braking, and high performance automatic transmissions mean that you can navigate the urban landscape with little difficulty or worry. Which makes it all the more baffling why the drivers here feel the need to turn their expensive cars as though they are 1975 Oldsmobile station wagons. Seeing a car built to take corners at sixty miles an hour take them at three is a head scratcher, and watching a truck capable of literally fording a river go over a lowered curb as though it may collapse its suspension is the kind of thing that makes me wonder if maybe there ought to be a minimum IQ to get a drivers license. Look people, there hasn’t been a car with a reliable tipping risk since the Suzuki Samurai (meep, meep... HI!) so give it a little gas and get around the damned corner already.

3. Checking Yourself Out. The self-checkout lanes appearing at grocery stores and discount chains of late are a wonder of modern technology that would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago. Obviating the need for checkout assistance, you can be prompted through the entire experience - and avoid having to wait in line. What’s more, what the company saves in not having to hire someone to do that job, they can use to pass on savings to you - or even buy more self-checkouts. But what I once thought to be an opportunity to avoid that perilously bad luck I always seem to have in these queues (e.g. getting behind someone who was shopping annually, or paying with coins/personal check), has turned into one of the most reliable indicators of the intellectual apocalypse since the Palin candidacy. Honestly, watching people become confused by the built-for-five-year-olds screen prompts and ultimately paralyzed into some kind of machine paranoia whereby they’re convinced that this technology is some how completely ineffective just because they’re too dumb to use it, is the kind of thing that makes me want to build a bomb shelter and gather enough emergency rations for a few years and just go away - hoping to come back to a world where we’ve just eaten all the dumb people. I feel like Wal-Mart took up my challenge when I wrote “there’s no way that people could move any slower” in one of their stores - and set up these intelligence tests disguised as checkout stands. And as with all failures, the only thing more painful than watching someone fail, is watching them fail slowly.

* * *

Sure, not everything needs to be fast-paced. I like a slow dance, a slowly poured beer and even a slow ride just as much as the next guy. But I also know that the only thing slow and steady has ever resulted in is a very consistent last-place finish. What’s more, if you are one of those folks who either has the means, or simply the lack of interest in life, to keep moving at the same speed of the rest of us - the least you can do is stay out of our way! We’ve got somewhere to be - that isn’t waiting for you. Besides, it’s not like I can’t appreciate the value of stopping to smell the roses every once in a while. Just make sure that when you do - there’s no one behind you (especially if they’ve got a rake).

3 Bully Benefits

2011-09-28T12:03:00.000-07:00

It’s the latest epidemic of choice; championed by celebrities, government programs and televised public service announcements. But it’s not breast cancer, smoking or AIDS. In fact, it’s not a disease at all. It’s bullying. You can hardly watch television, surf the web or even listen to the radio without being reminded about the damage done by bullying and what you can do to stop it. For the profoundly uninspired, they even offer government-approved scripts for determining what to say in bullying situations - distilled down to a political-correctness so pure than you can almost clean tile with it. But as a former victim of bullying, I’m here to say that the government’s got it all wrong. Because unlike the other diseases-de-jour that pop-culture has taken on, bullying isn’t all bad. Sure, back in 1989 as a 4’11” high school sophomore, I didn’t see any good in the inevitable daily beatings I endured - but looking back, I don’t think I’d trade them. Sure, no evil should be allowed to exist unchecked, but as Newton discovered lifetimes ago, each force begets its opposite, and the universe is nothing else if not balanced. In order for there to be champions there must be their foils, and what good are white hats if no one wears black ones? So, in the interests of defending the indefensible, here are 3 reasons we shouldn’t get rid of bullies:

1. Someone to Hate. There are no great parables about the power of hate, the endurance of a vengeful heart, or the strength that can be gleaned from a need for redemption. Even those stories that do highlight the “dark” side of motivation tend to be cautionary tales that teach that nothing good come from these negative emotions, and that true happiness and success can only be found through love, forgiveness and peace. But what about Darth Vader? No, not the wussy Vader that George Lucas foisted on us via Hayden Christensen in the most celebrated neutering this side of Lorena Bobbitt. No, I mean the Empire Strikes Back Vader, the seven feet of badassery and heavy breathing, running-a-spaceship-the-size-of-a-planet while wearing a cape Vader. Pure evil and hate - and totally kicking ass as a result. So what if he gets his comeuppance later on in the story? Don’t we all? What about that whole “it’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all” crowd? Why doesn’t that same logic hold true for hate? Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not a proponent of hate for no reason, disproportionate revenge or love being of no use. But hate with a good reason is a powerful motivator. If someone does you wrong, the desire to strike back is not only natural, it can drive you to extraordinary feats (Daniel Laruso’s gonna fight?). Bullies give us focus, a driving force in a world which not only accepts but nearly encourages our mediocrity. Because between a person that thinks the world has screwed him over and a person that thinks someone else has screwed him over, which one do you really think has it all wrong? And which one are you betting on to do something about it?

2. Survival of the Fittest. Physical strength plays an increasingly small part in our day-to-day lives, as our gentrification has slowly creeped into feminization. The current youngest generation has become so far removed from a good ass-kicking that when you talk about beating someone up, you actually have to clarify that you don’t mean doing it online. If you think I don’t know what I’m talking about, try listening to a teenager talk to an adult sometime. If I would have called a grown-up “dude” or “bro” when I was a kid,I knew my dad would have hit me hard enough to knock a molar out of my head - which is why he never had to. We live in an almost completely consequence free environment, where anyone can mouth off however they’d like, with no fear of reprisal. Bullies are a reminder that no matter how far we may live from the Galapagos Islands, we are still a Darwinian species, and there is a biological imperative that the strongest amongst us do the most reproducing. I would submit that if you haven’t met a kid lately who needed a good beating, you haven’t met a kid lately. Violence doesn’t solve anything? Ha! That’s the way we’ve solved things for thousands of years. The Romans weren’t keen on “talking things out,” and where would we be if the American colonists had simply tried “communicating their feelings” to the British? Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from reprisal if you say something stupid, it just means freedom from reprisal from the government. Bullies are a reminder of the age old saw “no matter how big you are, there’s someone bigger” and its implicit corollary “and if you say something to piss them off, they’ll kick your ass.” Bullies are the natural predator of weakness, and it should come as no surprise that as we begin to kill them off, the weakness will reproduce unchecked.

3. Something For Everyone. The latest childhood obesity statistics are staggering and tragic. Approximately 17% (or 12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese and since 1980, obesity prevalence among children and adolescents has almost tripled. If you don’t believe these numbers, go to your local Wal-Mart during non-school hours. Trust me, after that you’ll wonder why they’re so low. But that notwithstanding, we’ve got a lot more fat kids than we used to - and they’re going to need something to do; something to be. We already know they can’t play kickball worth a damn, and we only need five or so for the offensive line. So what does that leave? Bullying. Bullying is not only the fat kids’ way to exorcise demons, it’s a way for them to exercise, period. What could possibly burn more calories than chasing around the smaller, nimbler kids in a attempt to assert some kind of dominance based on an overactive pituitary gland and poor dietary habits? If you take away bullying, what are these kids going to do - talk out their problems? Look, if talking burned enough calories to keep you thin, I’d never have to exercise (trust me). Besides, in this era of trophy parenting and loving yourself exactly the way you are, bullying finally gives these roly-poly youngsters something to be ashamed of - Lord knows that looking in the mirror isn’t doing it for them. It’s the natural order of things: bigger kids beat up smaller kids, smaller kids grow up to run companies and keep those bigger kids employed in the worst possible jobs. Do you really want someone who can’t reliable control what they toss down their throat controlling an entire company anyways?

* * *

The problem with bullying is not that it exists or that it serves no purpose; it’s that we’ve let stronger instrumentalities into the hands of children - and therefore into the hands of these bullies. When you go past fists and words, you can do some real damage, and no one wants to see that. If we want a crusade - that’s where we should start: no weapons, no unlawful harassment. But learning that bullying is wrong, or on the other side, how to deal with, utilize or rise up against bullying, are important life lessons that children should not be deprived of, just because we think they can’t handle it. Kids are tougher than we give them credit for. Just because they are emotional doesn’t mean they’re emotionally scarred for life. Bumps and bruises heal on the young body just as quickly as they do on the young mind. And these trials and tribulations are just as, if not more, important than the trophies, atta-boys and positive reinforcement that has become unimodal modern parenting. After all, if it wasn’t for bullies, I’d never be the man I am today - which means if I ever see him again I’ll probably want to shake James Richmond’s hand... right after I punch him in the mouth.

3 Twilight Troubles

2011-09-20T21:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I’ve flirted with it plenty of times, but I’ve never really gone ahead and gotten down to it. To be honest, I didn’t really think I had to explain why I don’t like Stephanie Meyer’s idiot-opus - it seemed like the most obvious thing since Clay Aiken’s sexuality. But, it has come to my attention recently that there really are otherwise perfectly normal people who count themselves as fans of this literary abortion - and it’s time to finally lay it down once and for all. After all, can I really include this interminable saga of the ambiguously sexual paranormal into my lexicon of high-level hates (e.g. Miley Cyrus, Notre Dame, Sarah Palin) without its own dedicated column (as all the aforementioned have enjoyed) ? The answer is no, I can’t. And so, in the interest of including the most tragically overrated storytelling since summer camp on my list of things to loathe, here are 3 things wrong with Twilight:

1. Young Is As Young Does. There is a time in our lives where we are ready to cast aside the simple turns of phrase and illustrations of children’s books, but not yet ready to pick up Ayn Rand or Charles Dickens. In these formative years between childhood and adulthood, there was often a dearth of sufficiently challenging yet suitably simple writing. But the birth of the “Young Adult” genre amicably filled this void, giving comfort, solace and the slightest bit of literary enrichment to a sea of pubescence, adolescence and emotional innocence. Judy Blume gave us “Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing”, Edward Packard and R.A. Montgomery taught us to “Choose Our Own Adventures” and J.K. Rowling enchanted a generation with the tale of “Harry Potter.” But while these timeless classics gave us light and flowing prose to probe heady coming-of-age themes, Stephanie Meyer’s stumbling narratives are as clumsy as they are petulant and needlessly brooding and cover the most absurd subject matter this side of Scientology. Ironically, the tone that she is able to capture - not unlike what one might expect in the rambling journal of some teenage goth-emo-punk with enough black in his or her wardrobe to clothe the entire City of Oakland - seems almost impossibly appropriate for her characters. Where Rowling exercised the genre to tell, simply, a brilliantly robust story with themes for young and old alike, Meyer uses it as a crutch - propping up an ill-conceived and impossible story with adolescent themes and a disjointed style that likely reads better as text messages than on an actual page. The bottom line is that most young adult literature is written exclusively for the same generation that can currently make sense out of MTV’s programming and cars shaped like boxes, which ought to tells us how little it should appeal to grown ups. Meyer’s cross-generational appeal is not a cause for celebration, it’s a cause for concern.

2. Not Your Parents’ Vampires. I have never really been a fan of the macabre, so you have to imagine the kind of blasphemous and enragingly absurd depiction of vampires that might actually make me miss how vampires used to be. I mean, if there were ever a moment where Bram Stoker wished he was an actual vampire, it would have to be upon looking down on Stephanie Meyer’s baffling best-seller and wanting to swoop down and suck all the idiot blood out of that barely functioning brain - even if it meant everlasting damnation. There hasn’t been a legend this badly bastardized since Sarah Palin tried to turn Paul Revere into a historical Tea Party crusader. Vampires were creatures of terror and pain; parasites whose dark deal required the regular slaughter of others, and who lurked in the darkest corners of the darkest places. Even in modern times, where they have been reduced to worship by chubby or unpopular teenagers whose need for attention drives them to delusions so great as believe that being abnormal qualifies them to be paranormal, the vampire legend garnered some measure of respect. But no longer. The painfully adolescent Meyer has painted the modern day vampire as a brooding and ambiguously sexual nymph, who looks about as believable in a fight as a baby harp seal. Honestly, if you’re going to paint a character who is immortal and has superhuman strength, why would he have the musculature of a twelve year old Cambodian boy, and the skin tone of Snow freaking White!? I don’t care if he has a mouth full of shark teeth, is dripping blood and is literally flying towards me, I’ve seen Pokemon characters who scare me more than Robert Pattinson. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for things like this - I’m just saying that it’s in their parents basement listening to indie emo albums and putting on each other’s eye makeup.

3. Some Real In My Unreal. I know that books and movies are offered to provide some measure of escape from reality, but they also usually deal with quintessentially human themes - and unless they are pure fantasy, offer some kind of moral/message. And while the Twilight series fails profoundly as artfully-crafted escapism (mostly in the “artfully” part), it fails ever-so-much more where it tries to offer a message. The young girls’ fantasy of non-sexual male love is as timeless as the vampire myth itself, but just as surreal. In these hyper-sexualized times, where teenage girls pattern themselves after reality show vixens, and scantily-clad music video dancers, can it be true that everyone is looking for a little less sex in their love? The Sexual Revolution is older than most of the parents of the teenage generation, and so the notion that only barbaric and ill-mannered men want sex, and that women are creatures of pure virtue and light, who need only love and provide sex only to satiate men is as tired as the skin under Linsday Lohan’s eyes. Feeding this affected morality play to the masses as a “love story” is even more tragic than the story itself. There is nothing heroic about the gay men in a teenage girl’s life, and nothing evil about the straight ones. The notion that love stories that exclude sex are somehow better than those that fail to is as absurd as the women who swoon over “Teen Paranormal Romance” and weep uncontrollably during The Notebook and P.S. I Love You (each with plenty of sex to go around). The desire for sex is not the absence of virtue, and the absence of sex does not purify a relationship, or make it more meaningful. This closing-your-eyes-and-pretend-it’s-not-there method for coping with issues doesn’t work for ostriches any more than it works for the rest of us - and while I can forgive teenage girls for failing to understand this, watching grown women do it makes me wonder if feminism is completely dead.

* * *

Twilight fails on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to begin. Paring this list down to three was not an easy task, as I didn’t even begin to address the feminization of the modern-day leading man, or the wussification of the modern male protagonist in love stories. For all my railing against them, most recent “chick flicks” haven’t really been so bad. I’ve seen The Notebook twice, recommended Atonement to friends, and even got a little weepy during P.S. I Love You. After all, a little romance never hurt anyone, and we all like to see the guy get the girl in the end. But that’s where Stephanie Meyer loses the Y-chromosome crowd - because we simply cannot relate. There is no “Edward” in any of us. He is a wholly feminine character, and even my gayest of friends has never expressed a desire to look pale, thin and constantly inconsolable. And please don’t get me started on the attempt to insert a hyper-masculine antagonist (the less-gay werewolf) who looks like he wears more makeup than my last two girlfriends combined. Twilight as “literature” is as telling of a modern social trend as any, and in historical context will mark an era of intellectual recession even more depressing and irrecoverable than the economic one it parallels. Only this one has a much simpler “bail out” plan. Book burning, anyone?

3 Poor Placements

2011-09-14T18:06:00.002-07:00

If you’re a regular reader you know - it’s hard enough to figure out what to wear, let alone how to wear it. With clothiers peddling even less reliably valuable wares than Hollywood and the recording industry, we can hardly rely on magazines and model to tell us how to get it right. But it turns out that where you put something on your person is just as, if not more, important than what you’re putting on. In fact, you can easily turn something you should be wearing into something you shouldn’t just by putting it in the wrong spot. Of course, we’re not talking about wrong-footing your shoes or sticking your arm out the head-hole. Those obvious mistakes and mis-fits are rarely seen for more than a fleeting absent-minded moment while dressing. No, we’re talking about ways you can put things on, but never, ever should. In these trying times, we must usually rely on our friends to let us know when we’ve dressed ourselves like a punchline. But from the looks of things there are a lot of folks who haven’t got good friends, or any friends at all. And so, in the interests of identifying those folks who could use a hand, here are 3 places to not wear things:

1. Not So Bright. Sunglasses have become as essential a part of the modern wardrobe as shoes and pants. But with this addition to the standard clothing vocabulary comes a timeless paradox: where to put those vital shades when they’re not over your eyes. First: you must take them off your eyes when there’s no direct sunlight. (There is only one exception to this rule - but since you’re not famous, wanted by the government, or working as a covert operative - it doesn’t apply to you.) Now that we’ve cleared that up - where are you going to put your glasses? Given the almost limitless options you’ve got, it might be easier just to go over where you’re not going to put them (well, that is if you’re hoping to retain any sense of self-worth in the eyes of others). They don’t go in the case you’re keeping with you. Who keeps the case anyway? If your sunglasses are that precious to you, you should just leave them in the case all the time and only wear that cheap pair you got from the drug store. They surely don’t go on your face just above your eyes. Whoever started this absurdity is definitely in line for a rake-slapping; as this is only marginally less ass-hattish than wearing them under your chin. They also don’t go on top of your head. Please read that again. Please. I recently saw a television ad for a Las Vegas real estate agent who did the commercial with his sunglasses on his head. I wish I was joking. I wouldn’t let that guy help me buy gum from a machine, let alone real estate. So, what options have you got left? You can’t go wrong with the collar, and there’s always your pockets. You ladies have your ever-present handbag. But if I see them anywhere else, I can’t be blamed for assuming that you’ve got a double digit IQ, a job that requires a name tag and a deep-seated belief that professional wrestling is completely real.

2. Bling-In. There are precious few reasons for a man to wear anything around his neck that aren’t dog tags, an Olympic medal or an award given to you by Princess Leia for saving the Rebel Alliance, and there are none to wear it outside your shirt. I’m half Italian and grew up in an Italian coal-mining town and I still don’t get how anyone could think this is ok. Male jewelry is only thing you can put around your neck that’s even lamer than an ascot. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that neck “mewelry” is gay - because after ten years of cheerleading and ten years in the Navy, I don’t know a single gay man that thinks wearing a chain outside your shirt is ok. In fact, they’re usually more appalled by it than I am. I would truly be more accepting of a man walking around with his zipper undone to display his manhood rather than some cheap gold herringbone chain outside his mock turtleneck. And don’t even get me started on the hip-hop community... because there’s only been one time that a bevy of gold chains has been a reliable indicator of bad-assery, and since Mr T. has long since passed into pop-culture irrelevance, you’re better off showing off your financial prowess with what you’re driving instead of what you’re blinging. Look, maybe there’s something on that chain that’s special to you, maybe you just want to keep it close to your heart. Do us all a favor and keep on the heart side of your shirt - on the opposite side from my gag reflex.

3. Heard, Not Seen. There was a time when a cellular phone was a symbol of status and importance. You either had the means to make calls from wherever it suited you, or were vital enough that you had to be reached at any time. As time passed, and more and more of us obtained cell phones, the smartphone replaced the cell phone as this talisman of wealth and influence. After all, not just anyone could or should have 24/7 access to their e-mail and the information superhighway. But we have finally reached critical mass - and now you can buy a smartphone in a 7-11. What does this mean as far as phone placement goes? It means that I don’t need to see your phone anymore. The belt clip phone case is the new fanny pack. Sure it’s convenient and leaves your pockets free for other sundry items - but who needs all that space when you’ll have the hole left from losing your dignity to store things in? Your phone goes in your pocket or your purse. If it doesn’t fit, your pants are too tight or your bag is too small. If you’ve got the equipment to warrant it, it might even go in your brassiere. But if I can see it while you’re not using it - there’s a solid chance I’ll never need to call it. Additionally, bluetooth headsets are not fashion accessories. At best, they’re legal requirements for using a phone in your car in a couple of states. But if you’re walking around and talking on one, or even worse, walking around with one on that you’re not using - you’re sporting the consumer electronic equivalent of Crocs. And I think we all know how that translates into “value to society”...

* * *

Accessorizing isn’t an easy thing. There are people in Hollywood who get paid to do it full time for celebrities, just to make sure they don’t do it wrong. Unfortunately, not all of them get this crucial help and we’re left without a reliable guide on how or where to wear those things we deem vital to keep on our person. As a general rule of thumb, if something seems ridiculous or awkward it probably is. And just because your friends aren’t saying anything, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. If you can’t find at least two of your friends (i.e. people who don’t see you naked regularly) who affirmatively tell you it’s ok - don’t wear it. If you can find two friends who approve of something on this list: find new friends. Quickly.

3 Music Missings

2011-08-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

There is perhaps no greater indication of the rapidly diminishing social relevance that comes with age than pop music. I am old enough to recall how little sense it made that my parents literally hated the sound of the music I liked, and often compared it to “just noise.” My late mother was so convinced of its utter lack of artistic value that she cited my continuing consumption of this music as the primary reason for believing I was a drug addict (I wasn’t). And yet, a scant twenty years later, I can look upon the landscape of modern pop music with similar disbelief. Don’t get me wrong, I catch a little Top 40 from time to time and actually enjoy it. But on balance, I find listening to most of the forgettable pop churned out by the modern music machine about as enjoyable as being in a Costco on a Sunday (if you’ve been there, you know what I mean). But it’s not just the songs I miss from those halcyon days gone by, but actual elements of the music which were as dependable and familiar as old friends. And so, in the interests of remembering those good friends I’ve lost, here are 3 things that have gone missing in music:

1. “Hoo” Are You. I’m certainly not the first person to note that there may be no genre that has suffered as greatly as R&B from this past decade of musical decline. Once a stalwart of innovation and quality in the industry, recent R&B has been reduced to the mindless crooning of forgettable voices and similar faces, often so formulaic as to make you wonder if they haven’t just given up completely, and are just computer-generating the stuff. In the 80’s, back when you wouldn’t even think of having a slow-dance set without the latest R&B hit, there was one thing which was as reliable an indicator of sincerity as it was of song quality: the “Hoo!” The “hoo” was as essential to R&B as the “Hi-ya” is to karate or the laugh track is to “Two and a Half Men.” It was the punctuation to the perfect lyrical sentence, an impossibly simple declaration of one’s utter coolness - delivered in near falsetto. I can still recall the first time I heard this iconic exclamation (Al B. Sure’s “Night and Day” 1988) and the great difficulty I had (and still have) in trying to reproduce it. These days, when I hear an R&B beat, I can’t help but offer up my own whimpering version, which falls woefully short, and makes me do something I had previously thought impossible: miss R. Kelly. In a genre where made-up words have been substituted for lyrics since its genesis, the “hoo” reigns supreme - and its absence is the most notable since Michael left the Jackson 5.

2. If You Mess With The Bull. With the ever-increasing presence of electronics in music, the vast majority of musical instruments in modern music have been all but eliminated. If it’s not a guitar, keyboard or drums, chances are it’s either not in the song or it’s been synthesized. Of course, I’m not saying I don’t appreciate a good guitar. In fact, a guitar player that can shred is the closest thing I’ve found to clergy, and I would consider listening to Dragonforce my own form of prayer. But that notwithstanding, whatever happened to the horn section? Big songs had big bands and big sounds, and nothing laid in heavier than a horn section. There was just something undeniable and profound about the particular sound of such a group. It almost defied recognition - it was just the music itself. You know what the guitar and the drums sounds like - you can even recognize the piano. But the horns, their brassy glare and subtle entrances and retreats, were the soul of the sound itself. Herb Alpert was more wizard than musician and Wynton Marsalis could play his horn more artfully than any piano has ever been struck. Chicago was not about Peter Cetera - it was about the horns. The horned chorus of Michael Jackson’s Ease on Down the Road has pulled me out of my deepest funks. It is the horn that naturally wakes what is within us, which is why it is so obviously absent from music. After all, they don’t play reveille on an electric guitar.

3. The Band Member Call Out. Much like football has become a sport about quarterbacks, music has become a game of lead singers. Notwithstanding the iconic bands of the past (AC/DC, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Def Leppard, etc.), band members have become utterly replaceable and the lead singer has become indispensable (just ask Van Halen if that works the other way around). Sure you can survive one lead singer change (provided it’s early/tragic enough), but the guys who play the instruments are as interchangeable as the batteries in the wireless mic. This hyper-focus on the front man may explain why, outside of live performances, you never hear a shout out to a band member in a recorded song. There was a time when this was as regular as the bridge itself - a lead singer compelling the solo about to be performed - and it drew you, if just for a moment, into the band itself. When I first heard Brett Michaels call out C.C. DeVille in a song, my rock and roll fantasy was simply to have that kind of raw guitar power at my vocal disposal. As if all I would have to say would be “Mmmmm, guitar!” and a crazy little blonde guy wearing more makeup than my girlfriend would come strutting onto the stage blasting power chords loud enough to melt the faces of the front row. I knew the name of Huey Lewis’ sax player long before I knew anyone else in the band, and Dollar Ben was, by far, the most important member of Morris Day and the Time. Point being, there was a time when a band was a band and not simply an accessory for a singer - and I miss it

* * *

There is a reason that the Rolling Stones can still sell out a stadium and you can’t find two dozen people who want to hear the Jonas Brothers. Because good music is forever and modern music has a shorter half-life than the flavor of Big League Chew. Even the pop music from my younger days, which was designed not to last long, has endured far longer than even today’s most “serious” acts can hope for. Music has never been so much about creation than it is about re-imagining. After all, it’s not like anyone is coming up with new notes or chords. Our artists are left to re-arrange what they’ve been given and to make it their own. But anymore, music studios have become like fast-food kitchens; simply assembling component parts, otherwise already prepared, and turning them out as though they’re “freshly cooked.” As much as anything, what’s missing from modern music are not the sights, sounds and characters of days gone by so much as the little bits of heart and soul that changed it from just music to the soundtrack of our lives.

3 Terrible Two-Guy Times

2011-08-24T07:11:00.000-07:00

With all due respect to James Brown, the last time it was truly a “Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World” may have actually been the 1960’s. For the world to get any more emasculating, everything would have to be painted a fine shade of pink. Honestly, there are more women than men in college, business and law schools - and political correctness has become so ubiquitous that it hardly even requires specific training anymore. We have compartmentalized and contained masculinity to places where it can be regulated, controlled, and guaranteed not to hurt anyone - and even there it’s hardly left to run free. And while most modern men have found a way to brave this new world of hearts and flowers (with much of our dignity still intact) the one thing we haven’t yet mastered is doing it in front of one another. Because, deep down, our masculinity is tied to a competitive order of sorts that really only matters with respect to other men, and in a world where the struggle to maintain any semblance of manhood is a daily one - the last thing we like to do is let a brother-in-arms see us so challenged. And so, in the interests of helping one another avoid these challenging situations, here are 3 awkward situations for men to see one another:

1. The Other Urinal Rule. It’s hardly a secret that the washroom for men is a profoundly less social experience than it is for women. In fact, there are a few unspoken rules regarding bathroom conduct that are almost universal. First, the urinal spacing rule - which is so well-covered as to actually inspire its own web-based quiz game (http://www.funnygames.co.nz/play/the-urinal-game). Second, and far less well-known is the invisible boundary between the “business” area and “washing” area, across the threshold of which, a no-talking-to-one-another rule is strictly enforced. You are almost obligated to engage in some faux misogyny while washing your hands and fixing your hair, if for no other reason than to distract from the primping that you’re doing in the mirror. But once the threshold to the actual “facilities” is crossed, talking must cease. What’s more, all eye contact must also cease because there is no place where the awkwardness between men is more profound than the function area of the mens room. No matter what horrible and unspeakable things happen there (and trust me, horrors abound therein), one does not speak of them until across the barrier - if at all. It’s the closest thing to a P.O.W. camp that one can come across in everyday life, and, as you might expect, there is a similarly strong urge to get the hell out the moment you get in.

2. Manly Pedi. The modern man is the groomed man. Hey, I didn’t say everything about the feminization of society was so bad. And I have to admit, the fact that everyone is a little cleaner is a good thing. Of course, one of the lesser-known grooming standards that has resulted from this trend is that of the male pedicure. Personally, it took me years to be ok with this. I just didn’t see what big deal was about having pristine feet, and I certainly didn’t like the idea of sitting in a nail salon. But, as I got a little older I realized that whatever you could do to make yourself look better naked was a good thing (especially if you were expecting to see anyone else naked) and women pay attention to stuff like how your toes look when deciding whether they’ll ever sleep with you (a decision most of them make in the first 30 seconds - according to studies, and no matter what they tell you). I walked by my first nail salon dozens of times before actually walking in, including having to be coached by phone on my first ingress. I’m not sure what I was afraid of. I suppose it was a mix of (a) being whisked in for a simple toe cleaning and ending up, unwittingly, walking out in full drag, and (b) having all the men I have ever respected in the world walk by the window of the place while I was getting serviced and abandon any shred of hope they ever had for me. As it turns out, neither happened, but the only saving grace was that I was only guy in there (not counting employees). Because as soon as another guy shows up, you are obligated to act as though the entire sublime process is in no way enjoyable and you’re only in there because your girlfriend/wife made you. You will also need to immediately drop the People Magazine you definitely picked up accidentally thinking it was Maxim.

3. Stop, Shop and Roll. Okay, so retail therapy isn’t just for women anymore. Of course, for most men, our particular form of retail therapy is usually satiated by much larger ticket items and gadgetry, and so our therapy sessions are often much fewer and farther between. But on the rare occasion where you do need to shop for anything decidedly less manly, that’s the last place you’ll want to see any other guys. If you keep a close watch on men in a shopping mall, they are either (a) decidedly trailing in the wake of female companion who is leading the expedition (usually with a defeated malaise or minimum-wage stare), or (b) moving with a raptured purpose normally reserved for assassin humanoid robots from the future. In either case, they don’t stop to socialize - and on the rare occasion where their female companion stops to socialize with another accompanied female, they’ll avoid eye contact like junior high-school slow dancing partners. And heaven help you be caught with shopping bags by another man you already know - which is akin to having him catch you in women’s underwear while singing showtunes (which may otherwise explain our purposeful gait if unaccompanied). Honestly, unless it’s the week before Xmas, you’d have an easier time explaining a Miley Cyrus discography and My Pretty Pony collection than a handful of clothing bags on a solo trip to the mall. Trust us, our aversion to going shopping with you has nothing to do with you - we just want to make sure the only guy we recognize there is the one in the dressing room mirror.

* * *

In general, the interactions between men are far less nuanced and dramatic than those between women. We require no intricate recollections, no noticing of new haircuts or weight loss, and no obligatory questioning about our spouses, children, extended family or mutual friends. No, we normally just strike each other a couple of times, say something horribly insulting and try to find a TV showing the game and a cold drink. And so, on the precious few occasions where we lose this simple privilege, its worth taking notice. Ladies, if you're spending time with a man and you notice he’s keeping to himself, take note. Despite what you may think, we are social creatures, who enjoy running with a pack far more than your kind ever will. And in the instance where you see men not talking to each other and looking aimlessly into the distance, you’re probably better off getting him out of there as soon as you can, or at the very least helping him find the game on TV and something cold to drink.

3 Rapid De-Celebrations

2011-08-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

For a nation that seems as perilously perched on the brink of disaster as we’ve ever been, we sure seem to be doing an awful lot of celebrating these days. The celebrations from my younger days averaged about one per month, and only two of those qualified for the receipt of presents. There were holiday meals, but rarely holiday “parties” and more often than not, the occasions were marked exclusively by a card from my grandmother and check for five dollars. But the latest generation of “trophy kids” or Generation W (for Winning), seems to find opportunities to celebrate even the most mundane of events - to the point where even Hallmark has given up on trying to come up with sets of cards to commemorate these otherwise unremarkable milestones and simply lets you make your own. Look, I’m all for celebrating - when you’ve got something to celebrate. But in interests of not commoditizing celebratory events to the point where they’re not all that special anymore, here are 3 things we need to stop celebrating:

1. Grow Up. There comes a time in your life when you should stop expecting people to make a big deal out of the cosmically insignificant day of the year that you were born, and that time is the day after you turn 21. I know you think it’s your special day and that everyone should shower you with gifts, praise and other festive libations, but in reality, it’s just not that remarkable. You’re just getting older like the rest of us, and like the day of your conception, there were no angels singing or signs from the heavens. Nope, your parents were just in the proverbial “mood.” Do you know how many people you have to get in a room before it’s more likely than not that two of you will have the same exact birthday? Twenty three. Yup, that’s it. You can look it up. You had more kids in your home room class. So if you’ve got more than 23 Facebook friends, the fact that two of you share a birthday is not a crazy coincidence, it’s a statistical likelihood. The coming of age is a time-honored tradition that does, in fact, deserve celebration at almost every milestone (except maybe 20 - I mean, honestly, who cares when anyone turns twenty?). After all, there’s not much better than a little kid‘s birthday party. But seeing grown men and women (okay, mostly women) orchestrate extravagant to-dos out of these events is just pathetic. I mean for a gender who seems to fear aging like it’s the Apocalypse, you sure do go out of your way to make careening towards wrinkles and mom-jeans look like fun. And any man that needs this as an excuse to drink should have his man-card pulled. The rest of us just use “Saturday”. So, happy birthday and all, but if you’re expecting more than a card or Facebook acknowledgment, I’m afraid you’re not getting that pony after all.

2. Graduations. There are two real graduations in your life: high school and college. After one, you’re finally heading out on your own, and after the other, you are going to get your first real job. Those are a big deal and there should be a ceremony, a speech, a ridiculous outfit, family members with video cameras, some kind of party and maybe even a nice gift. But you don’t graduate from kindergarten, nor do you graduate from elementary school, middle school or junior high. Honestly, the next day you’ll still be living at home, the next year you’ll still see the same kids, your mom is still doing your laundry and you need your dad’s permission to go out. You don’t graduate from those grades, you just pass them (or for some of you paste-eaters, you barely survive them). If the skill set required to “graduate” from the sixth grade was worthy of ceremony, then we also ought to have still-have-a-pulse parties, didn’t-accidentally-maim-yourself dances, and maybe even the occasional no-felony-convictions-this-year barbecues. Who are we kidding? School hasn’t gotten harder, it’s gotten easier. I haven’t heard of a kid failing a class in a decade and a full sixty percent of children believe they’re in the top ten percent of their class. If school was any easier to pass, they’d have beds instead of chairs in the classroom. Since when is a summer off not enough reward for finishing any grade lower than 12? I love my niece and nephews and I may someday love kids of my own, but there’s a better chance of me reading the Twilight books while listening to Miley Cyrus on my iPod and wearing a TapOut shirt with my Crocs than attending a “graduation” that they can’t drive themselves home from.

3. Non-Firsts. The word “trophy” comes from the from Latin word “trophaeum” meaning "a sign of victory, monument," which derived from the Greek word “tropaion” meaning a "monument of an enemy's defeat.” And what is exceedingly clear from this etymology is, no matter what else you know about trophies, they were never intended to given out for second place. A trophy that isn’t for winning is a monument to your own defeat, and the only place where they should legitimately give out anything for second place (or lower) is the Olympics. Our national obsession with rewarding even the most disappointing and underwhelming performances with their own trophies not only devalues the real winners, but robs those who didn’t win of that harsh sting of defeat which might be just the thing to drive them to a subsequent victory. After all, our love of winners came from the idea that there weren’t very many of them - so when everyone walks away with trophy, what’s the point in working for the “big one”? This is especially troubling with children, who are rewarded for even the most banal efforts with wild praise and physical reward. There should, indeed, be comfort and praise in not necessarily winning everything you try, but giving your best - that is what your parents are for. In the absence of parents, you also have your friends and family - why exactly does there need to also be a trophy? Because the world at large does little, if anything, by way of consolation prizes. At best, you can hope for an opportunity to try again - and even that isn’t guaranteed. The only thing you need to take away from not winning is the perspective it gives you and the lessons it teaches. I’ll take a heart full of that over a shelf full of second place trophies.

* * *

There seem to be so many great instruments of celebration: great meals, great games, great drinks, great gifts. We are nothing else if not the world’s finest purveyors of indulgence. But with that said, it is the restraint to only indulge infrequently that has made us who we are - and the fact we seem to be losing that restraint with each succeeding generation that threatens to kill us. We are the world’s fattest, laziest and most entitled nation - and it’s eating away at our previously insurmountable lead on the rest of the world faster than an Alabama redneck in a Cheesecake Factory. Perhaps if we took a break from celebrating the mundane, handing out trophies for mediocrity and patting each other on the back, we just might get back to the ass-kicking and name-taking that got us this far, or at least keep us from eating so much damned cake.

3 Malodorous Maladies

2011-08-16T10:21:00.000-07:00

After being raised in a conservative household that could only generously be described as tolerant, and a decade-long stint in the military, it’s taken me the better part of my adult life to become a little more accommodating to the views of others. Ok, I know what you’re saying, and you’re right. I’m still a judgmental asshole, but now I’m mostly doing it for laughs, and deep down I think that the differences between us is what makes the world such a beautiful and fascinating place. Of course, this doesn’t mean that I suddenly think that it’s ok to be ignorant, entitled or otherwise ridiculous, it just means that I don’t think you should be euthanized as a result. But for all the moderation I’ve experienced as I’ve grown older, there is still one area where my prejudices are not only as strong as they were when I was a child, they’re actually stronger - and that’s how you smell. It has been proven that our sense of smell is the mostly closely linked to the emotional centers of our brains. After all, what stirs more emotions than the smell of your mother’s cooking, your girlfriend’s perfume, or an autumn breeze in your home town? But just as stirring as those “good” smells are, I find “bad” smells just as infuriating. And so, in the interests of only growing up as much as I have to, here are 3 inexcusably bad smells:

1. Too Much Of A Good Thing. Look, I like perfume. I do. One of those blissfully charming things about the fairer sex is how damned good they always seem to smell. Additionally, I learned the subtle power of a great cologne - to turn an otherwise platonic moment into a fabric clutching, hair-pulling, heavy breathing encounter. But with that said, there a few things that are overdone with more tragic results than perfuming. And the place where I experience it most often is not the nightclub, the restaurant or even the workplace - it’s the gym. First off, why on earth are you wearing perfume someplace where you’re going to be sweating on purpose? Second, old ladies, what the hell? Your perfume should not be able to double as a chemical warfare agent - and I’ve all but been paralyzed after you walk by. You should also not trail a cloud of it like some kind of musky comet. And I don’t want to hear about a diminished sense of smell, because there are just as many old men in the gym, and they’re not slathering on Brut like it’s bathwater. No, this is just old ladies, and while I can appreciate the desire to want to keep healthy as you age (I really can), I’m going to start carrying a Febreze grenade to throw at you if you don’t cut it out. Young girls and guys, you don’t get a pass. Just because I’m still able to continue breathing after your scent onslaught, doesn’t mean I want to. Seriously, if someone can smell you from further away than it takes to be involved in rather intimate congress, you’ve overdone it. Go wash off and start over.

2. Don’t Say No. My father once told me, “Never turn down a breath mint.” Which I used to think was pretty handy advice since I spent most of my youth believing they were candy - but as I grew older I began to realize that the real purpose behind these mints and masks and understood that there was really no nicer way to let someone know their breath smelled like burnt hair and feces than to offer them some kind of temporary cure. Of the many horrible things that have come of a generation of hyper-focused narcissism, one good thing is a nearly universal dedication to oral health. Dental tools, once limited to toothbrush and toothpaste, have blossomed into a cottage industry of hundreds of tools to keep your mouth clean and fresh no matter where you are or what you’re doing. Which makes the odd poorly-breathed stranger that much more inexplicable. Outside of the time it takes you to get from your bed to your bathroom in the morning, there is no appreciably good reason that your breath should smell like your garbage disposal after you’ve cooked Thai food. Outside of admitting that you’ve read any of the Twilight books, nothing will stop me from listening to you faster than being punched in the face by your stank breath. And this is not just a first date thing, either. Just because you’re not going to be making out with someone doesn’t mean they should have to endure you exhaling toxic waste. In the end, it just comes down to one question: would you like a breath mint?

3. Get Funky With It. There is nothing, not mini-van drivers, not inattentive parents, not loud teenagers, not even Notre Dame fans that makes me more instantly and violently agitated than someone with body odor. I cannot conceive of a more inconsiderate thing than failing to effectively wash one’s ass. With the availability of bathing facilities in even the most squalid of living conditions, and the commoditized nature of deodorant products, there is just no excuse. None. I’ve heard this explained as a cultural dilemma, and that I should be accommodating of cultures where regular bathing and/or anti-odor products are frowned upon. And all I can say to that is, bullshit. I don’t care who you pray to. I don’t care how or where you were raised. No matter what you read, even by my own hand, I don’t really care so much what the hell you’re wearing. I don’t care what you believe in and I don’t care whether you want to or not. But if you can’t keep from stinking, you need to be dragged off by men in HazMat suits and given a Silkwood shower in front of your family and friends. It’s subhuman. I don’t care if you’ve cured cancer, built an orphanage in Somalia and given your life’s savings to the humane society, if you stink, you suck. The only acceptable funk in my life comes from George Clinton and the like - your funk is a rake-slappable offense; let’s just hope you’re nowhere near my garage when I smell you.

* * *

We live in a world of olfactory wonder. A nearly infinite array of smells bombard us every day (ever more if you live in New York City), and yet only a few of them are truly awful (again, more if you live in New York City). But bad smells serve their purpose, because without them, how would we know how good our good smells are? To take away these profoundly horrible odors would force us to replace them with some not-so-bad smell just for perspective. Much in the same way the kids at Stanford had to search for a set of “cool kids” in a campus full of valedictorians, orchestra member and band jerks. In fact, bad smells are like Mother Nature’s early warning system, alerting us to stay way, something bad is happening in here. So here’s to you, you smelly bastards, out of scent, out of mind.

3 Fashion Laws

2011-08-09T11:07:00.000-07:00

One of the great surprises of this writing project has been just how many times I have written about clothing. On balance, I’m no more qualified to opine on style than anyone else you might find on the street. I am, however, uniquely qualified in voicing my opinion in the most honest of ways, and since the fashion industry seems founded mostly on delusion, I find my point of view needed sometimes in the most dire way. But like any good logician, I am not content with simply anecdotal remarking, and empirical evaluation. I need rules, axioms and laws that I can apply without passion or prejudice to the fashion choices of others that always produce consistent results - or in this case, things that don’t make me want to claw my eyes out of my head. And so, after careful consideration of these many months of summertime clothing which I have been forced to observe, here are 3 laws of fashion:

1. Why Not Take All Of Feet. I have been wrestling with my own personal revulsion over being bombarded with the sight of nearly bare feet for some time. Because it’s hot outside (and by “hot”, I mean three months of three digit temperatures), there are a lot of feet around. Now granted, I don’t personally understand why this obviates the use of regular shoes. After all, keeping my feet uncovered while the rest of me is bundled up does little to keep me cool, and a pair of shorts and a t-shirt keep me from overheating despite wearing socks and sneakers. But that notwithstanding, I’ve come to this: the only people whose feet I want to see naked are those whom I want to see the rest of them naked. Or to put in plainer terms: gentlemen, shoes on; old people, shoes on; anyone overweight, shoes on. Any questions? Listen, their is no part of the human body which more unapologetically conveys one’s overall health, fitness and grooming standards like their feet - and unless you’re the kind of person turning heads at the swimming pool, do us all a favor and turn your bare feet into some shoes already.

2. Gang Colors. Over the years, nightclubs and other entertainment establishments have utilized dress codes to restrict access to gang members who use clothing to identify themselves and rival gang members. Prohibited items have included certain colors (blue and red), certain items (ball caps and plain white t-shirts) and even certain ways of wearing otherwise innocuous items (sagging pants). But of late, these same clubs have added a restriction to their list - to prevent an even more insidious and worthless group from access - the banning of “TapOut” and “Affliction” shirts to keep out Team Douche. Never in the history of clothing has a brand become more unerringly indicative of an overall absence of redeeming social value than these two. What the white hood is to racists, the screen-printed skulls, crosses and other faux badassery is to chodes. No matter what sort of artistic or stylistic value these brands used to have, they have been completely and irrevocably absorbed by the least desirable social element since street gangs, and the time has come to either take them out of your closet and burn them - or abandon any defense you may have to being an asshat. There is simply no good reason to ever be seen in one of these shirts again.

3. Man Dazzle. As a general rule, it is never a good idea for a man to buy clothes at any store that might be rightfully classified as a “boutique.” Men’s clothing has, until recently, been gloriously simple. For those with refined taste and a similar budget, there was elegant simplicity. And for the rest of us there was regular, old, simple simplicity. Quality notwithstanding, our clothes came in shapes, sizes and colors that just made sense. The only things that were attached to these practical pieces were buttons, zippers and the occasional snap. On the rare occasion you needed something shiny affixed (e.g. cufflinks, tie clip, etc.) it was a completely separate affair. But just when I thought screen printing had reached a critical mass of ridiculousness, someone got out their hot glue gun and upped the ante. Studs, rhinestones and hastily affixed shiny trim began to appear on casual clothing like unwelcome pimples on a questionable complexion. This man-dazzling has turned the previously banal exercise that was men’s laundry into a tag-reviewing mid-term in the myriad wash modes and drying techniques available in the laundry room, and even exposed the dry cleaner to casual men’s clothes. If there is a worse idea than built-in accessorizing for men, I haven’t heard of it. Seriously, this was barely acceptable for Elvis and it most certainly isn’t o.k. for you. If a shirt has anything on it besides a device it keep it closed, you’re better off without it.

* * *

No matter how exhaustively I try, I suspect there will always be an opportunity for me to shamelessly mock what people are wearing. After all, without fashion misses, there would be no fashion hits. But with the pace at which trends are set, obsessively followed and then abandoned, the struggle to keep up has all but eliminated any measure of common sense in the process, and a nation of the tragically hip are left to the wit and whimsy of a few eccentric Frenchmen. Is it really any wonder we end up looking foolish? For me, unlike any other areas of my life where I prefer the cutting edge, I tend to purposefully stay a few steps behind with what I’m wearing. That way I can vet the current trends, see if there’s anything I like, or whether I’ll stick with the time-tested classics that I know and love. After all, they don’t call it “fashionably late” for nothing.

3 Accidental Lessons

2011-08-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, 3 things has been on sabbatical of late; largely as a function of a self-imposed exile to study for the Nevada Bar Exam. The Bar Exam has the same relationship to the practice of law as true love has with ABC’s The Bachelor (or Lord help me, the Bachelorette), and studying for it is a lot like dating in Los Angeles: painful, expensive, and an unbelievable grind just to score something average. But similar to life in Los Angeles, the best part of it is when it’s over, and thankfully, I can finally now enjoy the afterglow of a July spent living like a shut in. The myriad of useless things that one is forced to learn for the Bar Exam is mind boggling. From bits of the Constitution that no one will ever care if you know to lawsuits that will never be filed, my brain hasn’t been this awash in utterly valueless knowledge since I thought winning at Trivial Pursuit might get me laid. It didn’t. But along the way, a funny thing happened, and I actually did learn a few things that not only did I not expect, but that actually might prove useful someday. As you might expect, not one of them was in my prep course syllabus. And so, in the interests of finally being back, here are 3 things I accidentally learned while studying for the Bar:

1. The Live Long Day. For the majority of my adult life, I have had the enormous good fortune to either (a) spend my days doing things that I like doing or (b) spend my days doing things I don’t like doing with someone’s boot up my ass to make sure it gets done. As a result, my days have always seemed woefully short. Just when I start to get up to speed, the sun’s setting, and it’s almost time to reload. I haven’t kept regular “working hours” for as long as I can recall, and if I’m awake, I’m usually trying to squeeze just a bit more into my days. But with a good, solid month to put work aside and try to channel my law-school self, I discovered that when you’re doing something you don’t really want to do and there’s no one there to motivate you - days are long. Like a rush hour trip on the 405 long, Out of Africa long, last-day-of-school-before-summer long. Never has the difference between having to do something and wanting to do something been more painfully obvious. I usually have to be reminded to eat lunch - and usually some time after one in the afternoon. But more than a few times in July I checked the clock three times before ten hoping it was noon. Even more depressing was realizing that there are actually five or six usable hours after dinner (which I had to use for something other than watching Law & Order re-runs and re-mastering Mario Kart). One thing I learned for sure, whoever said that “life is short” was definitely not studying for the Bar.

2. Are You Thinking What I’m Thinking? My regular readers know that I lamented many times over the unwanted changes that three and a half decades (or so) have wrought on my body, but always comforted myself with the corresponding gains my mind has made over the same years. It turns out, however, that not all of the changes to my mind have been as positive as I had hoped. I used to be really good at school. I mean, really, really good. I had a nearly insatiable appetite for classes, homework and tests. I didn’t just have a tolerance for pedagogy, I had a need for it. But in the intervening 15 years or so since I was last truly engaged in academic pursuit, my knowledge of the gap between what you learn in school and what you need to know to be successful has broadened to the point where I have approximately the same amount of patience for classroom-based academic instruction as I have when running a few minutes late and driving behind a minivan in the left-most lane on the freeway (trust me, it’s not a pretty sight). It’s not that the classes have changed that much - white boards instead of chalkboards and laptops instead of notepads, but still the same repetition, outlines, flash cards, practice tests, etc. And I couldn’t be less interested if it were a class on the Neo-Freudian nuances of Sex and the City. I once had the romantic notion that I might go back to school someday - get a Master’s degree, maybe even a Ph.D. I also once suspected I might be a superhero who simply hadn’t located his powers yet. Turns out there’s a better chance that I can fly.

3. Legally Gone. There are a lot of things not to like about being a lawyer, but the absolute worst part of the profession is having to spend time around other lawyers. Of course, I’m not saying that all lawyers are the same sort of insufferably self-absorbed, vastly over-apprised of their own worth and intelligence, shits that give rise to an entire subset of pointed humor and a nearly universal revulsion amongst the public, but it’s a large enough majority to warrant not betting against it. I have been out of the firm practice for over four years, and in that time I had almost forgotten how painful it is to not only spend time around people far enough up their own ass as to nearly come out their own mouth, but to be associated with them. It took me less than a full day into my Bar prep course - overhearing two attorneys talking at lunch - to remember. It was that day I committed to taking my review by video lectures at home, lest I have to endure another minute. There hasn’t been a group of people so poorly over-advised of their social value since the Kardashians, and it should come as no surprise that their patriarch was similarly licensed. I had once hoped that my revulsion to my professional colleagues was born of simply going to the wrong school and working in the wrong city. Nope, we really are mostly assholes.

* * *

In the end, taking the Bar Exam was an instructive process. A reminder of a few important principles that I may have lost in my otherwise focused practice, and of the breadth of knowledge that the public expects from us. It was also instructive on just how long it’s been and how far I’ve come since the last time I sat in a room with that many other JDs. Six years is an otherwise unremarkable amount of time. After all, it took more time to get the education I needed to take the exam, to get from voting eligible to rental car eligible and from puberty to non-virginity (yes, I know). But in that time, I went from someone who had memorized a good bit of the law, to actually being a lawyer; the kind of professional that people entrust with their lives, their livelihood and their future. And while it took this kind of exam to start to figure out that I could do that, it’s going to take a whole lot more than another one to tell me that I can’t.

37 Things

2011-06-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

I should start this off by saying that last year’s birthday column is one my favorite pieces, and so when I thought about how I could possibly top that particular collection of aged wisdom, I was daunted to say the least. But, I’ve also come to realize that, despite all of the schooling (both formal and informal) that I’ve received, I still learn something almost every day. This realization is particularly profound as I continue to suffer through what I can only call as the American Age of the Idiot - where no one seems to be learning much of anything (despite having the whole of the world’s knowledge literally at our fingertips). And so in the interests of marking the passing of yet another year in this extraordinarily strange trip I call life - here we go with a brand new slate of lessons learned, for those who have yet to travel this far down the road to perhaps avoid a similar set of stumbles - or for those who have traveled farther, to reminisce about simpler times, here are 37 things I’ve learned:

The worst thing about reality television used to be how unlike real life it was, now it’s how much like real life it is that makes it horrible.
Driving is like air hockey, most people think they’re pretty good at it, but ninety percent of them just end up flailing around and causing most of their own damage.
The primary difference in parenting between this generation and the last appears to be the amount of noise that will be tolerated prior to any beating.
Peace of mind is never overpriced.
Anything being sold to you by someone you’d otherwise pay to see naked is always overpriced.
Justin Bieber is karma’s way of getting back at us for scaring our parents with Ozzy, Motley Crue and Iron Maiden.
Of all the things that have come “back” into style, none is more baffling than the giant ass (e.g. J-Lo, Kim Kardashian, Niki Minaj) - the 19th Century called, and they want their healthy body image back.
You’re more likely to be taken seriously with a clown nose on than with sunglasses parked on top of your head.
No matter how the other gender inequities stack up, they are all outweighed by profoundly how much less it sucks to get older as a man.
There is only one man over the age of 30 who is allowed to wear skateboard sneakers, and since you’re not Tony Hawk, get yourself to the store and buy some grown up shoes.
No one wants to see your feet.
How do I deal with the heat in Vegas? Well, not having to worry about earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, blizzards, ice storms, hail, humidity or even severe thunderstorms helps quite a bit.
The one thing Facebook has done better than e-mail, phone calls or even real life, is just how easy and effective it has made it to completely erase someone from your universe.
Twitter is the new MySpace.
Rental car companies know something that we don’t: no one under the age of 25 should be driving - and they’re right.
Stupidity is bad. Willful stupidity is worse. Petulant and indignant willful stupidity is the worst - and this is why I both fear and hate the Tea Party.
Despite all the idealogy I’ve been exposed to (willingly or otherwise), researched, or even heard about, the only comprehensive social theory that seems to hold up under any scrutiny is economics. If you want to understand the world around you, put down the Bible and pick up a macroeconomics textbook.
Everyone who really gives a damn about you will give you more than one chance.
When it comes down to choosing between incompetence and crazy - smart people choose incompetence, because at least you can plan for that.
Three things you should never lie about (because the truth is way too easy to find out): your age, your weight and whether or not you can dance.
Becoming a lawyer didn’t make it harder to understand why people hate us, it made it a whole lot easier.
The only great American thing that will never be duplicated overseas is college sports.
That being said, the only things I love more than Navy Football are the people I knew when I was seven.
A bad mother is neither uncommon, excuse-worthy, or an indicator of how I feel about women. It’s just a bad mother - look around, they’re everywhere - and most of us turn out just fine.
The three most reliable indicators I’ve found for when it’s time to completely disregard everything someone says (and just start nodding): reading/defending the Twilight series, believing Sarah Palin is a viable Presidential candidate, and regularly watching Fox News.
The primary objective of my thirties has been to avoid, at all costs, my life resembling a Dockers commercial in any way.
I’m sure I know why we’ve invested young women with the idea that they’re all beautiful, but not so sure why we’ve imbued them with the idea that they should all get paid for it.
A solid rule for plastic surgery: keep the knife away from your face.
In the end, you will get what you deserve - good or bad.
Being older is fantastic, acting older sucks.
No matter how far I go, no matter what I achieve, unless you’re a female, honking your horn at me for any other reason besides my failing to notice the light change is an invitation for me to kick your ass.
Even if you’re part of the world‘s most popular religion, you must believe that over two thirds of the people on the planet are completely fucked. I think it’s much more likely that it’s all of us.
The two least attractive words you can say to a woman at 37: “my roommate.”
Being good at math never got me laid. It did, however, help me figure out just about anything - including why I wasn’t getting laid.
Obese people don’t have a “medical condition” they have a “motivation condition” that we used to call “being lazy.”
Getting older isn’t about wanting sex less, it‘s about sometimes wanting sex less than a really good back rub.
The beginning of any great thing often requires the end of some other really good thing - so here’s to a great 38th year.

3 Great Gifts

2011-06-08T10:18:00.000-07:00

Despite my best efforts wishing to the contrary, my birthday is rapidly approaching, and my trek into the “middle-aged” demographic is progressing past its infancy. To be honest, though, if you’ve got to grow old (and I have it on good authority that you do), it’s really best to do it as a man. After all, the guy from The Most Interesting Man in the World commercials looks like he’s somewhere north of 60, Sean Connery is north of 70, and Hugh Hefner is north of 80, and all three of them will see more supermodels naked this week than I’ll see during the rest of my life. Being an old guy is cool, where as being an old lady means support hose, comfortable shoes and feeding pigeons in the park. But of the few downsides to aging with a y-chromosome, perhaps the most stark is the dearth of great birthday presents after you’ve turned 21. Like most men, my taste in toys runs on the pricey side, and the number of people in my life who like me enough to buy any of them for me runs on the very, very low side. And so, as most birthdays pass, I’m left to buy myself something great. There have, however, been a few presents that have defied this trend; gifts so unexpectedly wonderful that they still give me pause - and make me immeasurably grateful for my friends (and even for my birthdays), and so in the interests of optimism for my many birthdays to come, here are the three best birthday presents I’ve ever gotten:

1. Surprise, Surprise. For as easy as I am to disappoint, I’m really quite difficult to surprise. After two adult careers in leadership and professional advising, I’ve learned to pick up on little hints to put together the big picture - long before it’s obvious. While this type of skill has it’s advantages - it also has it’s downside, in that no one was ever able to successfully throw me a surprise party before the age of 34. It’s not as though I expect or even enjoy a giant to-do being made out of an otherwise nondescript day - after all, once you’re out of your twenties, you’re really only obligated to celebrate the passing of decades rather than years, and there’s a waning joy with each one (until you’re making Willard Scott’s list). But having spent nearly a decade of my own on the left side of the country - where good friends are in vastly shorter supply that good networking opportunities, I found myself wanting for the type of fun that everyone was pretending to have with their “friends”. And so it happened that a very good girlfriend planned a very good surprise party directly under my nose. The ruse was so convincing that I nearly came unglued after passing through the door of the party room at my then-favorite indoor go-kart track. There were a few people there - some true and honest friends, some well-intended absences and a lot of smiles to go around. There will be more birthdays, and more parties, but I suspect I’ll never be surprised like that again, and that will have been my best birthday party ever.

2. Tequila Sunrise. I wish I could say that I turned 21 someplace cool: Cabo, Vegas, New York City, or even someplace with a beach. I wish I could say there was a famous bar, a luxurious downtown setting, or some cool band playing. I wish I could say that there were dozens of my friends helping me ring it in, and some Hangover-style epic story of shenanigans hazily recalled the next day. But I can’t. I turned 21 on the Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base in Kings Bay, Georgia - at the crappy base bar, with all of about twenty people total in attendance, and only one there for me. Sammy T. Wray, USMC, the craziest jarheaded son-of-a-bitch I ever met, and a classmate of mine at the Naval Academy just happened to have the extraordinary misfortune of being stuck in Kings Bay for the only day he’d ever willingly spend on a submarine. Years later I would return to this base as my first and only duty station as a commissioned officer - and come to discover that Kings Bay is affectionately known as the armpit of Georgia, which is a generous explanation. And if you think that drinking in the base bar on a rural submarine base on a Sunday night in mid-June sounds horribly lonely and depressing, you’d be right. But backed by a DJ with a bad mic and a music collection ripped straight from Top 40 radio, the courage that only your first 4 shots of tequila can provide and the support of one very loud shipmate, I had a night that I only barely remember, and a morning that involved my first “strange ceiling” wake up. I’m sure I never thanked him appropriately - so, wherever you are, thanks, Sammy.

3. Up-Chucks. Every once in a while you have a friend who knows you so well that rather than getting you what you want for your birthday they get you something you need. Now, I don’t mean they’re wrapping up household necessities, vitamin supplements or a long-overdue gym membership. No, I mean, they give you something that you never would have found on your own, and that becomes something you can’t possible live without. I usually try to achieve this Zen by giving loved ones their first Apple products - but as I have a house full of those, no one can replicate that particular method. But in 2007, my best friend (and a better friend than I deserve or could imagine) David gave me just such a gift - in a small cardboard box that didn’t have any batteries, wires or screens in it. After having spent eight years living there, and finally making my escape, it could easily be argued that there still isn’t much California about me - but aside from some great friends, the only other thing I took away from the Golden State was a rockin’ pair of Chucks. For the uninitiated, I’m talking the iconic Converse Chuck Taylor All-Star shoe - and my first pair (and the best birthday gift ever) was a black & white pair of low-rise lace ups. Since that day, I’ve bought almost ten more pairs, worn them to everything from weddings to country bars and they’ve become a seminal part of my adult wardrobe. But, I don’t like any of them as much as my first pair - which I’ll again be wearing this year to celebrate.

* * *

Whoever said that birthdays aren’t about presents has never really gotten any good ones. In fact, the best thing about birthdays are the presents. There’s nothing particularly awesome about turning another year older - especially after turning 21; so unless it’s about the cake - it has to be about the presents. But it’s just as important to note that presents don’t always come wrapped. In a world this busy, just the gift of people’s time is precious - and good times and good memories are some of the most enduring gifts you’ll ever receive. Birthdays are milestones in our lives, but if all you have to mark the passage of another year is a higher number to put next to your name - you’re doing it wrong. So, this year, I’m hoping for some great presents - inasmuch as I’m hoping for great times with great friends, because while every poor bastard has to get older once a year, not everyone has all of you to make each year better than the last.

3 Ladies' Laments

2011-05-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

I’ve always said that I’m more a lover than a fighter - but most of those who know me well know that’s really more wishful thinking than anything else. I have a lot more fight in me than I sometimes know what to do with. As a matter of course, this colors everything from my writing to my personal demeanor, from my practice to my personal life. And so when it comes to the opposite sex, while there can be no doubt that I love the ladies - looking on the group as a whole with a mixture of wonder and curiosity - I’m also no more frequently disappointed, disgusted and otherwise disenchanted by any other group of people. So while I would freely admit that women are more intelligent, more mature, and generally more socially aware than us men, it makes those instances where they fail to live up to these obvious advantages that much more shocking and terrible. And so, in the hopes that one of my many lovely female readers can offer me some kind of explanation, here are 3 inexplicable things that women do:

1. Foot Show. There was a time when I truly did not understand that almost genetic fascination that women have with shoes. To my adolescent mind, the variety and volume of footwear that most women coveted seemed useless at best and maddeningly wasteful at worst. But as I grew, I started to get it, and ultimately came to appreciate how much more fantastic a woman could look in the right pair of shoes. Unfortunately, as magic as they might seem, there is nothing in a great pair of shoes that change the way your feet look, and like certain other fashions that are more privilege than right (e.g. miniskirts, bare midriffs and tight jeans) just because you can display your bare feet to the world doesn’t mean that you should. Aside from a few fetishists amongst us, I think we can all agree that the average foot isn’t the most appealing thing. And come on, you know if you’ve got the kind of feet that no one really needs to see. But if you don’t, here are a few simple tests: if your toes point in five different directions, if your heel looks like an overcooked biscuit, if your toes look like they’re grabbing something when they’re not, or if you’re more than twenty pounds overweight - you need to avoid flip-flops, sandals, or any other kind of footwear that’s going to kill the appetite and faith in humanity of anyone unfortunate enough to glance down at your feet. I mean, seriously, it’s cool if you’re big - but when you’re big, the part of you that suffers the most is the last part of you that I want see flaunted in front of me. Do us all a favor and make sure that great pair of shoes you’re wearing out are actually shoes.

2. Aging Gracelessly. Look, it happens to the best of us. We’re getting older. And while I can appreciate better than most, the want - the need - to fight it every step of the way, I also appreciate the value of those who wear their age well. I’ve said many times that while I’d love to have back some of the superpowers of youth that I’ve lost over the years, I definitely wouldn’t trade all the wisdom and grace I’ve gotten in exchange to have them back. Besides, no matter what mass media tells you about the ideal woman being 22 years old, I can personally vouch for that being a load of hooey. All the little things that make a girl a woman are usually found long after the eat-what-you-want days of youth - the way she walks, talks, dresses and even smiles are carefully crafted over years, not gleaned from an issues of Cosmo. But the one thing a grown woman can screw up is not gracefully accepting this fact. Lying about your age is just plain stupid. A year or two doesn’t make that much difference, and anything more than that will be as obvious as the skin on the back of your hands. And dressing like you’re 25 when you’re 35 is pathetic and silly. Which is not to say that you can’t show a little skin, be a lot sexy, or just plain cute - but the word you’re looking for is elegance and you can’t locate it in Forever 21, Wet Seal or Abercrombie. If you’re over 30 and shopping in a place like that, you’d better be with your niece/daughter.

3. Kung Fu Pandering. Women are, as a rule, notoriously good BS detectors. After all, they don’t call it “women’s intuition” without good reason. I’ve stood in front of many a young lady who I was quite certain looked right through to the heart of me. It seems that there is just something in the female DNA that allows for a nearly effortless perception into the motivation behind almost anything. Given all of that, I am utterly baffled by the manner of media that women allow to be peddled to them. And not only do they fall victim to this shameless pandering, on many occasions they actually defend it. Take, for example, the formulaic “chick flick” where an impossibly good-looking, wealthy, humorous and intelligent man falls for the girl next door, sweeping her off her feet, and whisking her away to a storybook life of love and happiness. Despite the fact that these stories couldn’t be any less realistic if they were animated, women flock to these screenings in droves, cry when they’re supposed to, and walk out of the theater lamenting that their man isn’t anything like that. Even worse, grown women - apparently unfulfilled by the offerings of the modern adult romance genre - have adopted a poorly-written young adult offering about transparently gay vampires and werewolves seducing teenage girls as a romantic zeitgeist. And worse yet, I hear women defending this mindless smut as vigorously as they do equality in the workplace and defense against domestic violence. How can it be that women’s intuition seems to be so finely tuned on one hand to reality and yet completely ineffective against fiction?

* * *

For the most part, I’m a big fan of the enigmatic nature of women. It is, after all, that unsolvable mystery which provides us with the lifetime adventure of getting to know one of them, and the beautiful frustration of falling in love. But some mysteries, I suspect, are better off solved, explained or debunked. As we’ve become accustomed to a nearly ubiquitous equality of the sexes, we’ve also become wary of ever leveling any gender-wide criticism - lest we be cast out as a holdover from a time since past. To avoiding this type of criticism against women, men keep quiet, and women are left to police themselves; fixing the problems from the inside out. After all, there can be no protests of “you just don’t understand” when the trigger man behind both barrels of aspersion isn’t a man at all. And so when the familiar lament of women being their own worst critics is raised, perhaps it isn't the problem we’ve located - but rather, the solution.

3 Reasons to Come Back

2011-05-25T09:21:00.001-07:00

As many of you have no doubt noticed, Three Things has been on hiatus of late. The intervening time since the last published piece has been punctuated by some of the most troubling times I can recall, with the majority of my time and effort spent on survival rather than the relatively leisurely task of bringing you three things each week. I have to admit, I thought about walking away - even titled my farewell piece (“3 Final Things”) - and began to walk this project into the proverbial sunset. But with the help of friends, family and the catharsis of good work, I found a reason to turn Three Things back from the abyss, and, at the very least, finish the year we’ve embarked on. In fact, I found three. And so for you, dear and faithful reader, here are the 3 reasons Three Things is back.

1. D-Spite. I’d like to be able to tell you that all the reasons I came back for are positive, sunshiney things; hearts, flowers and puppy dogs that turned my frown upside down and gave me reason to get back to this keyboard. But as a person who has always, at least in some part, been powered by vengeance, anger and spite, I would be lying to paint such a rosy picture. No matter how colorfully it’s painted, at the core of each rant is at least a kernel of hatred, and nothing seems to drive me to action quite like being wronged by someone. And so, it should come as no surprise that both a significant amount of the pending strife and the strength to pull myself out of it owe to someone rather than something. Of all the turn-the-other-cheek style advice that is peddled around to discourage revenge, the only bit I’ve ever found to be true is that success is the best version of it. And all that nonsense about how revenge won’t make you feel any better is ridiculous. Revenge, and especially revenge via success feels fantastic. I’d be hard pressed to come up with a better feeling than letting someone who didn’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t believe in me know that not only did I do great without her, but that I did it because I was without her. And so, in the interests of letting her know just that - I’m back.

2. Laughing to Keep From Crying. You can call it catharsis, but I think that this project accomplishes something both more and less profound. Whether it be me, my age, outlook or whether it’s actually true - we appear to be living in a time of unparalleled ignorance, indifference and indignity. And while May 21st came and went with only a subtle burp from an Icelandic volcano, one might argue that we are trundling through a Second Dark Ages - where the only apocalyptic “rise” is the rise of the purposefully unenlightened. In these dark times, where education has apparently become a tool of oppression rather than a tool to rage against it, those who have retained, against all odds, the ability to reason, logically evaluate and objectively learn, have a duty to keep their voices heard. It would be easiest to hole up in some kind of intellectual compound; walled off from an increasingly paranoid and foolish proletariat in the hopes that their decay into mindlessness ultimately results in some kind of cannibalism (or at least a tendency for self-destruction and/or violent insurrection) and allow the educated few to repopulate the wasteland they leave behind. But because I have not only promised to do otherwise, but as Burke said “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” - I will carry on. Even if my “do nothing” is only to offer a little insight, humor and sanity to a world increasingly devoid of each.

3. For You. Dear readers. For every moment that I have spent staring at a blank screen with a blinking cursor, wondering if I’ve exhausted my inspiration, vocabulary or simply my utility as a writer; for every time I’ve looked back in horror on something I wrote before I thought I knew how to write; for every critic and criticism that makes me want to hang it up; and for every moment I’ve wondered if I’ll ever amount to anything more than just another navel-gazing hack who's better off keeping his musings in a private journal - there have been countless moments where all of you have made it worthwhile. You’ve laughed, cried and ranted right back at me. You’ve praised, panned and passed along the things I’ve written. You’ve been inspired, provoked and pissed; embarrassed, tickled and reminded. You remind me that I’m not shouting into the abyss, because the abyss doesn’t shout back. You give me the greatest gift of this era, with each passing word - your time, and you carry on a tradition passed on from time immemorial by reading my thoughts to inform your own. And because I’ve yet to repay any of you in any small part for all of this - I’ll endeavor to keep trying to do so.

* * *

After over a month spent away from this keyboard, there’s a lot of catching up to do. Thankfully, the world continues to frustrate and amaze me in equal measure, whether I write about it or not - so inspiration abounds, and I suspect I’ll be caught up in no time. I can only hope that in my brief time away, you haven’t filled up the precious few minutes each week that you used to spend with me, with something more entertaining, more blissfully caustic, or heaven forbid, funnier. But on the off chance you have, I’ll make you a deal: if you come back and don’t find yourself laughing, nodding or head-shaking harder than you ever did before, you’re free to go with my blessing and the only good three things to ever come out of a “boy band”: Bye Bye Bye.

As for the rest of you, hold on to your screens - it’s gonna get bumpy.

3 Baffling Bests

2011-04-19T07:55:00.000-07:00

We are obsessed with comparing things. Or more to the point, we are fascinated with ranking them. And as you might expect, in a way only Americans can appreciate, we really only care about who’s number one. The late, great Dale Earnhardt captured our national sentiment best when he quipped “Second place is the first loser.” Even in seas full of talent and excellence, we insist on a winner. Can you even remember who lost the Super Bowl? It was only three months ago, and already we’ve forgotten. We select our bests in countless different ways: secret ballots, tournaments, public voting, mathematical formulas and more, and each of them has its imperfections. But on balance, because of the attention we pay, our highest honors are rarely awarded improperly. The command performance gets the Oscar, the prettiest girl wins the tiara and the best team wins the championship. There are however, those most subjective awards, whose secret selection process in private rooms seems not only fallible, but downright wrong. In this first year of a new decade, I’ve noted more misses than hits, more snubs than locks and more undeserved praise than an episode of Celebrity Rehab. I think you’ll agree, here are 3 questionable bests, and who really should have won:

1. Need You Not. First off, let me just say, I’m a big fan of country music. Say what you like, if you haven’t been to a honky tonk (i.e. country bar), you have no idea what you’re missing out on. And with that in mind, I couldn’t be happier to see country enjoying a popular resurgence. Country music just has a different kind of soul than the rest of the stuff that’s out there. Trust me, I’ve converted more than a few people over to my way of thinking about it. But even with all that, the Recording Academy couldn’t have missed by more when it gave its top Grammy award (Record of the Year) to Lady Antebellum for “Need You Now.” Don’t get me wrong, they’re a great band, and they have some great songs. But that’s no more the best record recorded this year than any of the forgettable drivel expelled by the Bieber/Cyrus/Swift collective. I discovered the real record of the year during a seemingly scripted exchange with a disc jockey at my favorite country bar. “Hey, what was that last song?” “F*#k you!” “Hey, f*#k you, Frank! I just want to know the name of the song!” “No, that’s the name of the song!” “Oh... catchy!” Modern R&B has become so forgettably formulaic that I normally wouldn’t recognize a single track from the entire Billboard R&B Top 100. But Cee Lo Green's iconic track successfully fused post-modern doo-wop, hip-hop attitude, R&B vocals and a sentiment so universal that it nearly obviates the foul language required to express it. This song will be played in every kind of club for decades (take it from this DJ) - and I’m pretty sure the only reason it didn’t win more awards was the watered down “clean” version which took half the fun and all the “pop” out of the real track. “F*#k you” is this generation’s “Baby Got Back” - and will license more cussing at weddings, barmitzvahs and company Christmas parties than bad catering, open bars and “Mony Mony” put together.

2. The English Patience. For the record, having ten movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar is the worst awards show idea since, well, letting James Franco and Anne Hathaway host one of them. Seriously, I’ve seen shades of grey combined to greater effect than those two mooks. It was like watching an open mike night at a suburban comedy club - mostly just desperation and hopeful (albeit disingenuous) applause. But, I digress. Why anyone would believe that there were ten movies worthy of the show’s most coveted award is beyond me, let alone five. But, despite the super-sized slate of films from which to choose, the selection of “The King’s Speech” was already preordained. After all, not only was the film a “true story” (an apparent prerequisite these days - no matter how loosely based on real events the story actually is), but it was also performed in English accents, which has now become Hollywood’s most reliable imprimatur of artistic merit (outside of casting an English actor to not use their accent, except during press junkets). Despite 235 years of distancing ourselves from them (in ongoing rebellion) - it seems that we still look back to the mother country when we start to lose our social direction, all of our art starts to look the same or too many former SNL cast members start making bad movies. “The Fighter” was a better story (and almost got me to forgive Christian Bale for his "Batman voice"), “Inception” was more engrossing (and did get to forgive Leo DiCaprio for Titanic), “127 Hours” was more artful/independent (but still didn't excuse Franco’s hosting performance), and “The Social Network” may have been the only real zeitgeist in the bunch (and completed Justin Timberlake’s transformation from boy-band-member to legitimate artist - ala Marky Mark). Just because something sounds like art doesn’t mean it is - after all, the Best Picture should be something other than the best movie that will someday air on PBS.

3. J-No. As your average red-blooded American male, I have often engaged in a vigorous debate about the most beautiful women on the planet. When I was young, my tastes ran towards Alyssa Milano, Christie Brinkley and pre-ruined-by-hip-hop Mariah Carey, as I got older, I became a little more Jenny McCarthy, Pam Anderson and a touch of Carmen Electra. Then I began to class it up with with Vanessa Marcil, Jennifer Love Hewitt and, on my particularly cultured days, Jane Seymour. Ultimately I’ve arrived at the conclusion that each of them has a claim in their own right, and while the occasional Swimsuit Issue model and Victoria Secret angel may catch my attention, you never really get over the women who first made you feel like a man. That being said, I don’t have any idea what kind of parallel-reality/Bizzaro-world that the editors of People magazine are living in to declare that Jennifer Lopez is the most beautiful woman in the world, but I know that I don’t want to live there. The girl who scans my groceries is more attractive than J-Lo, and I’m fairly confident that it would take three of her (taped front-to-back) to equal one J-Lo sized backside. And spare me the nonsense about “real women have curves”; for one, this is supposed to be about finding The Most Beautiful Woman In the World - do you really want her to look like everyone else? And for another, there’s nothing “average”, “healthy” or “beautiful” about having an ass you can set a drink on. Seriously, what are the odds that the most beautiful female on the planet is married to Mark Anthony anyways? Sure, she can sing - and yes, she’s doing a passable job on the world’s most popular show, but c’mon. With that much make-up and hair, I can look like J0Lo. You know who has curves? Sophia Loren has curves, Catherine Zeta-Jones has curves, Kim Kardashian has curves - what J-Lo has is a giant ass, and the day she’s truly the most beautiful woman in the world is the day I’ll leave it.

* * *

The fact that we get it wrong from time to time, shouldn’t really discourage us all that much. Choosing the best of anything can be a dicey proposition at best, and we are imperfect creatures using our imperfect judgment. However, we should resist the temptation to run far afield of what we truly know to be good or true simply to prove a point or earn the approval of those around us. The world is not a fair place, despite all of our constructs to the contrary. Pretty often trumps ugly, fast often trumps slow, and if we’re lucky, smart often trumps dumb. Working to create exceptions to these rules, however, is not only disingenuous, it also devalues the rare and wondrous occasions when it happens on its own. Underdogs aren’t underdogs if we build the system to favor them. It is just as quintessentially American to love winners as it is to love the rags to riches, bottom to top, last to first story. The American dream isn’t born of staying at the top, it’s about scratching and clawing your way up there, through sheer force of will. What used to be a universal desire to be the best has become, of late, creating bests where they don’t really exist: giving every kid a trophy, refusing to name valedictorians, and letting more and more teams into championship tournaments. But if we’re all the best, then none of us are - and instead of all winning, we all lose.

3 Political Paradoxes

2011-04-12T12:33:00.000-07:00

I’ve never considered myself a particularly political person, and would consider political activism (e.g., picketing, protesting, rallying, etc.) to have roughly the same time efficacy as watching the Jersey Shore, and yet, I have always been unable to escape the matter. Whether it's folks recommending I run, my family inexplicably turning Tea Party crazy, or just the intermittent traffic on my Facebook news feed - politics follows me like a crazy ex-girlfriend. In general, however, I try to keep up. Even as an official member of the “middle aged” demographic (35-45), I make an effort to stay connected to trends in technology, commerce, art, music, business, etc. And to that end, very little catches me off guard. But I don’t have any idea what’s happened with politics. I feel like I’ve been in a cryogenic chamber for 20 years, woken up, and everything’s gone completely crazy. I don’t recognize politics; I don’t recognize the players, the people or the sides. I don’t know when everyone got so mad, and I certainly don’t remember when the stakes went from haughty disagreement to murderous rage. But as I try to step back and take a good look, there remains some confusion - and so as an alternative to the 24-hour news/commentary cycle, here are 3 political paradoxes - that I just can’t figure out:

1. The Wrong of the Right. Up until a year ago, I was registered for my entire adult life as a Republican. It always just made sense to me. I grew up idolizing Alex P. Keaton, and in a country were Ronald Reagan was a modern day Eisenhower. Capitalism went from helping us lead the world to putting us in a class of our own. It was all about making the money and keeping the money. Government was there in the background - but the world was about business, and politics was there just to keep everyone playing by the rules (for the most part). But somewhere along the way, being a Republican became being a conservative, and being a conservative became being religious. In the span of my adult life, the GOP went from Gordon Gecko to Sarah Palin. We started out as captains of industry bent on self-made success, to trailer park, bible thumping mouth breathers who claim they’re the “real” America. Now, I’m no sociologist, but I’m fairly certain there’s never been a successful society who heralded as champions, its 50th percentile - and I’m sure there’s not a successful political party that’s ever done it. My old party, no longer grand in any sense, has become a tyranny of fools - built on the paranoia of ignorance, and shaking its fist at the storied academic halls that bore its greatest traditions. Capitalism has never been successfully navigated by fools, and never ridden to the highest classes by those whose faith outpaces their work ethic. And yet, these are leaders of the modern day right. The Tea Party is the worst bastardization of a good idea since New Coke. And just like Coke, I’ll forgive them for messing it up, as soon as they start bottling up GOP Classic again.

2. Missing the Middle. It might just be a function of my old age, but lately I feel like pulling kids aside and telling them about the good ol‘ days, when there was a big group of people (read as: the majority of folks) who liked a little bit of each party’s politics - though they may like one a little more than the other. When the balance of power transferred from one to the other (as was destined to take place), they endured a little bit of what they didn’t like for a little of what they did. Each party would insist that the other party had it all wrong - but in the end, they’d come together and reach compromised solutions that had the country’s best interests at heart. Unfortunately, just like the disappearing middle class, the political middle has similarly vanished. Being a moderate is now viewed as traitorous and weak-minded. Being non-committal as a voter is just as unforgivable as if it were the politicians themselves. Modern day political participation requires, as a prerequisite, that you choose a side. And by choosing a side, it means you whole-heartedly commit to one, and abandon as utterly without merit, the other. The problem with this idealogical segregation is that it reduces personal opinion on an impossibly diverse set of issues to a single choice. It’s like choosing a college based solely on the mascot - or a house based on how the doorbell sounds. Take it from someone who got the education of a lifetime at a school with a goat for a mascot - it’s better to take a deep look, at your school, your house and especially your politics. I don’t care if I’m the only one there - I‘m stepping back to the middle, feel free to join me.

3. To The Extreme. I can remember when being hard-core into politics meant more than one bumper sticker, a few signs on your yard, and showing up to a rally or two. These days, it means plotting the actual death of the other side’s leaders, likening its proponents to historically evil ideologies and/or spewing rhetoric so caustic that it makes that one crazy uncle you used to have that served in the Army seem like Miss Manners. Incompetence, ignorance and dishonesty used to be capitol political crimes; now they seem like prerequisites. Hyperbole has become the regular language of political discourse, and U.S. Senators now defend the use of completely contrived pseudo-facts on the Senate floor, as necessary to make their point. In a world of nearly universal and constant media bombardment, it seems that we’re remiss to pay attention to anything that doesn’t threaten us (or the world at large) with imminent harm or descent into anarchy and chaos. As a result, every disagreement roils into a high-stakes, life-and-death conflict of wills, that can only really be decided by the death, dismemberment or severe handicapping of the losing party. All liberals are Communists, all conservatives are fascists. The “slippery slope” argument has become the “sheer cliff” argument - where any inkling turns into blinding allegiance. Any failure to disclose turns into a conspiracy so vast and sinister that the JFK assassination seems like a Sunday picnic by comparison. But how can we be expected to keep our cool when the people we elect and pay to have perspective behave more like members of rival gangs than professionals with differing opinions?

* * *

When it comes to politics, I have always been the tolerant sort. After all, it was a recognizably cyclical process, and if you didn’t like the way things were going all you really needed to do was wait, and pretty soon they’d be headed in a different direction. When this whole Tea Party thing started, Fox News lost its mind, and otherwise normal people became convinced that the President of the United States was literally out to get them - I bit my tongue, retreated for a bit and hoped it would pass. But as time has worn on, this movement has not worn out, and I fear that we’ve finally found a way to punctuate the end of the Information Age - with the Decade of Ignorance. There is not much that I fear more than a tyranny of fools - and in that, the fear-mongering set may finally have found a way to get to me to be scared right along with them. But as I’ve often been told, bravery isn’t about not being scared, it’s about being strong in the face of fear. So for my part in this brave new world, despite my aversion to idiocy, I’m fighting the good political fight with the one weapon that appears to be missing from current political battlefields: reason. Wish me luck.

3 Things to Remember

2011-04-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

A wise man once said: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” And twenty five years later, life’s moving a whole lot faster than we ever could have imagined back then. It’s never been easier to lose sight of the forest for the trees, and with more self-indulgent tools at our fingertips than ever before (e.g. Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and even blogs), it’s a wonder we can ever see past our own noses. It is also our nature to focus on the negative, and take the positive for granted. After all, no matter how much good is in our lives, we still seek to eliminate the bad - so it should come as no surprise that we’re conditioned to pay it the most attention. And so with lives full of love, we see the few who hate us, and with lives full of success we replay and relive our failures - daring to call ‘deluded’ anyone who doesn’t similarly commiserate. The gift of perspective is often an unexpected one, and is usually forced to arrive with a good bit of force to jar loose our stubborn tendencies; and I have been fortunate to recently receive it. And while I continue to battle with my propensity for paying attention to the most negative people in my life, I was reminded of those precious few people who really make all the difference in our lives, here are 3 things to remember when you’re busy forgetting them:

1. Someone Looks Up To You. It’s a heady realization - for any of us. Because for all of us, it’s true. We are all role models to someone. When we are young, we look up to nearly everyone; the adult world beyond our reach - impossibly mature, complex and stylized, our more popular and attractive peers - seemingly effortlessly navigating an otherwise suffocating social hierarchy, and those charged with helping us make the transition to adulthood - our parents, teachers and coaches, whose knowledge and judgment often seems infallible. But as we grow and continue to look up, we often neglect to look back down and see who’s looking up at us. Sometimes they are the obvious ones: younger siblings, pupils or children we care for; but often times they are unexpected and even more often go unknown. I recently had someone from my past not only tell me that they had looked up to me twenty years ago - but also, what they thought of me: how I seemed to have it all together, have strong convictions, etc. What struck me about this revelation was not how utterly wrong it was (my life was so tragic it was almost comic, almost), but how horribly I must have acted back then. The idea that anyone would look up to me at that point was so outlandishly foreign that I never considered, in that context, what I said, did or, more importantly, failed to say or do. Self-pity is an ugly and un-inspirational thing - especially when you remember that someone is watching you with those same eyes that you used to look at your big brother/sister, parents and/or teachers with. The opportunity to inspire is as precious as any, and it often takes little more to take advantage of it than recalling that as poorly as you may think you’re doing - someone thinks you’re absolutely nailing it, and prays they can do it just like you do.

2. Someone Misses You. One of the most astounding and saddening by-products of our brave new world of connectivity is just how profoundly alone it makes us feel. I can connect with the people in my life more effortless and robustly than I could even have dreamed just a few short years ago. I can send short messages, long messages, voice messages and even video messages with the touch of a button. I have over five hundred friends on Facebook, and thousands of people will read this. And yet I sometimes find myself as disconnected and lonely as I’ve ever been. We have been presented with a world of infinite connections, and it makes our own limited connectivity feel small and unworthy. We fawn over personalities with millions of “friends” or “followers” and long, enviously, to be known and desired by people we don’t even know. Even those of us who neglect to drink the Kool-Aid handed out by the Church of Fame are guilty of taking for granted of looking ahead at the expense of remembering to look back. We are the product less of the countless people who have touched our lives just for a moment than those special few who changed it immeasurably. And conversely, for the innumerable lives we will only briefly touch, we will deeply affect but a precious handful. As it turns out, in those moments of solitude, if you close your eyes and think about it, it’s not the adoring crowd that you miss - it’s those scarce few who make all the difference. Thankfully, the hole they leave by being gone is best filled by remembering that they miss you, too.

3. Someone Loves You. You’ve seen love. You know what it is; read about it, watched it, and listened to someone sing about it with more conviction than could possibly be faked. If you’re lucky you’ve felt it, but you’ve probably also felt what it’s like to lose it. But, no matter what your experience with love, the one thing that unites us is our universal feeling of unworthiness. We know nothing so intimately as our own imperfections. We know our failures, shortcomings and deficiencies more intimately than our own names - and when anyone sings our praises, a voice inside tells us that they couldn’t possibly have seen all of us, for no one who can see the warts (both inside and out) could love that. I recall believing in my teenage years, as a truth every bit as universal as the sun rising, that I could not be loved. But it wasn’t any more real for me then as it is for any of us now. No matter how wretched, horrible or utterly unlovable you believe yourself to be - someone loves you. Someone can’t imagine a world without you. Someone thinks you're perfect, just the way you are. But most importantly, someone is waiting for you to notice, to feel it, and to feel just as worthy as they think you are.

* * *

It’s so easy to get caught up in the negative, the banal and the downright depressing, as there’s just so much of it around. In this Information Age, the real tragedy is not the flood tide of data that we’re scarcely able to consume but rather that most of this unending flood of information we’re getting is bad news. If you listen carefully you’ll discover that you’re not good enough, not rich enough, not cool enough, not hot enough, not smart enough and most certainly not happy enough. And while I’ve always felt that the one skill essential to becoming educated is the ability to listen, I also know that listening to too much without thinking for yourself will turn your otherwise useful brain into so much strawberry Jell-O. One of the greatest tools we have been given is our memory. Our ability to learn and grow depends on it. But as important as it is to use it for the facts, lessons and skills we’ve acquired over the years, it is even more important to use it to keep those people who matter most close to us, no matter how far away they (or we) get.

3 Roads Not Taken

2011-03-30T17:21:00.001-07:00

I am no Robert Frost. I am not even really a fan of poetry. I find most of it to be self-indulgent and wildly overrated crap. But when it comes to “The Road Not Taken”, I find a metaphor so pure, so true and so unavoidably relevant that I have to give in to it. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” In our prepackaged, fame-obsessed and vicarious society, so very few of us really make this kind of decision once, let alone with a lifetime of choices. And while I make no other claims to an extraordinary existence, I can say that I have really and truly lived this paradigm - consciously or unconsciously - and to my profoundly undeserving benefit. But as I take stock of all the often ill-advised choices, I also think back on the roads I didn’t take, and how, even in hindsight, I am immensely grateful for taking the path I did - as I see where those other roads might have led, and how glad I am not to be there. So, in celebration of my sometimes crazy life, here are 3 roads not taken, and why I’m happy not to have travelled them:

1. Legally Bland. I knew at a young age that I was going to be a lawyer. And the moment I knew it, I knew I would attend law school at Harvard. For a small town kid from Colorado, the storied Boston campus loomed as large as the government buildings in Washington D.C., the epic New York City skyline and Cat’s Lair on Third Earth (hey, I was a dork, what can I say?). It would be the culmination of an academic career to star in my own Paper Chase; to make good on the promises and sacrifice of a youth spent buried in books rather than well, enjoying it. As I muddled through academic institutions where I didn’t quite ever fit in, I found solace in the idea that once on the Crimson campus, I would finally meet kindred souls and settle into a scholarly Valhalla, where I would be welcomed as a champion of my common roots. But along the way, something had changed. I didn’t escape my roots, I became them. My disdain for the blue-blooded entitlement that I subsequently discovered filling the proverbial halls of Harvard grew with a surprising fervor - as I could never shake how it felt to be a young man in a uniform on the east-coast private school campuses I visited. And as I folded up my Harvard acceptance letter to begin my legal education at Stanford, I knew that if I became any part of the self-righteous old-money bigotry that nests there, I’d hate myself just as much as I hated the smug prep-school, popped-collar clowns that I knew it for. Which is not to say that Stanford was a perfect fit - it wasn’t - but whereas I know only a few truly great people from Stanford’s Law School - I’ve never met one from Harvard’s.

2. It’s Not Just A Job. I graduated high school fifth in my class - with a grand total of one ‘B’ in all of my (albeit public) schooling to that date. I was not an athlete, (inasmuch as I would have been more likely to have been struck by a comet than earn a varsity letter from good ol‘ Centaurus High). I was not a leader, and I was not strong. So when I made the decision to abandon my acceptance at Brown and Duke Universities, and my scholarships at Colorado State and the University of Northern Colorado to join the Navy, you would have found a great deal of company were you to conclude that I had, at best, lost my mind and, at worst, thrown my life away. After all, enlisting in the military was not the most cerebral of activities, and it appeared to demand a physical and mental fortitude that I was not even marginally capable of at that point. And yet, there I was, shipping off to boot camp while my friends shipped off to campus. It’s hard to even begin to recall the inanity of my 18-year-old brain - addled with raging hormones, paralyzing social ineptitude and a wildly unfocused intellect - but I do recall knowing, even back then, that I’d never survive college. I understood my own drastic vulnerability - and knew that were I to head off to state school, I would (a) never escape the low orbit that my tragic high school existence has placed me into and (b) fall victim to the first sufficiently seductive thing that I encountered away from home (e.g. girls, drugs, frat life, alcohol, etc.). The Navy was a reset - a new start on a life where my past not only wouldn't matter, it wouldn't even exist. And while the Navy led me to Annapolis, submarines, and the life I have today, I see, annually, a few friends from back then who never escaped similar orbits - or even worse, who ultimately crash landed as a result of them. There were plenty of people who didn’t need the separation, the structure or the restart that I did - fortunately for me, I didn’t follow them down that road.

3. Firmly Wrong. It is the dream of many young law students to begin their practice in a group of tall and shiny buildings on the west side of Los Angeles, known as Century City, where dozens of national and international law firms have offices catering to the business elite of southern California - a stone’s throw from Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive, a heartbeat from the Hollywood hills, and in the center of the glamour of L.A. And after an interesting, if not altogether uneventful, stint at law school, I realized this dream. And not long after, I found it to be a nightmare. The real law firm has no more similarity to the law firms you see on television than real hospitals or police forensics labs to their own televised counterparts. Everyone is not beautiful, everyone is not making a mountain of money; and everyone is certainly not doing the type of interesting work they imagined during their law school days. They are, rather, oligarchies - disguised as meritocracies to extract superhuman work efforts from aspiring young attorneys, in the (futile) hope that they might someday become partners. Unfortunately, the business model has become obsolete, and exists mostly now to prolong its own existence. The types of individuals who succeed in a place like this is a type I like to refer to as “grinders” - those folks who will spend 12-16 hours per day slavishly tending to work, who have little concern with significant outside interests, who have mastered the art of being effortlessly obsequious. Two out of every three dollars generated by these highly trained worker bees is not even paid to them, and yet, they gleefully toil away, safe and secure and using fancy letterhead to feel important. As you might expect, I lasted just about as long in this world as I could manage to hold my breath. While an excellent place to learn the real practice of law - I also learned quickly that you’d have a better chance of striking in rich in an actual gold mine than in these churches of greed and pomposity. And if you’re not going to get rich at a job you hate - it’s probably time to go.

* * *

Of course, for every road I’m glad not to have taken, there is one that makes me wonder what might have been. For every retrospective disaster, there is an open possibility. It is human nature to look back and wonder “what if...” Life is not a series of multiple choice questions with one right answer and the rest of them wrong. It is precisely the number of “right” answers to each of the dilemmas with which we are presented that makes the whole thing so intoxicatingly rich to consider - as there are those who have succeeded (and failed) nearly identically to ourselves, while having taken wildly different paths to get there. But while the line between regret and wonder is a thin one, the distinction is vital. Happiness is not found in the certainty that the path you’ve taken through life has been utterly without error, and we’ve begun to see the impact of an entire generation infused (incorrectly) with that very same notion. In a world where it is increasingly demanded of us to keep our eyes looking ahead, Frost reminds us the simple beauty of looking back - as we are as much where we’re going as where we’ve been. But more than that, he beautifully presents the inescapable truth that we are as much defined by the roads we have taken as the ones we have not.

3 Lessons of Love

2011-03-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

With over three and a half decades of bachelorhood under my belt, you’d think I’d have it completely down by now. The hook-ups, the break-ups, and all the other ups (and downs) in between. But no matter how many times I’ve been down the road (which seems to be more of a circle), there are still lessons to be learned. Interestingly enough, however, while I take great pride in my ability to learn just about anything (outside of foreign language, chronological histories or any type of cooking that doesn’t involve a microwave), I seem to know only marginally more about relationships with the opposite sex than when I started. For every mistake I commit to avoiding, there are countless others lying in wait; and every can’t-miss strategy I come up with seems as doomed as anything dreamed up by Wile E. Coyote and the ACME Company. But despite my inexplicable amateurism and the wasteland that is my love life - hope springs eternal as winter slowly gives way to warmer weather. So, with Valentine’s Day safely behind us and the next big sucks-to-be-lonely holiday a solid nine months out, now seems an opportune time to pass on a few lessons I’ve learned the hard way, in the hopes and that you and I, both, can make much more interesting mistakes in the future. Here are 3 lessons of love:

1. The Six Month Rule. You know in six months. You might know in less than six months, but anyone who tells that you don’t know in six months, knows but just doesn’t want to tell you (or is hoping to change their mind). What do you know in six months? You know if it’s serious, if there might be jewelry or children involved, etc. Or more to the point, you know if it’s not any of those things. Because in six months time, you’ve seen a person on their good days, their bad days, and their really, really bad days - and they've seen you on yours. You’ve seen their morning face (and hair), their hangover, and discovered all of their gastrointestinal habits - and they’ve seen and discovered yours. You’ve seen them naked (well, if you haven’t after six months, you should have left a while ago anyways), and every kind of naked - sitting naked, standing naked, scrubbing naked, etc. - as they’ve seen you. You know about their family (including crazy parents, siblings, etc.), their job, and their luggage - and they know about yours. And all along, you’ve had a lot of laughs, cries and generally good times. But in this time, consciously or not, you’ve determined whether your future could involve that person as a permanent fixture. This is true for all ages - the only difference being, the older you get, the less likely you are to want to or be able to stick around once you know and the knowing isn’t good.

2. The Good Break-Up Fantasy. There is no such thing as a good break up. If things were good, you wouldn’t be breaking up. You’re more likely to ride a unicorn to work on a rainbow than “stay friends” with your ex. Spare me your anecdotes - I know that after time exes can be amicable, and even something that looks a whole lot like friends. But there’s always something a little bit different, a little bit weird, etc. Once you’ve slept with someone, there’s something chemically different about how you respond to them - no matter how advanced or mature you are emotionally. If you want to be friends with someone forever, you’ve got two choices: marry them, or don’t ever be intimate with them - and only the second one is foolproof. Outside of Tea Party rallies, mosh pits and Justin Bieber ticket lines, it’s hard to imagine anything more chaotic and utterly without direction as a breakup. No matter how smart you are - a break up will make you retarded. You’ll say things you’d never say; you’ll do things you’d never do. It’s the closest thing to an out-of-body experience you can have without chemical assistance or dying. Break ups are like band-aid removals - they’re going to suck, so just know that and get it over as quickly as possible.

3. Sexy Isn't As Sexy Doesn't. I consider myself, on a very basic level, an intellectual. I’ve always identified myself as more cerebral than physical and I’ve a lifetime of math grades vs. PE grades to prove it. But no matter how much my mind likes someone, if my body doesn’t want them, there’s no point in going any further. I don’t necessarily like this about myself - but I’ve tried it enough times to know: if you don’t want to see your partner naked on a regular basis, you are just friends. The problem is, my mind seems to have a lot easier of a time falling in love than my body. I know, I know, my body should be able to fall in love every 10 yards in places like Los Angeles and Las Vegas - but if you look closely it’s not so easy. You see in the “pretty” capitals of the world, there’s “pretty” everywhere - but it’s the same kind of pretty, and it feels about as genuine as “reality” television does real. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m all for dying your hair, shooting some Botox or getting a little work done - provided you’re doing it to be a better you. But, I can’t imagine the level of self-loathing required to go to a doctor and pay to actually look like someone else. I’m pretty sure, however, it’s the kind that doesn’t mix well with healthy interpersonal relationships. You can intellectualize it all you want - but if you get to a point with someone that you want to do everything with them except have sex - there’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just not really in love.

* * *

Being a romantic is like being a Cubs fan; in that there will be heart-wrenching disappointment so regularly that you’ll begin to wonder if that’s all there is to it. But then there are those sweet, pure moments of jubilation so profound that they make every bit of the heartbreak suddenly and completely worth it. And even if you later lose a great love, you’ll still have that feeling to carry you through it all again, just to have another shot. For what it’s worth, I am actually a Cubs fan and feel fairly confident that I’ll be married with kids before they win the Series again. But in end, as with baseball, our failures in love serve only to make our successes that much sweeter. After all, anyone who plays the game for real knows that you can’t win ‘em all, and no one remembers the ones you lost once you win the big one. Here’s to opening day, on the season of love.

3 Vegas Vacancies

2011-03-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

As a city, it’s hard to get a lot more cosmopolitan than Las Vegas. In its iconic skyline alone, you’ve got Egyptian pyramids, the Eiffel tower, the Statue of Liberty, a castle, a pirate ship and something that looks a whole lot like the Space Needle, just to name a few. There are now more five star restaurants in Vegas than any other city in the world, and as the entertainment capital of the planet, there a wider variety of things to do here than you can find anywhere else. But despite this panoply of hedonism, recreation and other prurient diversion, there are a few notable exceptions. I know what you’re thinking - there can’t possibly anything worth missing that’s missing from Vegas. And while I have a vested interest in you all believing that Vegas is, in fact, the perfect entertainment destination, I can’t in good conscience omit these precious few vacancies from the Vegas landscape. And so, in the interests of full disclosure, here are 3 things missing from the Las Vegas things-to-do list:

1. Crack Chicken - The variety of food available here in sin city is matched only by the quantity of the same. The birthplace of the all-you-can-eat buffet provides every possible type of cuisine for every possible appetite, and any time you'd like it. There is fast food, slow roast and everything in between. The worlds greatest steaks down the street from hamburgers so bad for you, they’ll inspire a major gastrointestinal event. But there is one chain missing, one gloriously addictive franchise that hasn't found a home in Vegas and probably never will. And thats Chik-Fil-A. Chik-Fil-A is the crack cocaine of chicken. One moment you take a small bite, and the next you've got it smeared all over your face because you couldn’t get it in your mouth fast enough and you’re picking up the remaining crumbs like they’re trying to get away and freebasing waffle fries. And during all this deliciousness all you can think about is when you’re getting your next fix. But aside from brilliant chicken - theres something else Chik-Fil-A is known for, and that's being very religiously conservative. So much so that none of their stores are allowed to be open on Sundays. And while a Chik-Fil-A in Vegas would be a virtual money tree - the “sin” part of Sin-City means you'll never, ever see one here.

2. Crave & Clustered. For a city that makes it's living on people dumping money into machines, there are precious few arcades in Las Vegas. Sure, you can usually find a few video or midway games in a casino’s obligatory family area that seems about as lovingly attended-to as a rest stop bathroom. But in general, unless it spits out money - there just isn't that much video entertainment here. There's GameWorks on the Strip - a Spielberg/Dreamworks backed venture that seemed like a can't miss proposition in the late 90’s when it opened, but has fallen into such obvious disrepair that it makes the buck-fifty per game prices seem like an even worse value proposition than just dumping your money into a video poker machine. What’s more, there are about a half-dozen or so great “family” things to do in Vegas, and outside of that, you’re left to neighborhood playgrounds and movie theaters. For the average teenager, Vegas has about the same number of entertainment options as Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Actually, that’s not true - because Wauwatosa (population 45,599) has a Dave & Busters and Las Vegas doesn’t. Seriously, there hasn’t been something this conspicuously missing since Natalie Holloway. Given the relatively young population of this city, number of young families and dearth of competitive options - this would be the easiest thing to sell here since water. The only thing that Wauwatosa should have that Vegas doesn’t are snow days.

3. Major League Missing. For many, Las Vegas is the sports center of the universe. After all, for many sporting events - especially the currently pending Men’s College Basketball Championships - more people come here than to the actual site of the event. Of course, that’s because it’s one of the very few places where you can bet on those sports to your heart’t content - without dealing with shady bookies, back room betting parlors or off-shore websites. But for all that Vegas means to professional sports, this is the one place you won’t find any major league teams. If you count Henderson, Las Vegas is the largest US city without a “Big 4” sports franchise, and despite the best efforts of local politicians, businessmen and the general population, it looks there isn’t one coming anytime soon. The obvious problem is that these sports, despite its value to them and their fans, do not want to be associated with sports gambling. Point shaving, players and officials on the take and allegations of fixed outcomes have already cast a dark shadow over these sports from time to time - and that’s without a team in Las Vegas. But this ignores the universally accessible truth that is the internet and the fact that you can’t keep gambling out of these arenas unless you expect to keep the fans out, too. When a cesspool of a city like Los Angeles can have five professional teams (and be the only thing I miss about living there) the arguments for not having at least one team in Vegas seem tougher to swallow than an Appleby’s steak.

* * *

For the most part, when you’re in Vegas, you’re not going to want for places to go and things to do, especially if you follow the “three-day rule” about visiting the Strip. But, for those who live here, work here, or spend any real time here, the apparently wide variety of entertainment options start to look like a mile-long buffet serving only macaroni & cheese. Come to think of it, that doesn’t really sound so bad... but that notwithstanding, for all the innovation and talent surrounding the entertainment business here, there are far more people willing to simply slightly modify something they’ve already see be successful than actually trying something new. There’s only so much ultra-lounging one can do before wondering where all the real fun has gone. Here’s hoping it finds its way back to southern Nevada, one very big arcade, very good chicken joint or very exciting sports franchise at a time.

3 Matters of Faith

2011-03-08T23:37:00.000-08:00

As the economy begins its slow turn back towards prosperity and we turn our collective gaze towards a brighter future, we all look for signs of hope, stories of inspiration and ideas to believe in. And despite the incessant fear-mongering that is constantly peddled to us as “news” and the negative commentary and punditry which seems to be shouted from every available media outlet, we are an optimistic bunch. But for all this positive feeling, for every feel-good story of regular people overcoming impossible odds, there always seems to be many more stories, examples, and encounters which not only dispel any notion we might have about social progress, but call into question the viability of our society in general. We clothe ourselves with the notion that we are the most technologically advanced nation that has ever existed - but you have to do little but turn the wrong corner to end up in a Lord of the Flies vignette, where it seems like we have devolved to our most basic instincts - incapable of sustaining even the most basic social constructs. And so, as a counterpoint to all the good you may have been feeling lately, here are 3 places to go to lose whatever faith you have left in humanity:

1. Costco. I’ve never been to Beirut, but I’m fairly certain that the shopping that takes place in its most war-torn streets is the closest thing to the scene at Costco on Sunday afternoon that exists. In case you’re wondering what the battle for food and provisions will be like after a nuclear holocaust and the absence of law and order (the principles, not the TV show, though that will be gone, too - yes, all three of them), you don’t need to go far to see it. Costco reduces shopping to it evolutionary roots, where animals compete with bald self-interest for resources - whether limited or not - neglecting all but the most basic tribal instincts. Because while good manners and even the slightest measure of courtesy are dead at this wholesale hell, the family unit is alive and well. And the larger the family, the more territorial and dismissive they are. Large clans can be seen ambling in an impassible line down limited corridors, pushing along an impossible collection of unhealthy food, and daring the other would-be shoppers to do anything save turn back the way they came. Marginally interested parents shuffle aimlessly down aisles stocked with economy sizes of every possible foodstuff, while their unwashed brood flail and scream around them like spastic little satellites, never once flinching from their lifeless, plaintive stares. Costco isn’t dystopian; it is Dystopia. When the world as we know it comes to an end, I want to be in Costco - because that way, I won’t be able to tell the difference.

2. Airplanes. Normally, when people are forced into tight proximity to one another for common gain, it often brings out the best in them. They are courteous, thoughful, and, sometimes, downright friendly. Unfortunately, this is exactly the opposite of what happens on commercial airline flights. I have written dozens of times about the egregious horrors of airplane behavior, but just when I think I have ranted about every possible transgression, I am confronted by yet another. Loud kids? Loud adults. Elbows on my armrest? Leg fat under my armrest. Body odor guy? Body odor friends. It's as though the price and discomfort associated with air travel has inspired a collective rebellion - collateral damage notwithstanding. I didn’t even believe that noise pollution was a real thing until I started traveling regularly on planes. I have owned the world’s most advanced noise canceling technology, and it’s no more useful against the cacophony of discourteous travelers than sticking my fingers in my ears. I’ve gotten less unwanted contact in a pick-up basketball game than on some flights, and not even constant high-powered ventilation can keep some of the stenches I’ve smelled out of my nose. The availability of air travel to thousands of destinations worldwide represents just how far our society has come, just as the way people conduct themselves in the midst of this luxury represents just how far we haven’t.

3. Small Claims Court. There is perhaps nothing we hold more dear to our sense of the equality of man than our access to justice. No matter the inequities of the marketplace, birthright, or life in general, we are all equal before the law. And there is perhaps no place where this is more obvious than small claims court. In this community tribunal, no lawyers are required (and few are seen), no complex filings are needed, and no knowledge of the law is necessary. With the help of fill-in-the-blank forms and nominal fees, you can appear before a judge and have your grievances heard, no matter how small. Of course, what this universal access intended to be and what it’s turned out to be are two very different things. Instead of a forum for the redress of legitimate grievances, it turns out to be a cesspool of excuses and protest, with little knowledge of the law and a misguided sense that “justice” is whatever means one can pay less than they owe. Waiting in the 2+ hour filing line is an opportunity to hear fringe elements plead their cases to wholly disinterested court clerks and watch all manner of folks try to leverage any technicality to avoid even having to answer a claim. Landlords at their wits end trying to evict non-paying tenants, and contractors trying get any payment on work done. All the while enduring airplane-quality poor manners, and Costco-level toddler tantrums -- it’s enough to make you want to leave the court building and walk straight into traffic.

* * *

Whenever someone tells me “it’s a small world”, I know two things: (1) they haven’t been anywhere near any of the aforementioned locales in recent memory, and (2) I want to hit them with something heavy and sharp. The world is big, and there a lot of people in it. For every great, interesting and thoughtful person you see, there are dozens of mouth-breathing, marginally bathed, poorly-tattooed and ill-mannered miscreants existing for no greater purpose than to be carried along by the tides of polite society. To rise above this rising flood of mediocrity, sloth and dependency requires daily dedication to higher ideals. And those who do deserve our respect just as robustly as those who fail to do deserve our disdain. While watching social decay is initially cause for sadness, it soon turns to perspective and ends up in gratitude - for the wisdom to understand that I have the power and discipline to rise above the noise, the character to have a good laugh at it to save from crying over it, and the good sense to surround myself with like-minded individuals.

3 Dressy Days Gone By

2011-03-01T23:39:00.000-08:00

Of all the trends that have come and gone, and for all the cyclical movements we romanticize with our fatalistic rhetoric only to see them turn around right before our eyes, there is one national movement that is irrefutably spiraling into decline: the casualization of our wardrobes. As the opportunities for increased standards of dress dwindle, so do the occurrences of more gentrified clothing in our closets. The oxfords, slacks, wingtips, dresses and heels of days past have been replaced by t-shirts, jeans, sweatsuits, furry boots and Crocs. We are not only a fatter nation, we are a lazier nation, and the time it takes to don even the simplest items of dress-wear has proven to be a prohibitive inconvenience. Our idyllic visions of recent history are often times no more geniune than the televisions shows from which we derive them - but no matter what the dirty underbelly of our past, we certainly were better dressed. And while there is no shortage of style in modern times (just look at the magazine rack in your local bookstore), there is a shortage of places to acceptably exercise it. In light of that, I present three occasions that need re-dressed:

1. The Sloppy Skies. As hard as it may be to believe, there was a time when air travel was considered a luxury, and people actually dressed up to fly. Airports looked more like churches than bus terminals, and the pilots and air crew were not the best dressed people on the plane. But as the prices of air travel have fallen to the point of nearly ubiquitous access, the proletariat brought more than simply their money and travel plans to the airport, they brought their clothes, too. Today, not even the feeblest attempt at dressing up is made, and the modern day air terminal houses the greatest collection of leisure wear available since the death of disco. Honestly, I think the entire couture sweatsuit industry is being propped up by female air travelers. It’s as though there has been some kind of collective failure to notice that the airport is actually a public place. It’s just house-shoes and bathrobes away from everyone walking around as though it's Sunday morning in their own home. Listen, I know that coach seating is far from opulent, but it’s also not so agonizingly uncomfortable that it obviates the need for just the smallest measure of decorum when picking your clothes. Trust me, if I want to know what you wear around the house, I’ll stop by. In the meantime, stick with pants that don’t have elastic anywhere in them.

2. The Show’s Clothes Just Gone. Theater used to be a magical experience. Whether live or on-screen, we would enter into these elaborately-decorated shrines of seated comfort and dim lighting to be wholly, and utterly without distraction, entertained. And for this privilege, we would dress to match the fanciful nature of these accommodations. Even as styles changed, going to see the show was always an opportunity to look our best - even though we’d be sitting in the dark amongst strangers and all staring in the same direction. The staff of these dedicated show halls were similarly buttoned up - often in something drastically more elaborate than anything the patrons would wear. And even though these same staff members have been reduced to ill-fitting pants and seldom-washed (and never pressed) polo shirts, they are, unfortunately, still the best-dressed people in the joint. The distressingly poor fashion sense of teenagers notwithstanding (certainly a whole separate discussion), if I didn’t know any better I’d think that the front doors to these theaters connected directly to a Wal-Mart (more on that later). It’s as though the predominance of home movies has convinced everyone to dress as though they’re on their own living room couch, and adopted clothing that will accommodate any bodily expansion provided by the livestock-sized portions offered up at the modern concession stands. If sitting for two hours is too painful to endure in anything but pajamas - perhaps it's better you stay home anyways.

3. Shopping Gall. I’ve looked at shopping as a particularly difficult task. Of course, I’m not counting (a) getting anywhere near a shopping mall during the holidays; (b) even thinking about about a warehouse store on a weekend or (c) grocery shopping mid-week. But while those retail occasions are entirely unpleasant - the whole point of me avoiding them if at all possible - they certainly aren’t physically demanding. You know, the sort of demanding that would obviate a desire to dress like an adult - with clothes that button rather than tie-on? It seems, however, that the shopping public at-large finds this otherwise pleasurable retail exercise daunting enough to dress as though they shopped entirely out of the “free” box at a garage sale, a thrift store, or with a $5 maximum clothing budget - per outfit. I remember actually getting dressed up to go to the mall. After all, people were going to see me. Okay, girls were going to see me. Okay, in fairness, girls weren’t going to look at me if I ran by them literally on fire - but hey, I wanted to be ready if lightning were to strike. But now I see people wearing things I wouldn’t even dream of wearing on a late-night prove-how-much-I-care tampon run to the drug store - let alone to a multi-acre, multi-level shopping mall in the middle of the day. It makes me wonder if someone forgot to tell them that these places are, in fact, open to the public. And yes, that’s me laughing at you in your XXL Tony Steward t-shirt and Crocs while you window shop the Gap.

* * *

There is no greater evidence that the primary social casualty or our time is shame than looking at what people wear. We have infused an entire culture with the mantra “who cares what other people think?” And look where it’s gotten us - we’ve turned every public space into a trailer home living room, complete with nearly disposable lounge-wear, a complete disregard for the visual health of others, and our dignity sacrificed so profoundly that the Mayans would be jealous. Comfortism has replaced hedonism as the primary pursuit in our most selfish moments, peddled to us by rock-hard models who we are led to believe spend all their time simply lazing about - rather than spending 6 hours in the gym it takes to get abs you can cut paper with. The comfortistic movement has created the greatest fashion crisis since - well, the currently concluding douchebag era - but hey, it’s still bad. Don’t me wrong, I don’t think one’s clothes should hurt - but when our public paradigms for how we present ourselves become identical to our private ones, the one thing you can count on is a whole lot of uncomfortable.

3 Poor Excuses

2011-02-22T11:08:00.000-08:00

From talk shows to courtrooms, from pulpits to press conferences, its all the rage lately to blame someone, anyone for the things we’re doing wrong. Gone are the days of personal responsibility - we are awash in the days of cause and effect. Depressed? Maybe it’s your job, maybe it’s your diet, maybe it was your parents’ fault. Low on funds? Maybe it’s taxes, maybe it’s Wall Street, maybe it’s those illegal immigrants. Blame has become our national pastime, and its own cottage industry. After all, the talking heads on cable “news” networks aren’t drawing in millions upon millions of viewers with straight talk or advocacy of just “sucking it up” and moving on. No, the most powerful tool of these fear-mongers isn’t terror, it’s redirecting culpability to those unable or unwilling to avoid it. These days we blame with the same reckless abandon we spent with to start the decade - and look where that got us. And just like that spending, most of this blaming is baseless, stupid and unnecessary. Here are few big targets we aim the most at, and aren’t at fault for any of it - three blameless bull’s-eyes.

1. Doctor, Doctor. There was once a time when medical doctors were a type of intellectual royalty; extraordinary men and women who dedicated themselves and their exceptional cognitive abilities to the lifetime of study that would be required to understand and ultimately heal the human body. We looked to them to explain the maladies which took our loved ones before their time, rendered them infirm shells of their past selves, and cast our own continued existence into doubt. Medicine pushed back the dark edges of the forest of life, and kept more of us around the rest of us for longer than we could hope for otherwise. But these days medicine is looked to for dramatically different reasons. Modern medical practice now provides us with the most widely varied set of scapegoats the world has ever known. Every personal weakness and failure, no matter how purposeful or avoidable, has become a disease, addiction or cognitive impairment. Our behavior is no longer our responsibility - we are slaves to ailments and afflictions which can explain our shortcomings, help identify commiserators and (in most cases) offer a chemical solution. As the medical community continues to provide more and more excuses, we seem to have forgotten to be wary of being peddled problems by people who are selling solutions. Love/sex addiction to explain our infidelity; depression induced insanity to explain our violence, food addiction to explain our obesity. I hope that the strongest minds amongst still know, deep down, that all of this is hooey - simply a panacea. Because, if not, I may fall victim to an intellectual-frustration induced stupor during which I may just start slapping people with staplers.

2. The Other Color. It is the most basic of tribal human instincts to look to those who appear differently from us when things begin to seem bleak. Civil wars nearly always divide along racial lines, no matter how subtle. And "race" is not simply about the color of our skin. There are real differences between the tribes that have come together to create the proverbial “melting pot” that we are today. But as times turns towards the less prosperous, we have begun to isolate, congregate and incriminate along those same lines we had fought so hard to erode. Rather than blame irresponsible lending practices, consumer spending, or labor regulation - we xenophobically turn to immigrants to explain unemployment and recession. Rather than blame inconsistent foreign policy, global instability or even the responsible radicals, we lay responsibility for global terrorism as the feet of the world’s most widely accepted religion - because it differs from our own preferred house of worship. Despite having the whole of civilization’s knowledge at our immediate disposal, we prefer to languish in ignorance and trust our fear of the unknown and misunderstood rather than endure even the most basic of educations. It doesn’t make any sense for the potatoes to blame the carrots when wondering how they got into the stew. The fact is, all of the colors are in this together, and the sooner we realize that - the better shot we’ll have at finding out who’s really to blame.

3. The "Man". It always surprises me the number of people who believe the government to be incapable of even the simplest of bureaucratic processes, and who will then ascribe impossibly vast and complex conspiracy theories to that very same entity. On one hand, we decry our professional leaders as disconnected autocrats who couldn’t accurately represent us if we were handcuffed to them, and on the other, we believe them capable of perpetrating massive long-term frauds against us without anyone finding out. We ignore Occam’s Razor with a vigor previously reserved for action movies, Tom Clancy novels and the guy down the street with the tin-foil hat. The truth is that the government is neither as capable or as incapable as we might sometimes like to believe. And as much as we hate to admit it, the government is an accurate reflection of who we are - we simply don’t like what we see. Blaming the government for our social shortcomings is like blaming the mirror for our blemishes. There is just as likely to be a secret “star chamber” where the fate of the world’s governments, markets and peoples are decided by shadowy anonymous characters as there are to be aliens or UFOs hiding in rural New Mexico. Of course, you’re free to believe in both, if you like - just not one or the other.

* * *

Blame is an easy thing to get addicted to. Taking responsibility isn’t pleasant, fun or popular - and despite what you see in the movies, it’s most often completely thankless. What’s more, blame becomes much more seductive when it’s done collectively. Mobs don’t turn on a diverse set of responsible actors when attempting redress against misfeasance - they turn on the simplest, least defensible and most convenient targets. And just because you’re not out in an Egyptian square or Tunisian street chanting slogans or waving signs doesn’t mean you’re not part of a mob. In our hyper-connected world, mobs of millions can be formed with no one leaving their couch or chair - which makes them even more dangerous than the ones in the Middle East and Northern Africa, because they’re even easier to join. But our "blame mobs" are far from the revolutionary uprisings that are changing the face of third world government overseas. No, our derisive and mindless flock gathers to be a part of the one thing a mob will never direct any blame at: itself.

3 Bad Tattoos

2011-02-14T22:53:00.000-08:00

Las Vegas is home to a great many things, and has any number of “claims to fame”, but amongst those you may not know is that it is the bad tattoo capital of the world. For all our glitz, glamour and gentrification, you can’t close your eyes and throw a rock here without hitting someone with a tattoo so horrible that it instantly qualifies them for a psychiatric evaluation. Honestly, I’ve seen more aesthetically appealing bruises than some of these permanently inked disasters. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t hold these abominations against the artists - after all, they’re all just doing what they’re told, and for what it’s worth, they’re excellent executions of really bad ideas. But what continues to baffle me is how the tattoos here are actually more ill-considered than the clothing I see, and the clothing here is already bad. It’s like douche meets slacker chic, and everyone got dressed trying to emulate someone they saw in a TV show about Vegas. And for each fashion horror I see, there’s a permanently inked disaster not far behind. With spring just around the corner, and ever more skin to be on display, a bit of advice as you consider how to irreparably decorate yourself, three bad tattoos:

1. A Tribe Called Messed. Let’s be honest, you don’t have a tribe. You don’t even have three friends who know your middle name and have met your parents. You wouldn’t be Indian if you were riding a buffalo with a tomahawk and a head full of eagle feathers. And yet, you think that getting some massive tribal tattoo is going to somehow increase your warrior cred. C’mon now, painting racing stripes on a car doesn’t make it fast, slapping a steep price tag on something doesn’t make it valuable, and your wannabe tribal doesn’t make you a tough guy - anymore than that Tapout t-shirt or skull ring does. There are at least ten other guys with that same tattoo and eight of them can kick your ass. And don’t give me that line about how “original” your native ink is - just because you have a few more/less lines in a few different directions doesn’t make you the trailblazing “original” you think you are. There’s more originality in an Ed Hardy shirt than in another tribal tattoo. You’re a fake tan and some hair gel away from the Jersey Shore, and would probably get even odds against a group of eight-year-old yellow-belts. Listen, if you’re actually a bad ass, the last thing you’ll have to do is advertise it. Save the tribals for the tribe and try thinking of something original.

2. What’s In A Name? Writing names on things permanently is the sort of behavior normally reserved for urban juvenile delinquents, rural lovestruck teenagers and adolescent girls. And while I can certainly appreciate the risk-laden bliss of painting the name of my true love on a highway underpass or tagging a subway car with some elaborate version of my own cool “street name”, I don’t understand the predominance of names in tattoos. Anyone who is important enough and permanent enough in your life to even warrant that kind of treatment is going to be around long enough that a reminder should hardly be necessary, and anyone who isn’t definitely shouldn’t have their name on you forever. And anyone that insists you get their name put on you is the kind of crazy that won’t even make it to your next birthday. And if you think you need your own name scrawled on you indelibly, you’re probably also prone to referring to yourself in the third person (if you don’t see any problem with that, please put the blog down and slowly back away). A name is a beautiful thing - on paper, on a t-shirt, or even on a wall, but you’d be better off with life-long amnesia than using your body as a life-sized post-it note to remind you who’s important.

3. Not Bad, Just Drawn That Way. For a brief moment (i.e., about a month and a half in early 1994) it was actually cool to have a cartoon character tattooed on your body. It was a blithely carefree response to the “serious” tattoos that had dominated the skin art landscape of the 70’s and 80’s, and there just weren’t too many of them running around. Back then, in a room full of skulls and crosses, it was the guy crazy enough to have a Mighty Mouse on his chest that you might need to worry about. Now, it just makes you the idiot who couldn’t think of anything interesting to get and picked out something from the wall while you were drunk. Seriously, in case you’re wondering what the opposite of “interesting, soulful, creative person” is, it’s “person with the cartoon tattoo.” It would be more creative to tattoo the word “TATTOO” on yourself than to get some comic-strip character permanently fixed to your body. And don’t give me any nonsense about nicknames, that just means your friends have the same creativity impairment that you do - and, do you have any idea how many guys go by “Taz”? Unless you’re actually the creator of the character you’re planning on getting tattooed, leave the cartoons for Saturday morning.

* * *

In the end, our bodies tell our stories with more honesty, sincerity and accuracy then we could ever hope to do with our mouths: from our grey hairs and wrinkles telling of years passed by, to the scars and bumps that recall our mishaps and missteps. Our eyes carry the weight of all they’ve seen and our hands are a log of all the work we’ve done. Every inch of us is every part of us, and the greater our stories, the more beautiful we become. While we do choose most of this story, in one way or another, we never know exactly what will become of our choices, save for the smallest bit. That part, we choose directly, etching images forever on that otherwise distant canvas to punctuate our slow writ sagas with guideposts of who we are and who we were. But despite their minor part, they can tell you plenty about the story they populate. After all, the funny pages don’t tell great stories, and Great Expectations wasn’t illustrated with cartoon characters.

3 Wrong Places

2011-02-11T15:51:00.000-08:00

Well, it’s that time of year again. As winter braces for the coming of spring, we turn our attention from finding a place to keep warm to finding love. We purport to celebrate this instinctual, seasonal shift with that most amorous of holidays, Valentine’s Day. Of course, despite its lofty intentions as a commemoration of romance and love, it has turned into two very distinct and unenjoyable anniversaries. For those of us fortunate enough to have someone special with which to observe the occasion, it is an annual evaluation of the strength of our conviction - as measured by the quality, thoughtfulness, etc. of the gift we choose to give that partner. And for those of us who don’t have a significant other in our lives, it is a yearly reminder: that we’ve yet to be able to groom ourselves into a suitable companion for anyone, that we’re really missing out on life by being alone, and that we’ll probably die that way. For this lonely crowd, Valentine’s Day is a solemn occasion that often inspires sequestering one’s self away from public view, so as to avoid seeing happy couples or imposing the horror of one’s abject solitude on those same loving folks. But for the brave few, it can be inspiration to renew the effort to locate that elusive soul mate, that perfect partner, or just someone to share a meal with from time to time. This search, however, can be fouled from the beginning, simply by choosing the wrong venue - and so, just in time for V-Day, here are 3 locations where you shouldn’t go looking for love:

1. Don’t Sweat The Lonely. Sure, it makes sense on paper. You’re fitness minded and you’d like to meet someone else who’s fitness-inclined. It only makes sense that the gym would be a great place to find just those kind of people and make a connection, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. You’d look less creepy parking a windowless van next to a playground than trying to hit on someone in a gym. There’s simply no way to execute that maneuver without looking like some sort of sexual predator. Seriously, I’ve seen less “smarm” at a hookah bar on a Saturday night than during “rush hour” at the gym. In fairness, there are some people at the gym who look more appropriately dressed for social hour than any actually sweating, but the palpable air of desperation coming off them is worse than any sort of real stink they might emit. I mean, what sort of line are you going to open with? The you-want-me-to-show-you-how -to-do-that? The do-you-need-a-spot? Or maybe the timeless haven’t-I-seen-you-here-before? You basically have to choose between lines that sound like they’re from a bad 70’s porn script or lines that sound like they’re from a bad 90’s sitcom. Want to meet someone where you can tell what kind of shape they’re in? Try the beach (or the pool), and leave the gym for exercising something other than your poor judgment.

2. It’ll Never Work. Unless you’re independently wealthy, or have parents who are, you spend the overwhelming majority of your time at work. You’re there early; you’re there late, and no matter how much you try and resist or hate to admit it, it’s a big part of your life. And despite the fact that your workplace is mostly populated by people you’d never spend any time with if it wasn’t for working together - you’ll see more of those people than almost anyone else you know. It’s only natural that you’ll look for, and maybe even start to find, friends there. And once you’ve gone there, it’s not too much further to start looking for romantic connections. Of course this will be the worst idea you’ve had since that shaving cream and streaking incident in college. Honestly, dating someone at work is like keeping reminders of all your mistakes in little frames on your desk, or sending yourself a daily reminder by e-mail of something stupid you did a few months ago. Not even the guys who write the Saw movies can dream up that kind of inescapable horror. Trust me, you’re better off taking a sledgehammer to the groin than engaging in a workplace romance - at least the crotch shot is temporary pain. Here’s the thing, honestly, most of your relationships end quickly and badly, and the ability to escape the offending partner is essential for survival of these unseemly events. But, if you could afford to leave work - you probably wouldn't be there. So unless the person is worth losing your job (or your sanity) over - don’t work it where you work.

3. Friends’ Friends. Your friends have the best intentions. They want you to be happy and they know you better than most anyone. They’re willing to go to great lengths to try to find you potential partners, and they are almost invariably terrible at it. If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a small group of people who sometimes know you better than you know yourself - which makes their complete and utter failure in selecting potential mates for you all the more inexplicable. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve had friends set me up, but I can count the number of times it’s worked out even marginally well. Well, does one really “count” to zero? Trust me, if you haven’t discovered this already, you’d be better off picking potential partners with a phone book and a dartboard. You don’t let your friends order food for you at a restaurant, you don’t let them pick out your toiletries, and you don’t let them set you up. The point is, some things are personal and there’s really no substitute for picking them yourself. Good intentions and poor deliveries are the stuff of fantastically awkward moments and even more fantastic stories, but a whole lot more painful when it involves romance (or attempted romance). If you want your friends to pick something intimate for you, offer up your nose - at least that way you’re just a good sneeze away from making it all go away.

* * *

The real problem with looking for love is that it’s just the sort of thing you can’t ever find by looking. Of course, this little nugget of advice is usually offered up to single people by their nauseatingly happy friends, which makes it seem trite and useless (and makes you want slap them with something sharp), but nonetheless, it’s true. This does not mean you can play video games in your underwear in your parents’ basement, or watch “The Notebook” and “P.S. I Love You” while plowing through a gallon of Haagen-Daaz and expect to meet the love of your life. No, those things will just as reliably guarantee perpetual solitude as looking for a partner at the three places above. Rather, you’ll find that while simply living your life and enjoying your friends, the strangest and most wonderful things will happen. From these things come the stories, friends and, most importantly, the loves that make up our lives. And that’s something we can celebrate every day, and not just February 14th. Happy hunting, all!

3 Purposeless Pitches

2011-02-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

Despite the near blasphemy that it constitutes, I’ll admit it. I’m going to be watching this Super Bowl this Sunday mostly for the commercials. As the year’s greatest sporting event gathers the year’s largest collection of committed eyeballs, the world’s advertisers are once again remiss to pass on the opportunity to have their message broadcast to over 100 million viewers. But the stakes have never been higher. In addition to his annual spectacle having been the broadcast advertising industry’s “Super Bowl” for decades, the U.S. is slowly inching its way out of recession - and relying on a still shaky consumer confidence to lead the charge. As far as the game is concerned, I just don’t have a dog in the fight. As a kid raised in suburban Denver, I couldn’t be much farther from really rooting for a side - and none of the adopted NFL cities I’ve lived in (or close to) since then -- Baltimore, Jacksonville, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Diego -- have placed a team either. I’d have an easier time relating to a team from the moon than the ruddy crowds from Pittsburgh or Green Bay. And so I’m left to the ads. But I’m not alone - over 50% of adults surveyed admit to watching for the same reason. And as a resident of a city with over 15% unemployment and one of the highest foreclosure rates in the county - I’ve got more interest in the economy being the big winner than anyone or anything else. But notwithstanding the staggering marketing genius that will be on display during game breaks - there are somethings that I just can’t be sold. Some things that no matter how much I laugh, recall or even talk about the associated advertisement, I simply won’t buy. And so to celebrate my emasculating admission, here are 3 things I’d never buy, no matter how good their commercials are:

1. American Made Steel. I’ve read all about the comeback, the change in attitude and the return of American dominance of the automobile. I’ve seen the artful bits about American spirit, American pride and inspirational resurrection. And I don’t buy it for a minute. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see GM get of the schneid; pleased to watch Chevy restore a little muscle to the American sports car and glad that Ford has endured as the stalwart company its founder imagined over a century ago. But there’s a better chance of me watching a Sex & The City marathon while soaking in a bubble bath and drinking white wine spritzer than buying a car from any of them. For all the things that the government investment was supposed to attain from our storied car makers, there are a few things they neglected to ask for; namely: reliability, innovation and excitement. Seriously, I’ve seen more creative genius in a kindergarten finger-painting class than has come out of Detroit in the last twelve months. Seriously, the Ford Fusion, the Chevy Cruze and the Buick Lacrosse? And don’t even get me started on the abortive disasters masquerading as Cadillacs these days. I don’t know anyone who aspires to drive any one of these - at best they’re considered an economical alternative to the European car they really want. Listen, I don’t need a great story behind a mediocre car, I need a great car, and no matter how inspiring the bits you put on television - your cars still look like something I’ll get stuck with when I get to the rental car counter on short notice. So forget the advertising, and spend those millions of dollars on making your cars not suck.

2. Windows To The World. Listen, I like Bill Gates. I normally can’t stand the wealthy - but Bill Gates is so dramatically and unflaggingly devoted to giving his money away that it’s just impossible to hate him; no matter how tragically he has saddled the world with an inferior and error-prone structure upon which the majority of the world’s computing technology is built. The latest iteration of this disastrous testament to the disaster inherent in spending all your money dressing something up rather than actually fixing what’s wrong with it has been marketed more incessantly than the Kardashians and with more vigor than low-calorie American beers (who hasn’t seen too many of those commercials?). But just like the jacknut teenager who spends thousands of dollars on ground effects, exhaust pipes and exotic lighting, Windows is still very much a Honda in a Mercedes world. Watching Windows 7 repeatedly hang and crash is like watching a kit car made up like a Ferrari (on a VW chassis) take 15 seconds to get to 60 mph. I have to admit, it took me almost twenty years to realize that the pain I was enduring as a Windows apologist was not only unnecessary but foolish. After nearly two years now as a full fledged disciple of the Church of Steve Jobs, I can tell you that no matter how brilliantly they market it, no matter what features they promise and no matter how they purport to have finally bested Apple - there’s a better chance of me waiting in line to see a Twilight sequel than even accepting a Windows PC as a gift. Wanna do something smart with your money, Bill? Buy stock in Apple.

3. Worst Buy. There was a time when I looked at my local Best Buy store like a post-modern hall of wonders, where the latest technological advancements were not only put on display, but were actually available for sale, and tended to by expert technicians who could wield these wondrous devices with a skill and ease that I envied. Those time, unfortunately, are long since gone. The high-level technical sales staff has been replaced by a trudging platoon of mouth-breathers who seem to have endured some kind of hair-gel induced permanent cognitive impairment that forces them to answer all inquires with a minimum-wage stare and ten-minute trip to go “find help.” Find help? You’re supposed to be help! I’ve gotten more reliable help at a mall kiosk than the khaki and blue crew is offering these days. What’s worse, with the rise of internet shopping, the prices at this former shrine of electronic progress are the kind you’d only agree to pay if you’re still afraid that all online transactions result in the global transmission of your credit card number. There wouldn’t be a good deal in Best Buy if Monty Hall was strapped to a chair in the middle of the store. It’s easy to see how they might have the money for Super Bowl advertising - because they surely haven’t overpaid for human resources, and they sell “tech support service” like it’s going to be provided by swimsuit models and include an open bar. No matter how they dress it up, or how happy they show people to be there, there’s a better chance of me front-rowing a Beiber concert than buying something from one of their stores.

* * *

The Super Bowl advertising will no doubt feature some amazing beer commercials (that won’t make their beer taste any better, some snack/fast food commercials (that won’t make their food taste any better), and something by GoDaddy.com that will be more tired than tawdry. And honestly, if Danica Patrick didn’t race cars, would anyone pay her to sell anything? She’s like the “before” picture in a makeover show. But it is precisely the familiar banality of the products being hawked on Super Sunday which highlights the sheer genius of the marketing on display. There will be nothing new in what we’re being sold, only how it’s being sold to us. And in a world where the media onslaught has become a 24/7 proposition, we are more difficult to impress than at any other time in history. We yawn at painstakingly crafted high-definition graphics, sigh at million-dollar stage productions, and roll our eyes at special effects that make the impossible appear real. And notwithstanding all of this, we will be surprised, amazed and entertained just as surely as we are to be bored, underwhelmed and disappointed by that precious time between gameplay. Because the line between brilliance and bust has never been finer, and that’s what makes it so fun to watch.

3 Football Farewells

2011-01-25T08:25:00.000-08:00

It seems like just yesterday that Las Vegas weather was cooling out of the three-digit range, kids were headed back to school and the real sports season was finally, thankfully, about to begin. There are a thousand things I love about the fall, but none so unquestionably as its marking of the start of football. I am a year-round sports fan and have watched more installments of SportsCenter than I have of every other show I’ve ever watched - combined. But where my love of hockey, basketball and baseball can at best reach ten, my love for football goes to eleven. Football is the modern day bloodsport - a satisfaction of our prurient, limbic need for battle. Its arrival is preceded by a nearly interminable parade of countdowns, previews and lead-ups. The sweet relief from which makes the inauguration of a new year’s tournament of warriors all the more welcome. But when this parade of glorious violence comes to an end, we are met with disappointment and longing in equal measure to those wondrous autumn days, pregnant with possibility and ripe with the promise of excitement to come. And so, with the final game of this season past nearly upon us, an ode to the season we leave behind - 3 things to miss from the football season:

1. Lasting Couch. In the fast-paced hyper-connected world we live in, unproductive time is scarce. We are constantly tethered to a global information and media network that allows us to work anytime, anyplace. What’s more, the money we’ve invested in our own connectivity imbues within us a sense of wasteful guilt if we spend a waking moment doing nothing of value. But there is activity, devoid of any value, social, professional or otherwise, that even in our online world is not only permitted, but celebrated. From September to January, and one glorious weekend in February, otherwise active, productive and responsible men can plant themselves on a couch for over three hours, glued to a hi-definition television and surrounded by food that has the capacity to simultaneously kill, preserve and irrevocably fatten them and rightfully be called fans. During the other seven months of the year, this same behavior results in you rightfully being called a lazy bastard. Farewell licensed sloth!

2. The Ties That Bind. There’s a reason why only men bond: because women are already bonded. That’s why they can, without having made acquaintance, go the bathroom together, coordinate menstrual cycles and extensively mock our sexual technique. Men, on the other hand, have a little ways to go to get to that point. We have to struggle to find some common ground, upon which neither of us has significant personal claim, which we can happily co-habitate on, and which we are at least marginally familiar. For most of us, this is simply too much trouble, and so we keep each other at a distance, and allow the fairer sex to join forces and pick us off one at a time. But for five months out of the year, there is something we universally relate to; one topic we can discuss with one another no matter where we come from or where we’re going. Because in each of us, short, tall, skinny, fat, young, old, strong or weak, is a football player. No matter if we suited up for fifteen years, or never suited up at all, in each of us burns the desire to tackle, throw, catch, run and celebrate a touchdown. And because of that, we all feel qualified to have an “expert” opinion on football - a feeling that we can’t wait to share with one another. Farewell to sharing our feelings with other guys.

3. The Crying Shame. There are precious few occasions when you can expect to see a grown man display any real emotions. There are even fewer when you can expect to see him do it in front of his friends. But as the summer gives way to fall, and the fall gives way to winter, you can find men regularly forgetting their devotion to stoicism and plaintive facial expressions. In their place, you will find unbridled joy, boundless jubilation, crushing disappointment and abject defeat. We celebrate or bemoan the winning or losing of face, pride, or even money, just as robustly (and sometimes even more so) as if we were playing ourselves. We jump up and shout, pump our fists, pound our chests and high five like-minded strangers. We pout, curse, plead and retreat into despondence. I, myself, am inconsolable after my beloved Navy loses a big game - avoiding all sports broadcasting of any sort until enough time has passed that it is sure not to be mentioned. During this cherished term, each week we have the opportunity to shed our muted exteriors and let loose the crazy, loud, over-the-top madman we’re otherwise ashamed of. Farewell to wearing our hearts on our sleeves (albeit the sleeve of our Navy jersey).

* * *

Football is to adulthood what summer vacation was to childhood: a cherished annual occurrence that seemed as fleeting as it was wonderful. The day it was over, we began to wish for it to come around again, and hoped against hope that the time between occurrences would pass just as quickly as the time during it. It made the mundane somehow more enjoyable, and infused the whole world with a joy and purpose that seemed altogether absent during those dark days in between. And so it goes for 2011 - as we gather for a global wake, mourning the end of yet another season of pigskin with the world’s largest party. We brace ourselves for March Madness, the inexplicably marginal Stanley Cup, six months of professional basketball playoffs, and a baseball season that seems fourteen months long, armed with the knowledge that, no matter the banality of the sports we must endure to get there, football will be back, just as surely as the fall itself will follow the summer. And when it arrives, we’ll be there, farewells long forgotten and waiting for kickoff.

3 You Know Whats

2011-01-18T17:26:00.000-08:00

There are very few verbal devices from adolescence that prove useful in adult life. What’s more, the majority of the strongest tools in our verbal arsenal from childhood, seem to inspire the same sort of head scratching disdain and disbelief that thinking back on our wardrobe from the same times in our lives. There is one, however, that remains and becomes even more useful as we grow older, and that is the euphemism. Once used to avoid the ire and watchful eyes of our parents, guardians and caregivers as we made unavoidable references to our naughtiest bits, they become tools of expressing necessary references to the “adult” in adult life, in places where explicit references simply won’t do. That being said, with our own maturing, often comes the maturing of this brilliant lingual utility - with a few notable exceptions. Outside of their ability to amuse, entertain, and maintain decorum, euphemisms can also embarrass and expose far more about their users than a bald reference ever could have accomplished. And so, for those who hope to keep the secrets that they’re trying to - here are 3 you know whats that you should know better than to use:

1. Eating It Up. It was a food-based reference to genitalia that inspired this piece, and it seems only fair it should lead off this parade of discomfiture. It’s unclear how referring to one’s private parts as food items, somehow reduces the prurient nature of the subject, but the practice persists, nonetheless. After all, discussion of edible items does little to quell the appetite - no matter the particular hunger involved. What’s more, a little informal polling amongst my friends revealed that there’s little in the way of references that provide a more foolproof guarantee that the offending anatomy won’t be ending up in anyone’s mouth soon. I’ve heard everything from cookies and sweets, to veggies and chicken, and far too many references to produce (bananas, melons, etc.). At best, these are uncomfortably trite and at worst, they’re downright unappetizing. When it comes to euphemisms, it’s best to remember not to play with your food.

2. Child’s Play. Every parent goes through countless uncomfortable moments when they must teach their children about the sordid details of their growing bodies while still balancing their ongoing instruction in decorum and good manners. Out of this paradox grows a collection of nonsensical euphemisms that are so benign as to be heard on primetime network programming, and sound more like fictional characters in a children’s book than human sexual organs. Seriously, can’t you just imagine a father reading a bedtime story to his children about the misadventures of Hoo-Hoo Dilly, and her lovable sidekick, Winky? It’s debatable whether these are really of any use with kids, but it’s not so debatable as to whether they are o.k. for adults to use. Unless you have children and are speaking directly to them, referring to any genitalia using make believe words makes it a strong possibility that you’ll be having a make believe relationship in the near future.

3. A Rose as Sweet. Names are hard enough to come up with for each other. Add in the stress of appropriate and snappy nicknames, pseudonyms for security purposes, and the occasional stage name for promotion and you’ve got a full blown anxiety attack on your hands - just to meet one new person. Which makes it all the more inexplicable as to why anyone would give a proper name to the parts of their body - especially those parts that seem to have plenty of names already. The “Urban Dictionary” lists over fifty words for ‘penis’ and notes that it is a “small selection of the synonyms.” The same resource lists over a hundred synonyms for ‘vagina’ and more than that for ‘breasts.’ And with all these to choose from - a range from the benign to the truthfully raunchy - some still opt for “Frank”, “Sheila” or “Junior.” I’m sure there’s some sort of detailed psycho-analyzation which is possible once this kind of behavior is discovered - but for my money, I just can’t trust someone who gives anything a name immediately prior to hoping to have it slapped up, flipped or rubbed down.

* * *

In the end, it’s good to have a verbal tool at your disposal which allows for delightfully or necessarily inappropriate conversation at an appropriate time. But just like the rest of the tools in our verbal toolboxes, our skill at using it should grow as we do - from clumsy apprenticeship to ultimate mastery, otherwise you'll end up flailing it about like a toddler with a hammer (with similarly delicate results). A successful euphemism is one that makes the listener wonder, just for a moment, whether or not the hidden meaning of the term you’re using is the one you intended, or if he/she is just being a pervert. That little bit of titillation with a touch of embarrassment can be a strong tool in the hands of the speaker who knows how to wield it. On the other hand, an unsuccessful euphemism immediately calls into question the maturity, intelligence and sophistication of its utterer (not unlike hearing someone recite Miley Cyrus lyrics) and makes everyone wonder if the reason you’re having trouble referring to genitalia is that it’s been a while since you’ve seen any.

3 Technology Tragedies

2011-01-11T08:46:00.000-08:00

A year ago, THREE THINGS was dedicated to my first-ever trip to the CES (Consumer Electronics Show), a lifelong dream fulfilled, and proof positive that I am, in fact, a shameless geek. I love all things technology, including my iPhone, iPad, TiVo, Bluetooth, etc., etc., etc (believe me, I could go on). And while there is no doubt that I am a disciple of the church of gadgetry, and all the ways in which it can make one's life better, I’ve also noticed that there is a downside to all this techno-sprawl. As the world’s electronics manufacturers have brought these microchip miracles to the masses, they’ve brought with them a whole host of problems which we never could have anticipated. A year removed from the greatest moment of my technology-fueled life, I stand aghast at the world around me, and can’t help but notice that some of it can be traced to our new electronic lives. And with the honesty only a techno-apologist could muster, here are the three cons to all of our technology pros:

1. Paying Attention. There is a new posture that has replaced the slacker slouch which characterized two decades worth of youthful disappointment and has afflicted far more than simply the Stridex set. In fact, it can be spotted in the fanciest clubs and restaurants, even being adopted by the social elite. It is the smartphone hunch. You know the one I mean, the head hung down staring at the upward facing LCD screen, being held by both hands (so as to leave thumbs free), with shoulders tightly hunched in rapt attention to the brightly colored display. Our portable portals to the information superhighway command an almost constant attention, and as our online lives have become ever more personal, we are only too happy to give it to them. I’ve truthfully seen groups of young women sitting around a table at a bar, ostensibly on a “Girl’s Night Out”, each of them dressed up ready for action and yet dutifully glued to their phones, sometimes even using them to talk to each other. You know technology’s gone mad when it makes even bimbos anti-social. If you find yourself at a social gathering in this position, turn your phone off and your humanity on. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did. If you find someone else in this position, feel free to slap the phone out of their hands and let them know that if they only want to play with themselves, they’re better off staying at home.

2. Shorthanded. As our communications have gone from voice to digital voice, to electronic writing to short-form electronic writing, we have naturally developed a shorthand to infuse these ever-more efficient means with the personality which their unimodality strips away. After all, there is no body language in a call, no inflection in an e-mail, and no nuance in a text message. And in this vacuum of subtlety, a universe of acronyms and text version of facial expressions has been created. Few amongst us don’t know and don’t use “LOL”, “:)” or “TTYL” - and as they have come into common use, they've proven quite valuable. We all know that leaving off the appropriate acronym or emoticon can be nearly disastrous - especially when communicating with the opposite sex. The voluminous use of this shorthand, however, is now coming at the expense of its storied predecessor, actual writing. Thousands of teachers have reported the use of these acronyms (and yes, even their smiley-face counterparts) in term papers, book reports, science projects and more. It’s one thing to use these shortcuts when limited by time and characters, it’s another when you’ve got all the time and space you need. If the only way you know how to express happiness is with a colon and a parenthesis, it’s a fair bet that you’ve never really experienced it at all.

3. A Voice For Everyone. As the content of all this new media becomes less and less populated by monolithic networks, and more and more by independent sources, it has become possible for each of us to broadcast our thoughts, beliefs and conclusions literally around the world with just the touch of a button. I, for one, am grateful for this particular advancement - as without it, there would be no THREE THINGS, no book and no way for me to visit with each of you every week. But while this universal access sounds like a wonderfully democratic idea, it turns out that when we give everyone the opportunity to broadcast, we do not give it exclusively to people who have even the slightest bit of intelligence, rationality or the ability to think logically. No, we gave it to the crazies, the fanatics and the woefully under-informed; the whack-jobs, the religious right and the local militia members - and as luck would have it, they turned out to be some of the loudest voices in the crowd. These shouting simpletons have done far worse than simply drown out still small voices that we all might be better served to listen to - they’ve found each other, banded together and formed a political party (complete with its own television network). Of course, it begs the question then, whether I would give up this pulpit, if I could once again have these collective fools banished to the rural fields and dark suburban corners from whence they came. And the answer would be a resounding “yes.”

* * *

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not planning on putting all my gadgets up on eBay, and trying to create a desert Walden, here in southern Nevada. No, I’ll still be logging in and logging on - just as data hungry as I was yesterday, and still looking to the recently departed exhibitors from the CES to populate my wish list in the year to come - but I am cautious to look to them for anything more, or to continue to recommend the technology that I have personally adopted to everyone around me. Because what I’ve come to know, after observing the aforementioned horrors, that technology is a powerful tool, and any of you with power tools know that they’re not to be handled by just anyone. And so in the absence of minimum IQs, ages or measurable social skills as a prerequisite for owning these new technologies, I can only hope that the new electronic economy that emerges from the Great Recession will make these electronics prohibitively expensive - or at least a whole lot harder to use. Perhaps then we'll find that the problems with our online lives are best solved by turning them off.

3 New Things

2011-01-04T22:28:00.000-08:00

It’s relatively easy to make promises and resolutions when you’ve got no real idea about what sort of sacrifices it’s going to take to see them through. It’s a whole other thing to make those same promises when you’re fully aware of the time, effort and sweat involved, especially when the memory of what it took to keep a year-long promise is still fresh in your head. But despite all of this, less than a month after publishing this column into a first book, and less than a week after publishing last year’s last piece, I’ve resolved to come back for a third year of weekly writing, knowing full well that it means writing through writer’s block, on weekends where I haven’t got a spare minute - let alone a spare couple of hours, and relying on the kindness of friends, family and loyal readers for editing, publicity and that little positive feedback that makes it all worthwhile. So here we go friends, on another year’s worth of picks, pans, and rants - and just to entice you to spend another year on this journey, here are 3 things you can expect from THREE THINGS in 2011:

1. More Mr. Nice Guy. If reading over a year’s worth of writing has taught me one thing, it’s that I’m one angry bastard. Seriously. Two-thirds of my titles had the word “bad” in them. There’s more optimism in a South Carolina School Board meeting than I’ve got in the average column. I’ve seen more happiness at a cancelled emo concert than I put in my weekly musings. There are better vibes in an adult bookst... well, you get the point. So, you can expect to see a little more sunshine amidst the raincloud that is normally my Tuesday spotlight on social decay. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not going all Stuart Smalley on you. You have a better chance of locating a three digit IQ at a Tea Party rally than finding an affirmation on the pages of THREE THINGS. This isn’t about to become the rainbow unicorn of columns just because I wanted to turn up the nice a bit. No, you’ll still be able to drop by and find me poking fun at the purposefully stupid, the petulantly ignorant, and anyone who insists that the sound coming out of Miley Cyrus’ mouth is “music.” But, I’m also going to stop and smell the roses every once in a while, too. If only to appreciate just how awful the awful really is.

2. My Favorite Favorite. Everyone loves a little variety. Baskin-Robbins didn’t make their money by having 31 versions of the same flavor. But you can also be damned sure that when I trot my lazy behind into one of those shops, I’ll be leaving with a scoop of Chocolate Peanut Butter, no matter what the other 30 flavors are. So while you might fairly expect that 2011 will bring a whole bevy of threes that you’ve never heard of and never expected, there will also be a healthy helping of your old favorites. The fact is, there is never going to be shortage of horrible things that people wear, ridiculous things that people say/write, or inexplicably stupid behavior. It’s never been about finding only three of these things to write about on any given week - it’s been about picking three out of the countless there are to choose from (or, more to the point, identifying the three that have been aggrieving me the most on that particular week). So, if your favorite topic has already been covered, and you think from here on out it’s going to be also-rans, fear not - I’m bringing the most popular topics back (albeit with brand new threes), and chances are that yours is in there.

3. Reach Out and Touch Someones. At the heart of any writing is a desire to communicate, and at the heart of every writer is a burning desire to hear something, anything, after he/she shouts their monologue into the abyss. After all, if a column is written in the forest, and there’s no one around to read it, does it make a difference? Nothing I have written in this project has meant as much to me as any of the things that you have written back to me - and in 2011, there’s going to be a whole lot more of you in what I’m writing. I’m pulling a new distribution list from Facebook for the e-mail notices; I’m taking column requests (okay, I'm still taking column requests) ; I’m reaching out with the book, and I’m asking each of you to, at least once during the year, leave something here - in the hopes that I can add a “Best Comments” chapter to the book at the end of the year - and make you all a real part of a project that wouldn't be possible without you. With far too many of you, this column is the only meaningful communication we have - and that makes the fact that it’s mostly one-sided that much more tragic.

* * *

The excitement and promise of the new year is certainly not lost on THREE THINGS. I had no idea what this project would be when I started it, and even after 55 installments, two editors, one book and some well-intentioned Photoshopping, I’m still just as excited about what could become of it. I have no delusions of grandeur, and don’t expect to go viral tomorrow. I have long known that candid photos of Wal-Mart shoppers, Chuck Norris declarations and the auctioning off of things you don’t really need will always be more popular than good writing. But I labor under the steadfast belief that the artfully crafted essay will endure, as a place where you can exercise your mind at the same time you’re tickling it. Sure, it’s not the most objective viewpoint I’ve got, but the belief that there are still people out there who love a good read just as much as a good laugh does a whole lot more than keep me writing, it keeps me waking up in the morning. So thank you for reading - and I hope you enjoy the ride.

3 Resolutions

2010-12-28T08:00:00.000-08:00

I’m not going to say that it’s been a great year for New Years resolutions. Because while the fact that Three Things has survived this far into the year with more readers than we started with is a testament to a successful resolution, there were far more that didn’t quite survive to see the end of 2010. Because in addition to continuing to write, I also resolved to read more, eat better and curse less, and failed miserably on all three counts, dammit. I even seem to fail in threes these days. But, as happens every year, hope springs eternal, and the new year occasions the opportunity to look forward in the midst of looking back. Though they sometimes seem trite, I’ve always enjoyed the process of making resolutions for the coming year, and I try to make them realistic because I new a few extra failures in my life like I need a little extra car repair or a couple more dentist visits. So, to ring in the new year, and to celebrate the completion of at least one from last year, here are THREE THINGS‘ 3 Resolutions:

1. Something To Believe In. If you’ve read me for any length of time, you know I have more belief in Fairy Tales, comic books and cartoons than I do in the ability of the youngest generation to make anything of themselves aside from exceptionally capable consumers. Of all the apocalyptic events that appear to be happening around me with ever-greater frequency, perhaps none is more emotionally daunting than to see false confidence, entitlement and ignorance of today’s youth. As the cycle of each generation looking upon the next with terrible and silent wonder, fearing their ultimate incapability of ever actually maturing despite having to grow old nonetheless, reaches its penultimate stage, we are left with a choice - either stand by and play our intellectual fiddles as they burn it to the ground, or to jump in and do our part. So as I sit and laugh at they way they dress, dance, and what they call “music”, I will resolve also to teach and to find opportunities to do the same. Because while the time has not yet come for me to directly combat the downward-spiraling trend of ever-less enlightened parenting, that doesn’t mean I can’t make a difference in lives of young people. I once said that knowledge not shared is not knowledge not had - and it’s time I started taking my own advice. Mentorship (and some fully unsuspecting mentees) here I come.

2. The Holiday Road. Thirty six years and counting. Still no vacation, no time off without purpose, no non-business trips and my passport is as chaste and untouched as an ugly Amish teenager. Though I’m not a fan of recycling resolutions - because failing to accomplish them once usually means you’re not going to get them done during any other year - but this one has been on my list for so long, that I almost keep it there out of a sense of nostalgia (and that fact that giving up on it means that I’ll have resigned myself to a lifetime of all work and no play). I’ve even taken to keeping my passport in my briefcase - so that I can be reminded that I’ve never actually used it. Of the many things of which I am ashamed (including memorization of the Voltron opening, an addiction to vintage video games and a strong affinity for banjo music) the fact that I have never been on a vacation is at the top of the list. At least the other embarrassments are consistent with my personality - because those who know me know that I’m no workaholic. I mean, I love my job and I enjoy being productive, but if given the choice between work and play, I don’t choose work. There just always seems to be a great reason not to go - and yes, it usually has to do with work. It’s really more work-phobic (i.e. afraid of what will happen if I’m not there). But it’s time to face my fear, book a damned trip with no other purpose but to relax, and get over myself already. Besides, if any workplace relies on my constant presence for survival, it probably deserves to be put out of its misery anyway.

3. Needing Contacts. Every place I’ve lived since I left home at 18 has felt tremendously temporary. I’ve rented on short-term leases, lived on cheap used furniture and kept myself mostly detached from each city or town in which I’ve resided. I never even invested in a decent set of cookware. Though I’ve always said that if you’re not remembered at a place, you were never there - I’ve only really applied that standard to institutions (schools, the military, etc.) and never my own neighborhood or community. But against all odds, and as strange as it sounds, Las Vegas feels the most like home since, well, home. I’ve bought my first house, some furniture that I didn’t have to assemble myself, and I’ve got pots and pans that aren’t widely considered disposable. But the real measure of putting down a few roots is investing in some people here. Sure there’s a little bit of L.A. here in Vegas (including the famewhores, money-grubs and impossibly bad drivers) - and you’d have a better chance harvesting crops on the moon that putting down roots in that cesspool - but just beneath the surface beats the heart of a good ol’ western town, and the folks you put in the time to get know will likely return the favor. And so, with a healthy dose of caution, trepidation and downright skepticism, I’ve resolved this year to brave the sea of crazies in search of a few great friends here in the Vegas Valley - my new hometown.

* * *

In end, 2010 was a very good year - three things at a time. A new house, a new city and a new job. Three new tires for my car (dammit) and, as you know, my third (and most successful) blog project. And the best thing about good years is the promise of an even better year to follow. After all, if you don’t think things will look up in the year to come - what’s the point of going on? And to that end, I can’t wait to get started on 2011. Though I’m glad that put the holidays this close to the new year, because it is only that excitement of turning the calendar that sometimes gets me through this time of year (the cold, the drama, and the cost). So as the ball drops on the end of one year and the beginning of the other, I’ll finish this project the same way I started, by asking that you remember three things: (1) kissing strangers is never as good of an idea as it seems, (no matter what the occasion), if you want a New Year’s kiss, plan in advance; (2) unless you’re ringing it in in Hawaii, the Caribbean, or Australia, celebrate inside - a runny nose isn’t sexy on anyone, and (3) it is not what will come to you that makes the days and times of your new year, but rather what you go out there and get.

Thanks for a great year - and go get yourself a great 2011!

3 Wishes

2010-12-20T10:50:00.000-08:00

I can hardly believe that I made it through a whole year of THREE THINGS without a mention of that most storied and proverbial of threes: the three wishes. Who amongst us hasn’t planned out what three things we might wish for if given this mythical opportunity? Long before Aladdin was the animated classic that it is, I dreamed plenty of afternoons away thinking on just that very subject. As a kid I was wishing for riches, fame and a ton of new toys, as an adolescent I was trying to figure out ways to game the system (wishing for more wishes, etc.), as a teenager I was wishing for love and as a young adult, I was right back to wishing for riches, fame and a ton of new toys. As time goes by it’s not that my “old” wishes don’t apply anymore, it’s just that there are other, more important, wishes in front of it. After all, coming up with three wishes isn’t about making an exhaustive list, it’s about priorities - because, you only get three, and you’d better make them count. And so, as a tribute to the wishers we once were, the ones we are, and the ones we will be, here are my 3 wishes:

1. Smart Money. I wish intelligence traded as well as beauty, fame, and musical talent. I wish there was a way to convince kids, hell - to convince everyone, that intelligence is not an immutable trait; that education is the great equalizer - not social networking, the internet or anything having to do with government. Of all the opportunities given to us, the opportunity to make ourselves smarter is the most liberating, the most empowering and the most unequivocated. You may have to resign yourself to being short, ugly or even not very funny - but you’re only as dumb as you want to be. Ignorance is a choice - which is why I get to make fun of you for it without even the slightest bit of guilt. What is truly disheartening is that ignorance has now gotten its own cache - and we celebrate it with pop culture icons (the Jersey Shore cast, Paris Hilton & Ms. Teen South Carolina), a growing political party (thank you, Sarah Palin) and the notion that it is somehow socially equivalent to an actual education by calling it common sense. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not wishing for the world to be brilliant - there wouldn’t be anything awesome in world where “small talk” was about particle physics, computer programming and organic chemistry; but a world gone dumb is even more insufferable, and a whole lot more frightening.

2. Other People’s Kids. I wish bad parenting was as open to public commentary as bad pet ownership, bad driving and bad manners. I mean, no one is going to let someone’s dog run around without a leash, bark at strangers, or jump up on things without at least saying something - but we’ll sit back and watch someone’s child behave exactly the same way with not so much as a peep. I know I personally don’t let bad drivers off without finding some way to make sure they understand just what I think of their driving ability - sometimes with something as simple as sign language. And though it’s not as commonly corrected as it once was, I’ve at least never seen anyone try and defend the demonstration of poor manners as some sort of universal right. And yet, parenting remains inviolate - and we have decided, as a group, that the right to raise your children poorly, inattentively, or with utter disregard for its consequences has been secretly added to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” I wish that being childless didn’t eviscerate the value of my opinion on parenting - as though there were some sort of special knowledge or judgment imparted by achieving that most basic of biological processes. I wish we didn’t treat every child, no matter their age, or the utter hopelessness of their success, as though they may be a genius, world leader, professional artist or other extraordinary person on the making. I may not be able to walk into a room full of teenagers and tell you which of them will be successful, but I can surely point out the ones that won’t. Like it or not, there are bad parents and bad kids, and more of them than the good kind - I just wish we could admit that so we might actually start to do something about it.

3. Blast to the Past. I wish I could go back and talk to myself at 16 for just five minutes. After all, what’s a list of wishes without one that’s completely preposterous, requires a little bit of magic, and is just a bit selfish? I don’t need long, but there are so many tragedies, missteps and mistakes that I might save myself with just a few bits of advice. I’d tell myself first that it’s all going to work out just fine - no matter how bleak it looks in high school. I’d let him know it’s ok to dance, in fact, that’s going to be the one thing that really saves us. I’d tell him to avoid that backflip, drink a little less in Hawaii and that the sinus surgery really wasn’t that good of an idea after all. I’d tell him to love a little more and work a little less; that his world is going to get a lot bigger than little Lafayette, Colorado, and not to worry, he’ll make good on every bit of talent he was given and every promise he’s made to himself. I’d tell him that, as impossible as it may seem, he’ll end up loving his little sister more than he could possibly imagine. I’d let him know that he will touch and change lives, everywhere he goes. I’d tell him to go ahead and get in that fight - bruises heal. I’d let him take a look at me so he knows that he won’t be 4’11” forever, he’ll get his teeth straightened, finally figure what to do with that hair, and get big and strong enough to hold a girl over his head on one hand. But most of all, I’d let him know that even with all the amazing, challenging and impossible things that will happen, the next twenty years will fly right by - so be sure not to miss too much of it worrying if things are going to turn out alright. Because they do.

* * *

I was once told that, if wishes were like fishes, we’d all have a fry. At the time it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, seemed like the kind of mindless tautological advice offered up by people when they don’t really have anything to say, and gave me a strong craving for fish and chips. But after sitting down to come up with three wishes of my own - it was a reminder that wishes are something that we all have in common. Each of us has seemingly impossible things that we want, for ourselves, for our loved ones and for the world around us. And despite our differences, many of us wish for the very same things. But for some, they are things we work on every day, while for others, they remain secret desires that seldom, if ever, see the light of day. So while we all have wishes, it is perhaps, not what our wishes are that make us different, but rather what our wishes are to us.

May all your wishes come true. Merry Christmas, everyone.

3 Bad Names

2010-12-13T20:00:00.000-08:00

We live in a time when parenting as a skill has never been in greater peril or further beyond reproach. The current generation of parents is the least prepared and least cognitively capable in history, and yet their destruction of the social viability of the newest generation is protected as though “parenting” has suddenly appeared in the Bill of Rights. Perhaps one of the most egregious examples of the rearing of the “Can’t Lose” generation is the first real act of parenting foisted upon them: their naming. There was a time when naming children was a tribute to the past or dedication to the people and places which brought them about. That time has passed, and now naming has become about creating an identity for a child long before they even have one, and identifying the parents as creatively inspired people rather than simply loving parents. Far from its intended results, this practice has resulted in a generation of kids named more like a box of crayons than actual people. So while the day of Jimmies, Joes and Jennifers, goes here are 3 names you really shouldn’t give your kids.

1. Old Names. Names grow popular during certain times, and end up being almost assigned to a generation. So while “Ward” & “June” seem like perfectly reasonable names for the parents of the “Beav”, and “Steven” and “Elyse” sound exactly right for the parents of 80’s character icon Alex P. Keaton, hearing those names assigned to modern day kids seems to fit as poorly as their currently fashionable clothing. Honestly, if there’s a colorable reason in 2010 to name a little girl “Beverly” or a little boy “Ronald” then I’d like to hear it. There is a place for naming children after their grandparents or important people from their family history, and it’s called the middle name. While it’s true that many things go in cycles (e.g. music, fashion, economies, etc.) names are not always amongst them. Lately classroom roll calls sound more like nursing home rosters, and its hard to imagine going to a birthday party a Chuck E. Cheese for a kid named “Cyrus”. It’s no surprise to hear that a generation that gets the vast majority of its “inspiration” by plagiarizing past artists looking to the past for creative flair, but its especially disheartening to note their utter lack of taste, perspective or concern when they name their children like the character list from a Golden Girls episode.

2. Flower Sour. Most things that came out of the sixties are forgiven their expressive transgressions, as almost everyone (including new parents) had spent or were spending the majority of their time higher than a hot-air balloon ride. And while this era of substance-inspired hallucination produced some of the most amazing artistic revelations (in music, fine art and performance) we’ve ever known, it also licensed some of the most absurd and irresponsible naming this side of American Indians. The sixties licensed parents to name their children more like pets and fictional characters than actual human beings. Seriously, naming kids after natural objects is only excusable if you’re wasted. Otherwise, Rainbow, Flower and Rock are more like cruel jokes than inspired tributes. Can you imagine what it must be like, in a room full of Jakes and Jennifers what it must be like to be the only “Sunshine” or “Breeze”? If you want to give a child an appreciation for nature, you take them camping or send them to summer camp in the woods, you don’t name them after it. In fact, I can’t think of a better reason for a kid to rebel against the natural movement than being named “Birdsong” or “Moonbeam.” If my parents named me “Lake” or “Sky” I’d be burning up natural resources like a fat kid goes through birthday cake, just to spite them.

3. Miss Spelled. Making spelling mistakes in e-mails is embarrassing. Making spelling mistakes in text messages is forgivable. Making spelling mistakes in naming a child is a more reliable indicator of indignant stupidity than forcing people to wear their SAT scores on their shirts. A quick search for “alternate” spellings of “Kaitlyn” yields fifty six different versions (including the mnemonic gems: Kaitlynne, Catelyn, and Caytlinne; yes, seriously). Creating an uncommon spelling of a common name is about as creative as changing the brand of gas you use and thinking you’re driving a different car. And inserting silent letters into names is the sort of faux originality that makes me want to start slapping people with garden implements. Seriously, Joe with an “X”? It erases any kind of utility you might hope to obtain by giving a kid a decently common name, by forcing them to spell it every time they meet someone. What’s more, how much respect can you possibly have for someone who has a silent “Q” in their name? In any event, they’re fighting an uphill battle when meeting new people. If you want folks to know that your kids are exceptional and unique people, try raising them a generous personality, a strong education and strong sense of self - and give them a name that doesn’t require a disclaimer.

* * *

When it comes to names, I see them a lot like athletic equipment: on their own, they aren’t going to make you great, and if they work properly, they simply help you be as good as you can be; but if they’re bad, really bad, they can make things a whole lot harder for you than they should be, and even put you at a disadvantage. In the end, parents don’t have a responsibility to make you great, but rather to give you the best possible opportunity to do so. Great people don’t come from great, creative or interesting names any more reliably than then they do from “Mike”, “Sarah” or “Scott” - in fact with the five richest people in America being named Bill, Warren, Larry, Christy and Charles, maybe that unique name doesn’t seem like such a can’t miss step to success after all.

3 Xmas Party Xploits

2010-12-07T19:48:00.000-08:00

There is perhaps no single event more threatening to one’s continued employment than the office Christmas party. This seemingly benign or even joyful event, which ostensibly brings co-workers together to celebrate the holiday season, absent from the pressures of the workplace, couldn’t be further from its intended device. Whereas the idea is to remove the hierarchies, formalities and otherwise awkward deference of working relationships in furtherance of a fraternal atmosphere, it ends up being an exercise in pretending to do the same, while being exceptionally careful to not to violate any of those hierarchies, formalities or required deferences. It’s like trying to play Operation during a seizure... while dressed in your Sunday best, and smiling until your face hurts. In short, it’s about as much fun as a cactus hug and a rubbing alcohol bath, and there’s more Christmas spirit in the Black Friday shopping queues than at one of these “parties.” But for the uninitiated, new to the corporate work force, or simply the blissfully unaware, here are 3 things not to do at your company Christmas party:

1. Tipsy Unwelcome. There aren’t many places where it’s a worse idea to get drunk than an office party. In fact, outside of court, church, and children’s birthday parties, I really couldn’t come up with one. Sure there will be alcohol there, but that entire open bar is there solely for use by the boss, the boss’ family and the warehouse/janitorial staff. The remaining liquor, beer, wine, etc. is like those towels in the guest bathroom that your wife/girlfriend will smack you if you actually use them to dry your hands. Of course, you can and should probably have some kind of drink in your hand (because the primary sin at one of these festivals of faux mirth is to appear as though you’re not having a good time), but it should slowly and tastefully disappear (no faster than one drink per hour) without any of it going down your throat. The problem with being even the slightest bit inebriated is that there are dozens of things you want to say to the folks at work, and none of which you should - and the quickest way to get those two things confused comes on the rocks with a cocktail napkin. What’s more, it’s almost certain that someone will wear or do something that will make the urge to say something that much more irresistible. The bad news about this fully stocked and fully un-usable open bar is that it is one of the few things that might make these forced get-together actually bearable, and it’d be a better idea to touch an electric fence than anything that comes over that bar. The good news, however, is that someone won’t heed this advice, and will, from then on, be “the drunk guy/girl” at the office. Here’s hoping that won’t be you.

2. Dressed Down. There is a time to be daring with your formal wear; a time to shake off the strict social morays surrounding what and what not to wear, and to take the occasion to express yourself in that most basic of ways. That time is not in front of your co-workers, your boss, and their families on a Friday night in mid-December where the goal of the event is to not be noticed, mentioned or otherwise memorable in any way. For the ladies, this means that no matter how hard you’ve been hitting the gym, or how long you’ve been dying to break out that little holiday-themed cocktail dress, this is the time to pretend you’re headed to a Little House on the Prairie costume party and to sex it up somewhere just south of Hillary Clinton in the winter. Seriously, for each inch higher than your dress is than the one the boss‘ wife is wearing, you’re about 10% more likely to be remembered as the office slut. This is to show skin like you’re jumping into a shark tank with a bucket of chum. For the gentlemen, the dressing part is easy: suit. And by suit, I mean suit with boring tie. This is not the occasion for the horrible holiday-themed neckwear. You’re still never going to wear that. But the important thing for gents to remember is keeping dressed. Your jacket must stay on, and unless you’re sitting down, it should stay buttoned. If your tie ends up anywhere but securely tied around your neck, you might as well fashion it into a noose. I don’t care if they’ve used a 500 Watt space heater as a centerpiece and you’ve got Niagara Falls running down your back - if you don’t keep dressed like you’re at a funeral, you might very well be at one.

3. Parking On The Dance Floor. If you take nothing else away from this lesson, take this: do not dance; under any circumstances, do not dance. It doesn’t matter if they’re playing your song. It doesn’t matter if your date really wants to. It doesn’t matter if they’ve hired KC and the Sunshine Band, they hit you with a spotlight and the band is threatening to stop playing if you don’t get up. You stay glued to that seat like you’re stapled to it, and keep that look on your face like you’ve just eaten a piece of bad meat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of dancing. It’s fair to say that I love dancing, and that it might be the one activity that I just can’t do without. But you’d be better off showing up at the party naked, flipping everyone off and toasting the boss with a hearty “screw you” than to be anywhere near the dance floor. There is simply no way to dance at these events without looking like an ass. Even if you’re a good dancer, do not dance. But let’s be honest, you’re not a good dancer. You wouldn’t be a good dancer with Fred Astaire strapped to your back. You look like you’re having a seizure in the middle of an earthquake while being attacked by bees every time you even think about dancing - and doing it in front of your co-workers will be the kind of permanently memorable horror which will stay attached to you no matter what else you do, how well you do it, or how much money you make/save the company. It would be a better idea for you to spontaneously break into dance while you’re actually at work, because at least that way (1) it’s possible no one will notice by the time you regain your sanity and (2) you might actually have a good reason (e.g. big new account, lawsuit settling, etc.). It’s a sure bet that neither one of those is true if you make the mistake of braving the dance floor at your company’s Xmas event.

* * *

No matter what the flyer says, no matter what the boss might tell you, and no matter what you think a holiday party should be about, there are only two things you should be trying to accomplish at this work function: (1) making certain there is some type of evidence (preferably photo-style) that you attended and (2) making certain that’s the only way anyone remembers that you did. A corporate Christmas party is a whole lot more about “corporate” than it is about “Christmas” - in fact, that’s really all it’s about. In a time where employment has never been a more tenuous proposition, and the new year invites companies to take a fresh look at cutting costs (like labor), ‘tis the season for keeping the spotlight (and the target) off of you.

3 Gifts I Don't Want

2010-11-30T09:09:00.000-08:00

I’m impossible to shop for. No, seriously, I am. As the season of giving also marks the season, whether intended or not, of receiving I am reminded of just how truly challenging it has become in the intervening years for friends, family and loved ones to come up with gift ideas for me at this time of year. I’m by no measure a simple man, and the simple pleasures which I do actually have are intangible to the point of not really being helpful in determining possible presents (neither country bars nor evenings in them are readily wrap-able). My taste in tangible objects runs on the pricey side, though not particularly fancy. I see no more value in a pair of shoes, wallet or tie just because it was designed by someone in Italy or France - but, if you can turn my cell phone from a simple voice communications device to a miniature computer with nearly limitless functionality, you can probably name your price (you got that, Steve Jobs?). Nonetheless, the special people in my life are undaunted by my finicky nature and the retail marketplace, eager to mark the economic upswing with the holiday season, is coming on strong with a veritable buffet of gift options. And with that in mind, and in the interests of avoiding that awkward post gift-opening moment, here are 3 Things I Don’t Want For Christmas (nor any occasion for that matter):

1. Clothes Hoarse. There is a time in most men's lives when you really should avoid buying us anything to wear, and that time is from age 30 to age 50. Here’s why: most of us, after three decades of living and at least a decade and a half of dressing ourselves, have figured out (a) what we should be wearing, (b) what we like to wear and (c) what we look good in. Unfortunately, most of us have also been similarly unsuccessfully in impressing any of this knowledge upon the folks that know us best. I love my family to death, but they haven’t successfully picked out an item of clothing for me in ten years, and when they do attempt to break that streak without including a receipt, well they might as well be burning the money they spent. Unlike women, a man cannot reliably out-cute his clothes, no matter how attractive he otherwise might be. An attractive woman can wear a dirty blanket with a rope belt and still be cute - but even Brad Pitt in a cheap suit, ill-fitting pants or a novelty oversized t-shirt looks like a complete asshole. And I couldn’t be further from Brad Pitt if he were permanently stationed on the dark side of the moon (don’t worry ladies, he’s not going anywhere - just a little hyperbole). On the off chance you’ve gotten to know the man in your life well enough to at least know where he shops for clothing, the best garment gift you can give is an associated gift card. Because unless you know a grown man who’s still wearing skateboarding shoes as evening-wear, the only thing you give when you’re giving clothes is Goodwill donation.

2. Inspired. As a writer and at least well-intentioned reader, I certainly do appreciate the gift of a good book. What’s more, based on principle alone, a book is the one gift I am guaranteed not to throw away - no matter how horrible, poorly selected or otherwise ill-considered the title is. However, giving a religious, inspirational or spiritual self-help book is either (a) a thinly veiled attempt at proselytizing based on your belief that I’m a heathen and destined for eternal damnation of some variety, or (b) the result of your determination that I am in significant mental, emotional or spiritual distress. Both are about as welcome as a kick to the groin, and will inspire me to want to smack you with something pointy. Honestly, this is like giving someone a gym membership and trying to explain it’s not because you think they’re fat. Listen, I recognize that it’s part of the religious process to go out and recruit, er, “share” your faith - but you have no doubt learned by now that you can’t convert us all, and you can just go ahead and safely account for me amongst the “already damned/doomed” crowd. As a corollary to this, I wouldn’t be in on the Tea Party if we were in Wonderland and I was personally invited by Alice. So, please also spare me anything written by anyone who regularly appears on Fox News - I get all I can handle from The Daily Show. The only thing you can make me do to lose all respect for you as an intellectual any more quickly than giving me a Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin book would be to show up to my house dressed as a Nazi. If you’re looking for book ideas, steer clear of all of the above and anything recommended by Oprah, and look up the Pulitzer people - they have a solid idea of what we all should be reading.

3. Seriously. I’m not quite sure when giving games and toys to people over the age of twelve went out of style, but there are 364 days each year when I wake up worrying about very serious things, like work, my professional obligations, the health and welfare of my family, etc. But one day a year, I want to wake up to nothing but fun and joy. And though any delusions I held about a fat, old man shooting down my chimney with a bag full of toys are long since gone - the thought that there will be toys under the tree with my name on them (even if I had to buy them myself) gets me bouncing out of bed like I did when I was seven years old. So, here’s a heads up for all the serious people you know, who have serious jobs, lives and lots of serious things to think about (present company included). The very last thing we want to think about on Christmas is any of that. I don’t want a business card holder, a law degree frame or a really nice pen to sign stuff with. I don’t want anything that has to do with the law, pharmacies and especially not Stanford. I don’t want a reminder that I’ve kicked through thirty five Christmases already, and that I might not have as many left. If the first thought in your mind when you look at it isn’t “that will be fun!”, put it back on the shelf and move on.

* * *

Christmas gifts are about both showing and telling; showing someone that you care, and telling them what, how and that you think about them. It’s important to remember both when you’re out there picking presents. Too often I hear the words: “I have no idea what to get for him/her” when that seems like as good of a reason not to get someone anything at all as any. Shopping for Christmas gifts isn’t an occasion to realize that you don’t know a loved one well enough - it’s an opportunity to actually get to know them well enough to buy them something that isn’t generic, affected or horrible. And if that sounds like way too much trouble, you’re probably better off just giving money. In the end and contrary to what you may have been told, what you give is as important as that you give - because no one’s wishing for “good intentions” on Christmas morning, and the best thing you can give anyone is really knowing who they are.

3 Thanks

2010-11-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

In this season of thankfulness, most of us are mindful to remember the people and things that are closest to us. We take time to appreciate our family, our friends and our loved ones and usually do it with a hearty meal, a heaping helping of embarrassing stories from our past, and a healthy dose of football. And so it’s gone for me for as long as I can remember. But this year, I want to give thanks where I’ve long forgotten to do so. This year, I want to be thankful for things that I might otherwise take for granted, whose simple and almost unassuming presence in my life makes it infinitely better, easier or more fun. This year, it’s going to be about gratitude in non-obvious places for non-obvious reasons; an exercise in thanking the hard way. And so with all due deference to my family, my girlfriend, David and the Hawk, here are 3 other thank you’s:

1. You-Google-Eee. I remember logging onto Google for the first time. Back then I had no idea how much that simple little query box would change my life. In the intervening decade, however, it has become as indispensable as my computer itself. It is my white and yellow pages, my primary legal research tool, and the greatest stalking tool since binoculars and the windowless cargo van. But what it is has become most useful for is the instantaneous exposure of stupid people. I remember as a young man, when I would hear the inane ramblings of some uninformed mouth-breathing moron, and think to myself, I wish I had the time to go to the library, look up what he's talking about, and shove that proof directly down his ignorant throat. Or in my wildest imagination, I could have a magical information oracle that I could carry around in my pocket, and when one of these proselytizing fools spoke up, I could type in what they’re attempting to talk about, and in a fraction of a second have the real facts available to expose them as the idiots they are. Google is the Kryptonite I use to slay the red-state, tea party, Fox News retards who think that being told something “by a buddy of theirs”, “by the guy on TV”, or in an e-mail forwarded from a friend of a friend is actual information. A huge Thanksgiving thanks goes out to Larry Page and Sergey Brin for creating the greatest weapon against stupidity since the printing press - at least until we can start euthanizing people with fully functional brains but just too lazy to use them.

2. Everyone Loves Recess... but no one seems to love Recession. I have to say, however, that while I take no joy in the unemployment, financial ruin or familial hardship endured by so many Americans during the recent Recession, I am grateful for it nonetheless. There are certain things that ought to be nearly ubiquitous amongst us if our society is to be considered the overwhelming success that most of us believe it to be: being able to keep properly clothed, well-fed and at least marginally educated, to name a few. However, a 7 MPG, Cadillac SUV with chrome spinner rims, a 5,000 square foot house and more consumer electronics than your local Best Buy are not amongst them. Especially if you’re making $50,000 a year (or less) and supporting a family of four. How we went through the decade of excess, the “me” decade and still didn’t have enough stuff is beyond me, but way-too-easy credit made some of those least able to do so, into our most egregious consumers. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about having nice/cool things (those who know me can tell you), but getting them takes work, saving and sacrifice - three concepts about as foreign to modern middle America as respect for the service academies in South Bend. And though it’s awful that it took a near economic collapse for us to realize that luxury isn’t in the Bill of Rights, I’m thankful to see a few less trailer park Ferraris these days.

3. Gone Country. Though I suspect that every generation goes through this, modern day night life is about as appealing to me as going back through puberty. I don’t get the scene, the music, and especially not the prices. I mean, why I would spend a thousand dollars on a bottle of vodka just so I can sit with strangers on a couch (that is washed less often than a taxicab back seat )and watch half-dressed skanks (who I don’t even know) drink it for me just escapes me. Dance clubs where no one dances, “ultra” lounges where everyone is ultra-uptight and guys showing more chest than girls make about as much sense to me as a quantum physics lecture in Farsi. It’s enough to make me give up on going out altogether, but for the one safe haven where the vast majority of this nonsense seems to have failed to penetrate: the country bar. Despite the seismic shifts of popular nighttime entertainment, the modern day “honky tonk” remains much the same as it’s always been: wooden dance floors, mechanical bulls and cheap longneck bottles of beer. I am eternally thankful for this haven from a douchebaggery epidemic so pervasive that it seems almost inescapable at times - and especially at night, when it seems to get ever so much worse. Though it may not be the “coolest” of places, it is consistent and in a world where everything that occurs after sunset seems to be changing for the worst, I’ll thankfully take all the un-changing un-cool I can get.

* * *

Every day, I see "thank you"s becoming more and more scarce. This simple token kindness (which was furiously beaten into me during the whole of my adolescence) seems to have been replaced with indignance and indifference, or the forced manners of an insincere service provider. Thanksgiving has become the sole repository for gratitude rather than a celebration of the thanks we should have been giving all year long. It’s a shame we have to be reminded of anything so basic as gratitude, when it’s likely that hundreds of things are done for each of us each day, without which those days would be impossible if not only impassible. So this year, have a great Thanksgiving, and take the occasion to let the folks closest to you know how much you appreciate them and all the other great things in your life - but don’t forget, a genuine thank you goes just as well with any old meal as it does with turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce.

3 Superheroes We Were

2010-11-16T07:42:00.000-08:00

As it has often been said, youth is indeed wasted on the young. Despite my protestations to the contrary, I know that I’m still a relatively young man - but just when I’m starting to feel particularly youthful I see a few college kids and realize: man, that was a long time ago. There’s no doubt that I believe that the youngest generation may show less promise and hope for the future than any that has preceded it (including the ones that endured plagues) - but that doesn’t mean they are powerless. In fact, as I look back on my own youth, I had no idea what powers or even superpowers I had ... until I lost them. Now, as a regular human going through life with the pedestrian limitations of the rest of the folks populating the 35-54 demographic (boy, does it suck to write that), I find myself not missing the social awkwardness, the hormone-fueled single-mindedness, or the utter lack of impulse control, but missing desperately my relative indestructibility, youthful exuberance, and other powers. So, as we prepare for yet another season of superhero movies and fantasies about flying wizards, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on 3 superpowers we all had - back when were young:

1. Walk It Off. I remember a time when injuries were a nuisance - an unwanted break in the action - which might force me to miss a few minutes of a hotly contested pick-up game, a recess chase or a practice. I remember the boundless optimism I took for granted with which I knew that I’d heal and I’d be back. I remember when after taking a nasty spill, I’d get up and walk it off. And all of those memories seem like a long, long time ago - like in-“Sepia”-tones long time ago. These days, if I stub a toe I’m feeling it a week later, and a real injury is likely going to last through the better part of the year. Now the first thing I think of when someone says “rehab” isn’t the Betty Ford Clinic or the pool party at the Hard Rock Casino, it’s spending humble mornings with a physical therapist lifting colored weights and rolling myself around on hard foam logs. My collection of athletic equipment, which used to consist of gloves, pads, straps and cleats, now has more braces and wraps than anything else. It’s a like a little neoprene shrine to my mid-30’s. Looking back, I’m pretty sure if I had been patient enough, I could have actually watched my body heal (Wolverine-style) in a matter of minutes right before my eyes. Nowadays, the only thing “super” about my healing ability is how fast it appears to have abandoned me.

2. Time Travel. Just like Deana Carter, I still remember when 30 was old. When life seemed long. No matter how hard I wished for it, time seemed to trickle along with all the velocity of a Palm Springs track meet. If memory serves, I’m pretty sure I was sixteen for about four years. School years (which were, in reality, only from late September to early June) seemed to last forever, and summers seem to stretch far beyond their allotted three months. Despite spending much of my youth despising my ability to stretch these days and months into years - there always seemed like plenty of time to do anything; to do everything. No venture or adventure was ever abandoned because of a lack of time to do it. Being “tired” was something I could always just will myself out of, or completely obliterate with a short nap. In short, time was both my friend and my enemy. I’m certain that my fevered desire to grow up as quickly as possible (due to an extraordinarily awkward youth) prevented me from truly enjoying the power to slow time to a crawl. But as my days, weeks, months and years (!!) begin to fly by like so much highway landscaping, I find myself wishing for even a vastly diminished version of it - if only to make the football, barbecue and weather of the fall last just a little bit longer. And though a younger me would kill me for saying it, I’d even be happy to let the intolerably hot, kids-out-of-school, and only-baseball-to-watch summer keep flying right by.

3. Guts of Steel. I’m fairly certain that, should circumstances have every really required it, that my teenage digestive system could have successfully processed a standard-sized bicycle (or similar mechanical device). When I think back on what I considered to be a “meal” back then, it’s a wonder that I wasn’t simply absorbed back into the earth on any number of times where I laid down in some open field. I dumped all manner of junk down my throat, with little if any regard for nutritional value of any sort. And I found it nearly impossible to gain weight. Yes, seriously. I tested the extremes of my ability to tolerate both heat and cold, and distinctly recall letting my ego decide how spicy I ordered my food. This power allowed me an almost carefree experience at any meal or eating establishment, and is all but gone today. Lately I make most of my food choices based on the amount of time in the gym I’ll need to spend working off whatever delicious morsel I’m considering. And when it comes to spicy foods, my GI tract demands that I take into careful account the risk-reward of telling the chinese food cook that where I’d like my Kung Pao chicken the 1-10 hot-scale (i.e. 10 will incite a full-on GI rebellion, and even a 7 will likely result in tears sooner or later). It’s not that I’m not grateful to finally be considering just exactly what I’m eating these days - I just miss the time when antacid was just something in funny commercials.

* * *

Of course as the universe takes away, it also gives, and with the loss of many of the superpowers of our youth comes a wisdom, confidence and presence that I wouldn’t trade to have all those powers back. With the diminishment of our physical abilities comes the savvy to use the ones we retain to even greater resource. There is greater joy in becoming a “wily, old veteran” than my old “rookie” self could have ever imagined. Looking back on these powerful days is, however, a reminder that as we sit and watch our youngest generation slip into an ever more comprehensive and unbelievable self-delusion, apathy, and ignorance, we are not simply dimming our previously bright future, but we may be wasting our most powerful resource - and eliminating all hope of finding the heroes we’ll need, super or otherwise.

3 Military Myths Busted

2010-11-09T23:05:00.000-08:00

Veterans Day is a second-tier holiday for most folks. Outside of a few parades, some military tributes on TV and an outside chance at a day off, it ranks alongside Columbus Day, Arbor Day and MLK Day as either an “Oh, is that today?” holiday or a “Federal employees are off for what?” holiday. But it is a reminder, eight years after I walked off a base for the last time, that I gave ten years to the Navy, and got more back in return than I ever could have hoped for. If it weren’t for the Navy, the Naval Academy, the submarine service and the tireless efforts of countless mentors along the way, I would never be where I am today, never have gotten as far as I have gone. Along that leadership gauntlet, and in that professional crucible, I became the man I am today. But after a decade, I took a look around and realized that things had changed. The way the rest of society looks at its warrior class has shifted, and is rife with misconception, misunderstanding and simple misinformation. So, as my own tribute to my veteran brethren, here are 3 things you need to know about the modern military:

1. Perks Up. There was a time when joining the military meant inuring to the benefit of countless government perqs; including top-notch comprehensive health care, high-quality housing, and financial support of post-secondary education. That time was the 1960’s - and just like everything else from that era, it’s mostly gone. Military health care is performed with no malpractice recourse for its recipients - and like any other consequence-free environment, the product suffers as a result. Imagine what kind of car repair you’d get if you didn’t have to pay for it (nor did anyone else), and the only thing you could do if they irreparably damaged your car was to ask the same people to try and fix it again (or just get really mad). The housing, which was new in the 60’s (and hasn’t been updated since), is now just north of the “Projects”, with that similar warm, institutional feel. And the educational benefits which were more than adequate to cover even pricey institutions back in the day, are now barely enough to cover the price of community college. I’m not sure where or when people got the idea that the “G. I. Bill” is some magical plan that covers all a veteran’s or service member’s educational expenses no matter where you want to go - but that’s more of a fantasy than the Notre Dame leprechaun riding a unicorn down a yellow brick road after winning a decent bowl game. The good news is that the next time you tell one of us how good we have/had it with all of our government “benefits”, you won’t have to wonder why we’re looking at you like you crapped on our front lawn.

2. Army of Four. Okay, listen, this isn’t rocket science, and it is something every citizen ought to have at least a rudimentary understanding of. There are four major military services and they are not all parts of the “Army”. It’s the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. With the exception of the Navy and Marines, we don’t share bases (i.e. not every military installation is a place you can find all of the above), and outside of the horrible pay scale the services have very little in common. There are different ranks, different jobs, and completely different languages to refer to many of the same things. It’s your freedom we’re out there defending, after all - the least you could do is know the basics of how we’re doing it. While we’re talking about it, there are also three major service academies: The U.S. Military Academy at West Point (Army), The U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis (Navy/Marines) and The U.S. Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs (Air Force). We are not affiliated, and there is only one of each (I was once asked if I knew about the Naval Academy in Oklahoma - yes, seriously). We are rival schools, so we’re not keen on being confused with one another. And finally, the services are huge. As of June, there were over 1.4 million active duty service members. What does this number mean to you? It means that the likelihood that we’ll know personally, the one person that you know who served in the same service as we did, is about the same as you hitting the lottery on your next trip to the Gas N‘ Sip - so maybe you can wipe that disappointed look off your face, and just be thankful that both of us were willing to go out and do what we did.

3. Stupid Is As Stupid Doesn’t. No matter what you’ve seen in the movies, read on the internet or heard from your friends, the military is not a repository for the leftovers after universities, community colleges and trade schools have taken their pick. I know what you’re thinking - no one out there really thinks that do they? Yes, they do. John Kerry thinks it - and more importantly, the extensive staff of articulate, educated and intelligent speechwriters and strategists thought it, too. Take it from someone who went to military school - even when it comes to the folks on those storied campuses, most people think we’re there because we couldn’t get into the Harvards, Yales and Princetons. And while it may be true that there isn’t a whole lot of “old money” (or new money for that matter) in the service - I can assure that there is no shortage of intelligence. There are just as many reasons for joining as there are people that join, but precious few include being a “last resort” or “an alternative to jail.” Those days are long gone. The military is not a federal reform school for miscreants or group therapy for people with anger management issues. I personally know dozens of men and women who worked hard, did their homework, made an effort to be smart and still ended up in the desert in Iraq - fighting for their country, and the freedom for someone to be stupid enough to say that kind of nonsense out loud.

* * *

More so that most other things you can choose to do when you’re 18, the military is less something you’ve done and more something that you are. And while every society since the dawn of man has had its warrior-class, the similarity between them mostly ends there. In some nations, the fighting force is revered and held up as kings, in others, they are servants and peasantry. The one thing they do have in common, however, is that you can’t really know what it’s like unless you’ve done it yourself. One of the greatest things about the American military is that we live among you - both during and after our service. Take this opportunity, not to say thank you, not to tie a ribbon around anything, and not to simply attend a parade. No, take this opportunity to get to know the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that you already see everyday - you might be surprised what you find, you might be even more surprised at what you don’t.

3 Please Stop Sayings

2010-11-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

One of the most glorious things about modern pop culture is the speed with which it generates new ideas and abandons old ones. Pop doesn’t last long because it’s not supposed to, and as a result, it is a genre of content populated by things that burn quickly and bright, suffusing our everyday life - welcome or not - and then running off as briskly as they arrive. This pleasing cycle of brain candy is just the sort of thing that keeps the brains of the ADD generations satiated and fuels the information appetite of a society spoiled by the endless flow of the information superhighway. There are, from time to time, stubborn bits of cultural flotsam that cling to the shore despite the raging river - things that have long overstayed their welcome, for which discernible value can be derived and whose very survival defies any notion of cultural gentility that one might even begin to have. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the cliches, quips and sayings which make up our linguistic lexicon. Sayings bolt in and out of popular use and often signpost our cultural eras (e.g. “groovy”, “bitchin’”, “the bomb”, etc.) but those that don’t bolt out remind us of all the bad parts of what we were five minutes ago and are about as welcome as a turd in the swimming pool. So in the interests of getting back to the future, here are 3 sayings that people need to stop... well, you know:

1. What it Isn’t. There has always been something to say when there’s nothing to say. But never has that something been as inane and mind-numbing as “it is what it is.” Even worse than the valueless assertion of this tautology is the smug look on its usual offeror’s face as though they offered some timeless bit of wisdom which will unlock the mystery of your current consternation. This is less of a conclusion than the finale of the Sopranos. Oh, is it what it is? Wow, thanks Steven Hawking - now that you’ve cleared that up, I won’t have to worry about singularities, quarks and white matter, because it’s all clear to me now. I’m also now able to finally connect the dots and understand that it isn’t what it isn’t, it was what it was, and it will be what it will be. Honestly, I’d rather you just shrug your shoulders and do your best Chewbacca impression than offer up this kind of intellectual masturbation. I don’t know how this phrase came into common use, and I don’t know who started it - but if I ever find out, I’ll take them out into the street and slap them with a garden rake. Repeatedly. If this phrase ever pops into your head, and you’re thinking about uttering it, do us all a favor and go with what you’re really supposed to say when you have no idea: “I don’t know.”

2. A Hard Day’s Trite. I recognize that there’s no spectacularly cool way to preface a conclusion in a conversation. Unless you’re giving a speech (i.e. at a lectern) you can’t say “in conclusion” without sounding like a dick, and unless you’re a lawyer, if you even write “in light of the foregoing” people will immediately want to kick you in the face. But if I hear one more person tell me what’s going to happen “at the end of the day”, I just might end theirs early. What’s worse, I hear this particular mindless preface offered up when someone is about to disregard everything someone else has just said, in lieu of their own vastly oversimplified conclusion. E.g. (following a detailed statistical explanation of a sports matchup) - “Well sure, but at the end of the day, the team that scores more points is going to win.” I’ve gotten less infuriating responses when trying to make a point to a group of tweens. I’d rather be told to shut up in the middle of what I’m saying than have someone wipe away the whole of it by offering up this drivel. The only thing that’s certain to happen “at the end of the day” is the peace I’ll get from not having to hear anyone utter this crap. If you’re thinking of punctuating a conversation with a personal deduction that you’ve derived from things you’ve learned from television, forwarded e-mails or your bong-fueled amateur philosophy discussions - do us all a favor and keep it to yourself, at least until the end of the day.

3. Apocalypse How. I know it’s difficult to come up with something to say when someone is having a bad day, has had an untimely tragedy, or is just in the midst of an unlucky stretch, but offering up an unlikely worse-case scenarios with the preface of “it could be worse” is about as palliative as just smacking them and telling them to “snap out of it.” I’m not quite sure how this particularly ineffective method of giving someone perspective came to be widely used - but using extra negativity to combat negative feelings seems like the psychological equivalent of fighting fire with a flamethrower, yelling at someone with anger management issues, or taking an alcoholic to a bar to talk things over. Even more baffling are the improbable examples offered up by these amateur psychoanalysts when trying to offer a comforting outlook. I’ve actually heard someone try to comfort a friend over the sickness of a loved one, by opining that “could be worse, they could have died”; someone try to make a friend feel better about a pay-cut/demotion by offering “could be worse, you could be unemployed”; and someone try to help a friend cope with an abusive living situation by by offering “could be worse, you could be homeless.” Really, wow, thanks Nostradamus, I was trying to think of how things could be better, and why they’re not - but I appreciate you directing me right back to the worst possible thing. If this is your idea of help, you’re better off keeping quiet and sending a card instead.

* * *

With the amount of dialogue required of most of us in a day, it’s no surprise that we find ourselves leaning on the intellectual ease that cliches offer us. After all, coming up with something to say to people whom we don’t take that much interest in can sometimes seem like a mammoth imposition. Unfortunately, this malaise often sneaks its way into our other interactions - you know, the ones we really do care about? Cliches and sayings come into existence for a reason, because they express something ubiquitous - but in their commonality they also become affected, impersonal and sterile. Our heads are filled with literally thousands of them - because they are all around us, and we can’t help that they pop up. But before you use one, especially one of the above, remember, at the end of the day, it is what it is, and it could be worse, you could not be able to talk at all. Come to think of it, that might not be so bad after all.

3 Cable Catches

2010-10-26T08:33:00.000-07:00

There have been very few technological constants for my generation. We were the generation that started with Atari and now has the Playstation 3; the generation that started with mobile phones in shoulder bags and now has the iPhone; the generation that started with dial in BBS’ and now was the world-wide-web. But for all that change there has been once constant, one wondrous bit of technology that still gets in and out of our houses and lives the same way it did when we were kids, one word as essential to our lives as water, power, and lights: cable. We were the first generation who didn’t know about “rabbit ears” and rooftop antennas. Cable was and is the media engine driving the freight train of middle-class suburbia. In a wireless world, cable is a hard line connection to the information and entertainment superhighway of the world - from the time when it was a few dozen channels, to the time when it will be a few thousand. But for all its wonder, cable’s constancy can produce just as much frustration as it does comfort. That magic black wire coming out of wall connecting you to limitless worlds of wonder also connects to a massive media conglomerate which is less functional that the Palin family in November, and often times makes less sense. So, here are 3 things to hate about the cable we love:

1. Addicted to A Lot Of. It’s not as though there aren’t alternatives to cable. As impossible as it may seem, television is still broadcast over the air, and you can still get the internet through your phone line. But the idea of watching only eight network channels feels like living in a communist country with state-run TV stations and dial-up internet feels about as functional as having the internet completely in Chinese. Like it or not, we’ve become accustomed and addicted to the information superhighway, and the information dirt road offered by these antiquated systems almost seems worse than not having any access at all. Not only do I expect a couple hundred channels, I also expect to have the programming guide built into my television and I’d be more likely to pick up an Us Magazine than a TV Guide. If I saw an antenna on a house, I’d also immediately begin looking for pet chickens, a car on cinder blocks and at least one piece of household furniture being used outside. And if I heard anyone using their telephone line to log into AOL, I would also expect them to, at some point, ask me if I could loan them some money to help them with a scheme to wire a lost fortune to a member of the Nigerian royal family who e-mailed them right after they express their concern that eBay might be a scam. Cable has given me a jones for data and data rates as bad as any substance addiction - and even worse, has made me (as the addict) look at everyone who isn’t addicted like there’s something wrong with them. Thanks, cable... now get me my fix.

2. Holding to No One. It’s not often that I have to actually call the cable company. Aside from starting and stopping service, or inquiring about why the latest weather condition has rendered a system that uses underground cabling useless, it’s mostly a hands-free relationship. But on those rare occasions I’m reminded that the cable obviously doesn’t expect many calls either - because they apparently only have one customer service representative for every three states, and my “approximate hold time”, even if I call at 3 in the afternoon on a Tuesday, is going to be about 45 minutes. All of this can be explained by corporate (if not good customer service) policy. But what I cannot get my head around is why the company which provides me access to nearly limitless entertainment options has the same mind-numbing smooth jazz on-hold music that they had in the 1970’s. Seriously, my own cable service has fifty channels of just music in almost every conceivable genre, and yet when I’m stuck on hold for the better part of an hour, I’m forced to listen to music that sounds like it was compiled from the trash bin behind an “easy listening” AM radio station. This is like going to Sony corporate headquarters and being forced to watch TV in their lobby on a black and white tube set that takes ten minutes to warm up after you turn it on. C’mon cable, if you’re selling entertainment choices, how about providing me some when I’m forced to spend an hour on hold just to tell you I’m moving.

3. Window Stopping. I’m still not quite certain why initiating cable service requires an on-site visit, because they can damned sure turn it off remotely (try not paying your bill if you don't believe me). Personally, I suspect that the cable-installers union has some sort of dirt on the cable company executives (e.g. the sweetheart deal they have with the “hold muzak” folks) which is keeping them involved in the installation process - because from what I can tell, all they do is connect the wall to your TV, call into the office (which is who really turns it on) and then asks you if you need any help setting your TV up. And for all of this “work” you get to pay 60 bucks. To make any more doing any less, I’m pretty sure you’d have to start taking some clothing off. But what is truly annoying about this “service call” is the scheduling of it. For every other conceivable home service, you can schedule an hour during which you can expect the service provider to arrive. But for cable, you get to select a four hour window, which you can expect the cable provider to arrive approximately 30 minutes after it concludes. If the rest of us were that incapable of planning our time, we’d be fired, alone and/or hungry. Don’t believe me? Try giving your boss, your significant other or your favorite restaurant a four hour window for when you plan on showing up. There’s no better indication that cable is giving us a product we can’t live without than the fact that we actually put up with this as “customer service”.

* * *

No matter how we may rage against it, we are a culture of consumption, excess and addiction. And as our addictions have shifted, changed and matured, the truly successful have been those in the best position to peddle it to us when our social curiosities blossom into full-on cultural shifts: big tobacco, big pharma and now, big data. The newest generations consume data at an exponentially higher rate than any before them, multitasking has become the status quo, and the inability to receive input from more than one source is antiquated to the point of being a cognitive handicap. As our data appetites have grown in both volume and variety, cable has been there, always willing to provide us a new or additional serving, albeit at a price. For all the unsavory, inexplicable and horrible things about it, cable offers our drug of choice in its purest and most potent form - and like any other drug dealer, they do it with all the corporate style of a velour track suit, ostentatious jewelry and an over-tinted windows. But as we gather reasons to hate them, perhaps we should wonder which we hate more: the billion dollar fat-cat company that irresponsibly feeds our info-jones, or just how much we need them?

3 Irish Flubs

2010-10-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

In four short days, the Notre Dame football season will, for all practical purposes, come to an abrubt and thankful ending. Because after this Saturday, there will be nothing left for the Fighting Irish to play for. Four years after the world’s most presumptuous, pretentious and unknowledgable sports fans finally watched the most lopsided rivalry in the history of college football come to an end, they’ll get to watch it happen again (for the third time in four years) - on the world’s biggest stage. Because on October 23, 2010 the brand new sparkling $1.5B Meadowlands Stadium (new home to the New York Giants and New York Jets, and football’s biggest church) will host its very first college football game, and a once proud dynasty will meet a still proud dynasty, as Navy and Notre Dame clash for the 84th consecutive time. There is no more idyllic clash in sports; and nowhere where good versus evil has clearer sides. But on the off chance you’re new to this annual battle, here are 3 reasons to want Navy to beat Notre Dame:

1. Blue-ish Bloods. There is only one thing that I hate more than blue-blooded, entitled, high-society, family-moneyed douchebags, and that’s wanna be blue-blooded, entitled, high-society, family-moneyed douchebags. I mean, the U.S. version of the gold-domed Notre Dame couldn’t be any farther from its Roman counterpart if it was on the moon. Be honest, if you didn’t already know the school was there, what exactly would you expect to find in a town called South Bend, Indiana? One stoplight? Bunch of old guys sitting in a barber shop talking about high school football? A crooked sheriff that everyone knows and a couple of crazy kids in a tricked out Dodge Charger? (Wait, maybe that's Hazzard County.) Seriously though, the closest three towns to South Bend are: Mishawaka, Granger and Elkhart. No, I'm not kidding. Now tell me you’d even guess “Indiana” if I asked you which state those towns were in, let alone whether or not you’d expect that they ring some gilded palace of learning and athletic excellence. Don’t worry, though, they don’t. Of course they think they’re better than the hard-working blue collar state that hosts it, which makes it all the more satisfying to watch the bluest of blue collared schools show them that they bleed red, just like the rest of us.

2. Glory Daze. It’s one of the most American of phenomena, and also one the most universally insufferable. In a culture where the highest values are placed on youth and success while young, it comes as little surprise when many of us hold on to the past a little longer than we should. For most, it’s retelling stories of our scholastic triumphs just a little too often to be interesting, with just a little too much embellishment to be believable, or just a little too proudly to be laughed off as casual reminiscence. But for the Notre Dame fan, it’s something else altogether. For them, it is reliving a past they know little (if anything) about. And for any of them under the age of thirty, it’s a past they can’t recall - because they weren’t born yet. The last great quarterback to come from this purported "Quarterback U" was Joe Montana - Class of ’79. Which is just 15 years later than the last great quarterback from Navy (Roger Staubach). And if 15 years sounds like a long time, it’s more than twice that long since Montana’s rookie NFL season. Despite the fact that the last time they were nationally relevant I was still an undergrad (trust me, that’s a long time ago), Irish fans talk about national championships and undefeated seasons every year. If there was ever a team made to relieve Notre Dame fans of these delusions, it’s one that uses its past successes as a source of humility and perspective rather than as a set of blinders and an excuse to treat a ten-year pattern of mediocrity as an aberration.

3. Dis-mission. At its very heart, the University of Notre Dame, its fans, its students and its football team believe that the military is something that you do if you’re not smart enough to go to college - a sort of national trade school that affords the proletariat the opportunity to, at the very least, risk their lives so that the privileged few who are fortunate enough to matriculate upon their hallowed grounds can be kept safe and free from worry from a world filled with violent and uneducated hegemony. As John Kerry famously opined, they believe that the military is a punitive occupation that you are resigned to if you don’t work hard enough in school. They pay patronizing tribute to the service academies when they come to play football - treating the games like charity exhibitions where they aren’t really going to have to play; after all, they have gifted blue-chip recruited athletes, and as far as they're concerned, we’re playing the game with a few reformed criminals, ruffians and mouth-breathers that we cobbled together just before the season. There is no greater standard-bearer for this Age of Entitlement than the Univerisity of Notre Dame, which feels to its core, that it ought to win just for showing up. If you can’t root against a team like this, and for the team they most routinely dismissed - you’re hardly a football fan, in fact, you’re hardly an American.

* * *

For 43 straight years, from 1964 to 2006, Navy walked off the field of play with the Fighting Irish in defeat. For 43 straight years, a nation of mindless Notre Dame fans, minds filled with the fictions of “Rudy” and the lisped warblings of Lou Holtz, watched their prejudices validated every November - and slept peacefully in the knowledge that no matter their own personal inadequacies, their boys in blue and gold (colors which we had first anyways) would triumph over those haggard souls relegated to paid service of their nation on the front lines of war. But then it all ended. And the opponent they least suspected rose up and delivered a long overdue comeuppance - on the their own home turf, no less. Two years later, we did it again. And on Saturday, with the arrival of a new coach and a few cupcake victories having stoked the fires of South Bend entitlement once more, good will again triumph over evil, hard work and heart will again triumph over birthright and apathy, this year’s Matt Coutures will watch their ill-fated season ended at the hands of real warriors, and maybe, just maybe they’ll realize that’s the way it should have been all along.

GO NAVY, BEAT NOTRE DAME!

3 Dance Dance De-Evolutions

2010-10-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

There's no doubt that dancing changed my life. It was the singular vehicle responsible for transforming me from a shy wallflower to the gregarious extrovert that most of you know today. I’ve written many times about the joy and wonder of dance, suggested it as therapy for just about any manner of blues and waxed poetic on the dance club where I really learned what dancing was all about. But in keeping with their tradition of bastardizing, perverting and utterly destroying any institution they get a hold of, the latest generations are having a similar effect on my most beloved of pastimes. There are of course, notable exceptions. At its highest levels, dancing has actually become more athletic, more artful, and more amazing. Unfortunately, everyone else couldn’t be further from these talented artists. Today’s dancing is yesterday’s seizure, lewd gesture or assault. After nearly twenty years spent on dance floors of nearly every shape, size and style, I may not know what good dancing is, but I surely know what it’s not. Here are 3 of the very worst examples of bad dancing for the casual observer:

1. Drop it like it’s not. Ladies, when someone asks you (1) if you like to dance or (2) if you know how to dance, please understand - they are asking two very different questions. The biggest difference being, the correct answer (for the vast majority of you) to the first question is “yes” and to the second question, a resounding “no.” You being good at shaking your ass is not you being good at dancing, it’s just you being good at shaking your ass (and most likely deluded even about that). Dancing like a stripper - sans pole, Motley Crue music, acrylic heels, or getting paid for it - makes you look, at best, desperate, and at worst, like a whore. Trying to look sexy looks just like trying to do anything does (or in other words, not sexy). The key element is not looking like someone with a muscle condition while dancing is to be genuine, because there is no other activity where being affected is more obvious (or more difficult to watch). Trying to emulate moves you saw on a Britney Spears or Pussycat Dolls video is a solid guarantee you won’t look anything like either.

2. Doin’ the Hump. Gentlemen, sneaking up behind a girl and driving your pelvis into her backside is not an invitation to dance, it’s sexual battery. While this type of behavior may be o.k. in rap videos, Spring Break in Mexico, and the Real World - everywhere else it’s actionably criminal. And though this will likely come as a shock to anyone who regularly engages in the this type of behavior, you’re not a star musician, a party host in Cabo or on reality TV. I honestly can’t recall when this became a widely accepted method of asking a woman to dance, but I suspect it was right about the same time that young men starting trying to attract women by making their crappy cars louder (rather than making them less crappy). What’s more, on the off chance you have successfully achieved an invitation to dance with a woman, a clumsy imitation of your sexual technique is about as enjoyable to watch as two dogs going at it in an alley. Trust me, you have a better chance of getting lucky with a proposition on a hand-painted sign around your neck than you do with your epileptic air-humping.

3. Strictly Ridiculous. Listen, I think it’s great that you’ve got the time and dedication to have taken ballroom dance lessons, and even better if you’ve done it with your significant other and the two of you are able to waltz the night away. But please be clear that (1) not every dance floor is a ballroom and (2) ballroom dancing to music other than ballroom music is like wearing black tie attire everywhere you go; or in other words: it makes you look like an asshole. Bringing special dance shoes to a nightclub is the only thing lamer than bringing your pool cue in its own little suitcase. Dancing with the Stars is a hit because it’s ridiculous, not because it's awesome. Besides, watching you prance around like you accidentally sat on your plunger isn’t even fun to laugh at, because you’re not famous. There’s a reason that ballroom dancing competitions (that don’t involve celebrities) are hard to find on television: because no one wants to see them. Besides, the last time being good at that kind of dancing made you look better than everyone else, folks were wearing powdered wigs and tights. If you find, while looking around to see how impressed everyone is with your hand-placement or soft-shoes, people looking at you like you’re covered in a thin layer of feces, take a hint and save that crap for rest of the douche-bags in your dance class.

* * *

To be certain, this list could have been a whole lot longer. I just didn’t have space to mention flailers, bumpers, and mimes (just to name a few dance floor tragedies that I’m sure you’ll recognize). But for all the horrors I’ve seen on countless dance floors, both public and private, I’ve seen just as many amazing, hilarious and heartwarming things. And for all the times I’ve wanted to run from them screaming (or at least scratching my head), there’s still no place I’d rather be. And with all that time on the dance floor, I’ve learned a few inalienable truths: First, good dancing has a lot more to do with being yourself than it does with technique, skill, or fancy moves. Second, it’s almost impossible to overcome a lack of rhythm, but a good sense of humor is your best hope. And third, unless you’re dancing for money, relax - it’s supposed to fun, and no one worth worrying about really cares anyway.

3 Bad Threes

2010-10-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

So far it’s been a pretty good year of threes. There have been good threes and bad threes, threes to laugh about and threes to cry about, but there’s no doubt that no matter what the threes have been, it’s been good to have threes. It’s been said that good things come in threes, and that three is a magic number. And while I am certainly and obviously a fan of threes, there are certain threes that should be avoided. You know that tricky third step down to the basement, that third period geometry class and Door Number 3 during Let’s Make a Deal? Of course, those are the evil third, threes and triples that you already know. So as your resident master of threes, here are 3 threes to steer clear of:

1. The third drink. There come a point in every evening which involves adult beverages when the decision is made to either keep it slow and steady, let the buzz wear off and get yourself home in decent shape or to pound them like you’re at a frat party, lose almost complete control of yourself (including your major bodily functions) and rely on your friends (or the kindness of strangers) to get you home. And this point is directly following your second drink. You see, the first drink is a nice reminder that you’re a grown up, usually something tasty (top shelf stuff), and is just enough to take a little edge off your day. The second drink is a confident nod to the cocktail waitress or bartender, a confirmation that the work day is officially over and a little well-deserved comfortably numb. At this point, you can still have an intelligent conversation (provided you are capable of one sober), walk around without stumbling, and reliably tell the difference between what’s funny and what’s not. You can even look cool turning down that all-important third drink - decrying the need to drive yourself home, work tomorrow, or just not hate yourself in the morning. But one drink later, you’re that guy/girl, forgetting yourself and your better judgment, apt to do at least one thing you’ll regret or have to be reminded about, and irrevocably altering peoples’ opinions of you. Tying one on regularly is a solid plan, tying three on regularly makes you a drunk.

2. The third course at a meal. It’s no secret, the United States is a fat-ass nation. Or perhaps more accurately, the U.S. is a nation of fat-asses. We do portion control like the Middle East does human rights. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a good meal, and like nothing more than the amazing variety of food that is at my fingertips as a result of living in America. But no matter how fancy, incredible or enjoyable the meal, having a third course is the difference between a having great eat and needing a second seat. In practice, what this means is having the appetizer or the dessert - but not both. Sure, they’re going to try to sell you both, but that’s because they make more money when you do - and they don’t have to pay for the gym membership, the bigger pants or the diabetes medication that you’re going to need when you start free-basing chocolate cake to punctuate your nights spent dining out. It’s always shocking to me after eating at a place like the Cheesecake Factory which brings out livestock-sized portions for entrees that you couldn’t finish with three goes at it, and then has the audacity to come offer you an 8-inch high slice of cheesecake that you can gain weight from just smelling. Of course, a quick look around, however, debunks the mystery of who exactly they’re catering to when you spot a couple of super-sized patrons plowing through their dessert course like it’s trying to scamper off their plate. Trust me, unless you want to look like a walking “Before” picture, keep the number of courses at two.

3. The third unbuttoned button. The buttons on a man’s shirt seem innocuous enough. I mean, at first glance, they’re just there to connect one side of the shirt to the other - but in practice, they mean/say so much more. The top button is simple: the only good reason to fasten it is to button a collar in preparation for a tie, because without a tie, a buttoned top button is the most reliable indication of religious zealotry outside of carrying a bible. So, unless you’re strapping up for business, you get one non-button for free. One. The second button is the difference between business casual and actual casual. It’s a necessary accompaniment to wearing that same shirt untucked. It’s the last button you should have to undo on your own during a sufficiently romantic evening. The third button, by comparison, should only be undone when removing the shirt. An unbuttoned third button is the dress shirt equivalent of having “Affliction” written on your t-shirt, and male equivalent of the bare midriff. If you think you need to have three buttons undone to comfortably wear your shirt, there’s a strong possibility you need a bigger shirt and an even stronger possibility that you’re vastly overestimating your size, the aesthetic appeal of your chest, or the likelihood that everyone around you wants to see it. Trust me, the only thing that you can have hanging around your neck that I’m going to need to see is a winning lottery ticket with my name on it. Everything else makes you look like an even bigger douche than your vastly over-bared chest is already doing. If someone really wants to see your torso, they’ll let you know; for the rest of us, two buttons worth is all we can handle.

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In this year of threes, it’s turned out that there are just as many bad threes as good threes, and perhaps even more. And while three is certainly a special number, sometimes it’s just as good of indicator of what not to do. As you might expect, I’m usually a big fan of folks getting to three, because for me, it usually means that I’ve gotten someone to read past 1000 words, and in this age of twitter feeds, micro-blogs and instant updates, that’s a miracle all its own. But, I’d gladly sacrifice a few readers if it meant dealing with a few less drunks, fatties or chest cleavage-baring ass-hats. The fact is that there are no magic numbers, three or otherwise, that excuse you from using your three most important weapons against dumbassery: your brain, your judgement and if all else fails, a mirror.

3 Facebook Fails

2010-10-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

At present, there are two kinds of people in this country: people who use social media, and the incontinent. The age (or otherwise) excused from reliable bladder control notwithstanding, first MySpace and now Facebook have become as ubiquitously a part of our life as cell phones, DVDs and, unfortunately, Justin Bieber. This development means that the same internet which originally purported to be able to connect us all, is finally doing just that. And once we finally ditched the glitter-gasm spam-fest that MySpace devolved into (and left it for the tweens, permanently "aspiring" recordings artists, and insatiable famewhores), we began to reconnect with long lost friends from our home towns, alma maters and old jobs. We finally figured out the difference between oversharing and sharing, the banal and the truly interesting, and real friends versus Facebook friends. But like any other public space, no matter how clean and awesome it starts out to be, the public invariably finds a way to eff it all up for everyone else. On the eve of the feature film that celebrates its improbable birth and rise to power, here are 3 things wrong with Facebook - or perhaps more precisely 3 wrong things you can find there:

1. Private Parts. As a general rule of thumb, if you’re trying to capture on camera something that you’re too embarrassed to have someone else help you take a photo of, don’t. If you can’t think of a single soul who you could ask to photograph you, what on earth makes you think the rest of the world at large has any interest in seeing whatever tragedy you’re trying to record? The mirror-assisted self-portrait is the most reliable indicator of mental disability this side of a helmet, and doing it shirtless or in your underwear makes you look as desperate as you do stupid. And though I’m not the first to say this, please stop making that ridiculous kissy-face - the only people that should be seeing that are people you’re going to kiss. It’s not as sexy as you think. In fact, it’s not sexy at all. It just makes you look like a jackass trying to mug for a reality show where you sell your dignity instead of getting a real job. If there is a dearth of pictures of you on the web, there’s probably a good reason. Just because you have a place to post this kind of self-debasing nonsense, doesn’t mean you should.

2. Dumbville. Sometimes I could swear that the folks who killed MySpace are still hungry for social-network blood. Because just when I think Facebook has finally settled down and become a relatively gentrified place for friends and folks to share their lives with one another, another opportunistic bastard attempts to profiteer on what I can only guess is widespread intellectual dissatisfaction with real life, by creating yet another mind-numbingly trite “social game”. As a result of these obsessive pastimes, instead of getting updates about what my friends are doing, where they’re going, or who they’re hanging out with (things I might actually be interested in), I get an endless stream of notices about whose mob family is growing, whose farm animals have escaped, or what new fish someone got. All this is made exponentially more asinine by the fact that none of these people are in the mob, on a farm, or even have an aquarium. If reality is too boring for you, take a nap, read a book, or catch a movie. Maybe then you’ll actually have something to share that doesn’t make me want to slap you with that shovel you need for your fake farm.

3. Unlikeable. For all that Facebook has, and for all the ways it has connected our lives, both online and off, there is one big thing missing: the “dislike” button. The “like” button was brilliant. A way to indicate approval without having to come up with a catchy comment (the pressure of which can sometimes be overwhelming); a way to support the ideas, preferences and discoveries of your friends, even if you have nothing necessarily to add. But where is the “dislike” button? When did Facebook become “Happyland”?! Why is it that the only two options I have to respond the veritable universe of often inadvisable crap that is posted by my friends for public consumption is either to “like” it or ignore it? It’s like the internet version of the old maternal maxim: “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all” Are you kidding me? If you have the kind of friends who won’t tell you when they don’t like something you’re doing/saying/ingesting, etc., then you don’t really have any friends. Or maybe that’s why you’re on Facebook in the first place?

* * *

In general, I’m grateful for Facebook. Because as a result of its existence and development, I’ve finally got a way to keep people up to date on what’s going on in my life (and vice versa), without having to spend hours and hours that I no longer have on correspondence, etc. What’s more, its nearly universal appeal has allowed me to find long-lost friends from lifetimes ago, and allowed many of those same folks to find me. It even has a much cleaner mechanism than real life for getting suddenly unwelcome people out of your life. But as Facebook has grown, and tried to continue to sanitize its way as far from the teenage wasteland that its peer network has become, it will discover/has discovered an inalienable truth. The more real life that gets absorbed into it, the dirtier it will become. Because no matter how you scrub it, segregate it, or censor it, real friends, real relationships and real life are messy. And the real success of Facebook will not be finding a way to help us cleanly stay connected, but rather in finding a way to let us all get messy together.