Whenever I see some mega-corporation come out with an amazingly dumb advertising campaign, I can’t help but try to think of the meeting at which that campaign was pitched to them. I just can’t help but imagine all of these stuffy, old, white-haired, pasty guys sitting in a board room somewhere getting all excited about the stroke of genius the folks at the advertising company came up with.
I imagine awkward high-fives, smug smiles, handshakes, back pats and joviality in general. All the while, they have no idea that they just gave the green light to something so horrendously stupid that it defies all logic. Such has to have been the case at the Burger King headquarters when they were pitched the idea of, “The Whopper Virgins!”
In case you’re living under a rock, the Whopper Virgin commercials are a taste test between Burger King’s Whopper and McDonald’s Big Mac as given to people who live in third world countries and have no access to either Burger King or McDonalds. These people are given the name of Whopper Virgins—though, presumably they are Big Mac Virgins too.
You can see how they thought this was a good idea. I mean, I always make my fast food purchasing decisions based on the recommendations of starving people in countries I’ve never heard of before. I’m sure most people do. We drive along, realize that we haven’t eaten in the past hour and half and start thinking to ourselves, wow, I’m famished. If I was a starving person in Nofoodistan who hadn’t eaten a full and decent meal in months, and I had to choose a fast food burger, which one would I choose? Don’t lie. We all have this very thought every time we get hungry and you know it!
In fact, I depend on the preferences of people in Third World countries for help in making many choices. Do I get the 3-ply or the 4-ply extra fluffy toilet paper? Well, I just think to myself, what would someone from Wipemyasswithdryleavesia do? Do I go with the Mountain Mist scented deodorant or the Unscented? Well, I just put myself in the shoes of someone from Dontevenhavesoaphereia and do what they would do. So it only makes sense that when it comes time to choose my artery clogging burger served with special sauce that includes some teenagers popped zit juice, that I consult someone who’s never tasted a burger before.
Oh, the joy those crusty old executives must have felt at the end of the presentation when this idea was pitched to them. The salesperson at the ad agency must have been very best salesperson---EVER. This is the kind of person who sells ocean-front property in Wisconsin and ice-making machines to Eskimos. They got the Burger King execs so riled up that they spent millions of dollars on the ad campaign and the result is this: We know that people who don’t eat burgers, prefer the Whopper. I’m sure this fact has convinced the masses. The great Burger Battle is coming to end and the King will finally knock the Clown down a peg.
Or, you know…maybe, just maybe, no one cares. Not even a little bit. And someone—probably a lot of someones who make a lot of money to make good decisions, actually thought this was brilliant. Ahh, nothing is quite so amazing as the staggering stupidity of some people. We can only hope that in this monkey-see, monkey-do world, that other companies follow the brave lead of Burger King, because I’d pay to see the Charmin Virgins commercial!
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
No More Love for Lovie
I’m not an extremist when it comes to firing coaches. It seems that the standard in sports today though, in the era of ESPN and non-stop talk radio and yes, message boards and blogs where every knuckle-dragging Neanderthal can spout off on any topic, that as soon as any team loses the talk begins about the removal of the coach. In most cases, it’s a foolish over-reaction by people who have no idea what they are talking about.
As someone who spent thirteen years as a coach, albeit on the very most amateur level, I know what a difficult and thankless job it can be. I’ve attended seminars given by some of the most respected coaching minds in sports today. I’ve put in the hours in the trenches as they may say, so when I speak out against a coach, it’s only after giving it a lot of thought and I assure you, it’s not an alarmist reaction.
That said, I think I may actually be in the minority in my opinion, which is this: The Chicago Bears need to fire head coach Lovie Smith post haste.
The reason is two-fold, one having to do with the fact that after having watched him for a few years now, I have come to the conclusion that he isn’t the right coach for this team. The second is because of the limited availability of a guy who would be. The second reason would be irrelevant without the first, of course, but because I believe it to be so, it’s something that comes into play.
Let’s start with why Lovie Smith isn’t the right guy for the job. And the answer is a simple one. There are two kinds of coaches in this world, real coaches and talent managers. I think that Lovie Smith is a fine talent manager, which means that when he has a team that is more talented than yours, he manages them in a way that keeps them from losing. He is player-friendly to the last, he never calls a specific player out in public, he never ruffles feathers, he is calm, collected, pensive and obtuse.
If the Bears did choose to fire him, which they most certainly will not, there wouldn’t be a single player who spoke a bad word about him. There would be outrage because just a couple years ago, he guided the Bears to an appearance in the Super Bowl, but I believe that to be a fallacy now. He didn’t guide them anywhere. He rode them to that Super Bowl. Simply put, his team was talented, so he was considered a good coach; it wasn’t a case where they were a good team because he was a good coach.
The sign of a good coach, a real coach, a coach worth keeping and paying is how his teams play and compete when they aren’t the most talented team. As the saying goes, he can take his’n and beat yours’n, and then take yours’n and beat his’n. A good coach’s team can overcome adversity, like injury to key players because he’s coached the backups to be ready to step in and fill the void. A good coach gets the most out his players. A well coached team will get better, not worse, as a year goes on. A good coach is all things—father, mother, brother, sister, friend, enemy, boss, peer, comrade, antagonist, psychologist and bus driver. A good coach is never universally liked, but is universally respected. A good coach is emotional, but never a slave to his emotions. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it in Lovie. In him, I see a guy who is excellent with the wind at his back, and useless when walking into the wind.
The Bears players do not ever improve. They are good or bad. They are as is merchandise. If you draft, trade or sign a player, what you see is what you get. There is no growth curve. I cannot name a single player who has been a shining example of being coached up during the Lovie Smith era—a player who has made vast improvements. They are either good or bad when they get here. There is never any growth. That is the indictment. That is the proof in the pudding. That is the basis for labeling Lovie Smith a talent manager instead of a real coach. Sadly, the Chicago Bears will rarely be the team that pays for the most talent, so is a talent manager really the best choice for our coach?
The most common opinion now is that Lovie deserves one more year, that the Super Bowl appearance in 2006 earns him one more chance and therein lies the biggest problem. Coaches are going to start getting the axe left and right today, with the regular season over and done. Every one of those teams is going to being pursuing the best man for the job out there, a real coach who has always gotten the most from his teams, Bill Cowher.
IF, the Bears let Smith go, they would immediately become the most attractive option for a coach like Cowher, who would relish the chance to coach one of the original franchises, steeped in history and tradition and to be part of that tradition. If the money was right, there wouldn’t be a more attractive destination out there for him. The fact of the matter is that while the cupboard isn’t full of talent, it’s far from devoid of it. Chicago is a great sports town with a great fan base. Simply put, it’s one of the best places to coach in all of football, if not professional sports as a whole. If the money was right, Cowher could be the next coach of the Bears. But he won’t be.
Lovie Smith was given a contract extension based on the Super Bowl run. The Misers of the Midway won’t dump him until the stench of the corpse rot is definitive. They won’t take the chance that he may yet be a good coach. They won’t take the chance that they were wrong to have given him more money. Muster up your best West Texas drawl and say it with me: Lovie Smith is our football coach.
It’s a shame, because Cowher and Chicago would have been an amazing fit. But it’s a pipe dream, it’s as likely as the country banding together to ask Obama to step aside and have George Bush run things for four more years.
So, are the Bears doomed to mediocrity or worse until Lovie finally does get fired? No. The dynamic that football has that offers hope is the amount of responsibility that the coordinators have in the running of the team. A team manager like Lovie Smith can be successful if his Offensive and Defensive Coordinators are real coaches—and good ones. As the staff stands now, that’s not the case. If Lovie must stay, then Turner and Babich must go. It’s time to get some new blood in those jobs. A D-Coordinator with some fire is a must. The team obviously responds to that, as they did for Ron Rivera when he held the job. And both on offense and defense, our coordinators should be innovators. They should be ahead of the curve, not always trying to catch up to it. The era of the Cover-2 is over, it must evolve or die. And Ron Turner has had the same playbook since Jim Miller was our quarterback. He’s more predictable than the winter snow in Chicago. His biggest innovation of the year was being the last coordinator in the league to try the new-fangled “wildcat” formation. Gee. How exciting.
It’s been a long time since the Bears have had a real coach. They seem to be enamored with this prototype, poker-faced, ultra-calm, unflappable kind of coach. When it was time for Dick Jauron to go, they hired Dick Jauron with a tan. Meanwhile, when you say the words coach and Bears together in the same sentence, every and any football fan out there immediately thinks back to Mike Ditka. Great coaches become legends in this town. We haven’t had a legend in a long time. Cowher could have been a legend. Twenty years from now, I could have enjoyed a steak at his steakhouse downtown, but I won’t. I’ll still be going to Ditka’s and re-living ’85. Sad, isn’t it?
As someone who spent thirteen years as a coach, albeit on the very most amateur level, I know what a difficult and thankless job it can be. I’ve attended seminars given by some of the most respected coaching minds in sports today. I’ve put in the hours in the trenches as they may say, so when I speak out against a coach, it’s only after giving it a lot of thought and I assure you, it’s not an alarmist reaction.
That said, I think I may actually be in the minority in my opinion, which is this: The Chicago Bears need to fire head coach Lovie Smith post haste.
The reason is two-fold, one having to do with the fact that after having watched him for a few years now, I have come to the conclusion that he isn’t the right coach for this team. The second is because of the limited availability of a guy who would be. The second reason would be irrelevant without the first, of course, but because I believe it to be so, it’s something that comes into play.
Let’s start with why Lovie Smith isn’t the right guy for the job. And the answer is a simple one. There are two kinds of coaches in this world, real coaches and talent managers. I think that Lovie Smith is a fine talent manager, which means that when he has a team that is more talented than yours, he manages them in a way that keeps them from losing. He is player-friendly to the last, he never calls a specific player out in public, he never ruffles feathers, he is calm, collected, pensive and obtuse.
If the Bears did choose to fire him, which they most certainly will not, there wouldn’t be a single player who spoke a bad word about him. There would be outrage because just a couple years ago, he guided the Bears to an appearance in the Super Bowl, but I believe that to be a fallacy now. He didn’t guide them anywhere. He rode them to that Super Bowl. Simply put, his team was talented, so he was considered a good coach; it wasn’t a case where they were a good team because he was a good coach.
The sign of a good coach, a real coach, a coach worth keeping and paying is how his teams play and compete when they aren’t the most talented team. As the saying goes, he can take his’n and beat yours’n, and then take yours’n and beat his’n. A good coach’s team can overcome adversity, like injury to key players because he’s coached the backups to be ready to step in and fill the void. A good coach gets the most out his players. A well coached team will get better, not worse, as a year goes on. A good coach is all things—father, mother, brother, sister, friend, enemy, boss, peer, comrade, antagonist, psychologist and bus driver. A good coach is never universally liked, but is universally respected. A good coach is emotional, but never a slave to his emotions. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see it in Lovie. In him, I see a guy who is excellent with the wind at his back, and useless when walking into the wind.
The Bears players do not ever improve. They are good or bad. They are as is merchandise. If you draft, trade or sign a player, what you see is what you get. There is no growth curve. I cannot name a single player who has been a shining example of being coached up during the Lovie Smith era—a player who has made vast improvements. They are either good or bad when they get here. There is never any growth. That is the indictment. That is the proof in the pudding. That is the basis for labeling Lovie Smith a talent manager instead of a real coach. Sadly, the Chicago Bears will rarely be the team that pays for the most talent, so is a talent manager really the best choice for our coach?
The most common opinion now is that Lovie deserves one more year, that the Super Bowl appearance in 2006 earns him one more chance and therein lies the biggest problem. Coaches are going to start getting the axe left and right today, with the regular season over and done. Every one of those teams is going to being pursuing the best man for the job out there, a real coach who has always gotten the most from his teams, Bill Cowher.
IF, the Bears let Smith go, they would immediately become the most attractive option for a coach like Cowher, who would relish the chance to coach one of the original franchises, steeped in history and tradition and to be part of that tradition. If the money was right, there wouldn’t be a more attractive destination out there for him. The fact of the matter is that while the cupboard isn’t full of talent, it’s far from devoid of it. Chicago is a great sports town with a great fan base. Simply put, it’s one of the best places to coach in all of football, if not professional sports as a whole. If the money was right, Cowher could be the next coach of the Bears. But he won’t be.
Lovie Smith was given a contract extension based on the Super Bowl run. The Misers of the Midway won’t dump him until the stench of the corpse rot is definitive. They won’t take the chance that he may yet be a good coach. They won’t take the chance that they were wrong to have given him more money. Muster up your best West Texas drawl and say it with me: Lovie Smith is our football coach.
It’s a shame, because Cowher and Chicago would have been an amazing fit. But it’s a pipe dream, it’s as likely as the country banding together to ask Obama to step aside and have George Bush run things for four more years.
So, are the Bears doomed to mediocrity or worse until Lovie finally does get fired? No. The dynamic that football has that offers hope is the amount of responsibility that the coordinators have in the running of the team. A team manager like Lovie Smith can be successful if his Offensive and Defensive Coordinators are real coaches—and good ones. As the staff stands now, that’s not the case. If Lovie must stay, then Turner and Babich must go. It’s time to get some new blood in those jobs. A D-Coordinator with some fire is a must. The team obviously responds to that, as they did for Ron Rivera when he held the job. And both on offense and defense, our coordinators should be innovators. They should be ahead of the curve, not always trying to catch up to it. The era of the Cover-2 is over, it must evolve or die. And Ron Turner has had the same playbook since Jim Miller was our quarterback. He’s more predictable than the winter snow in Chicago. His biggest innovation of the year was being the last coordinator in the league to try the new-fangled “wildcat” formation. Gee. How exciting.
It’s been a long time since the Bears have had a real coach. They seem to be enamored with this prototype, poker-faced, ultra-calm, unflappable kind of coach. When it was time for Dick Jauron to go, they hired Dick Jauron with a tan. Meanwhile, when you say the words coach and Bears together in the same sentence, every and any football fan out there immediately thinks back to Mike Ditka. Great coaches become legends in this town. We haven’t had a legend in a long time. Cowher could have been a legend. Twenty years from now, I could have enjoyed a steak at his steakhouse downtown, but I won’t. I’ll still be going to Ditka’s and re-living ’85. Sad, isn’t it?
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Jesus Christ the Kidnapped
I just finished a book by A.J. Jacobs entitled The Year of Living Biblically in which he sets out to spend an entire year living by the literal laws of the Bible. He finds out almost immediately that it’s an impossible task since the Bible contradicts itself in many places, and is just too massive to just jump into anyway. So, he immerses himself in manageable chunks, learning to live the Bible bits at a time.
It’s an excellent book and it documents his transformation from being purely secular and agnostic to something more—though not outright religious. To help keep the reader’s attention, he chronicles a few of the more interesting biblical laws that he follows, such as stoning adulterers, keeping the ends of his beard unshaved and wearing fringe at the ends of all of his garments. But the fun and whimsical don’t distract from a really well-written journey of the author as he struggles to find and understand God.
Jacobs comes from Jewish decent and though he tries to live the New Testament out in the final few chapters of his book, he definitely falls more in line with the teachings and traditions of his grandparent’s religion. That didn’t stop me from gleaning quite a bit from what he went through though and as I turned the last page after his own reflections, I immediately thought of another book I’d recently read.
In his book Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut invents a religion he calls the Church of Jesus Christ the Kidnapped. This religion is founded on the principle that the Second Coming has already started, but that upon coming back to the world, Jesus was kidnapped by nefarious forces. It is the most commonly practiced religion of the people in the apocalyptical world in which the book is set. The practitioners are easily noticed, because they continually turn their heads from side to side, searching for the kidnapped Christ.
While I’m pretty sure the Second Coming hasn’t occurred, the idea of the Kidnapped Jesus is one that really stuck with me. It really summed up how I feel about Christianity in general. I feel like a lot of high and mighty people, who live in glass houses have kidnapped Jesus and spend their time and energy bastardizing most of what he preached.
While they have the real Jesus, locked safely away somewhere, they substitute another Jesus who they use to fit their specific needs. The fake Jesus is very judgmental. He likes hypocrites a whole lot. He looks down on anyone who isn’t like his kidnappers. He considers himself and his kidnappers to be superior and he looks down on others. He is more concerned with fixing people who aren’t like he and his kidnappers than accepting them for who they are already.
Meanwhile, the Kidnapped Jesus is locked away in a room in some undisclosed location. All He ever really wanted was for us to love each other, accept each other, be kind to one and other and for us all to live in peace. He died so that we could all be free of sin, not so that we could use Him against each other.
The Kidnapped Jesus rolls his eyes when athletes point to Him after scoring touchdowns or hitting homeruns. He knows that isn’t about His glory but the athlete’s own. He cries when wars are fought in His name. He is despondent when His words are used as ammunition for people who are not accepting of others. He wanted His people to spread the good news, not to force it on others, but by loving them unconditionally, as He loves us, showing them that His truly is the truth, the way and the light.
He despised those who spawned hypocrisy in His Father’s name. The high and mighty of the world, those who worshipped money and fame and power were the ones He spoke out against. It was the poor and meek and to whom He promised the greatest rewards in Heaven.
It is possibly the greatest irony ever inspired by the Bible that modern day Christians, so high and mighty, so sure of right and wrong that they choose to judge instead of love, fail to see how similar they are to the very people of Biblical times that Jesus spoke out against.
I was raised Catholic and I still believe in all that I was taught. My faith in God is strong and unwavering. It’s my faith in people that is shattered. It is my faith in many—not all—who were taught the same things I was that troubles me. Sometimes, I think that maybe I read a different Bible; that I was taught a different religion than others who claim the same labels I always have, because I just don’t understand the things that they say and do.
So, I’ll borrow His words when I pray for those who have kidnapped Him: Forgive them, for they know not what they do. And I think that from now on, when anyone asks me what religion I practice, I’ll tell them that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ the Kidnapped, a Christian who feels the Jesus that I know has been stolen from the world by those point to the sky after their own personal touchdowns. I don’t spend my time with my head on a swivel looking for Him though. He lives, as He always has, in my heart and in hearts of those who choose to love as He has loved us.
Jacobs concludes in his book that every and any person who looks to the Bible is in some way like a Cafeteria Christian, picking and choosing which parts of the Bible apply to them. If it weren’t so, no woman could ever speak in a church, no one could ever discuss the Tennessee Titans football team because merely saying the word Titan counts as idolatry. Sinners and blasphemers would be stoned on a daily basis. So, even the most hardcore Christians and Jews have to interpret and allow the words of the Bible or Torah to evolve along with us.
I agree with him. And that’s why religion is such a personal thing to me. I interpret what I learned when I was young and have learned as I’ve grown and apply it as best I can. I don’t expect others to see it exactly as I do and I’m put off by those who feel I should see it their way.
I just don’t see how the obsession with being right is, in any way, in accordance with the Bible and I’m appalled by the arrogance of those who think they have it all figured out. I wonder if most Christians are really the way they are portrayed, or if maybe they are just the squeaky wheel making noise, while the rest of us live our lives in much more Christian ways? I hope it’s the latter, but I’m not so sure.
I think that maybe Jesus has been kidnapped, in a figurative way and it’s a sad thing indeed. As Jacobs found out, it’s impossible to walk in the footsteps of our forbearers. We have to make the best of what we have, learning from the past and evolving to whatever comes next. It’s a personal journey, not one that’s meant to be taken en mass. Not that it’s wrong to celebrate what you believe with others—the opposite is actually true, just that it can’t be so sanctioned, so regimented and so predetermined, after all, our own free will is the bit of divine spark that was placed inside us all, and if we don’t exercise that gift and instead depend on the interpretations and the will of others, what greater sin could we commit?
It’s an excellent book and it documents his transformation from being purely secular and agnostic to something more—though not outright religious. To help keep the reader’s attention, he chronicles a few of the more interesting biblical laws that he follows, such as stoning adulterers, keeping the ends of his beard unshaved and wearing fringe at the ends of all of his garments. But the fun and whimsical don’t distract from a really well-written journey of the author as he struggles to find and understand God.
Jacobs comes from Jewish decent and though he tries to live the New Testament out in the final few chapters of his book, he definitely falls more in line with the teachings and traditions of his grandparent’s religion. That didn’t stop me from gleaning quite a bit from what he went through though and as I turned the last page after his own reflections, I immediately thought of another book I’d recently read.
In his book Slapstick, Kurt Vonnegut invents a religion he calls the Church of Jesus Christ the Kidnapped. This religion is founded on the principle that the Second Coming has already started, but that upon coming back to the world, Jesus was kidnapped by nefarious forces. It is the most commonly practiced religion of the people in the apocalyptical world in which the book is set. The practitioners are easily noticed, because they continually turn their heads from side to side, searching for the kidnapped Christ.
While I’m pretty sure the Second Coming hasn’t occurred, the idea of the Kidnapped Jesus is one that really stuck with me. It really summed up how I feel about Christianity in general. I feel like a lot of high and mighty people, who live in glass houses have kidnapped Jesus and spend their time and energy bastardizing most of what he preached.
While they have the real Jesus, locked safely away somewhere, they substitute another Jesus who they use to fit their specific needs. The fake Jesus is very judgmental. He likes hypocrites a whole lot. He looks down on anyone who isn’t like his kidnappers. He considers himself and his kidnappers to be superior and he looks down on others. He is more concerned with fixing people who aren’t like he and his kidnappers than accepting them for who they are already.
Meanwhile, the Kidnapped Jesus is locked away in a room in some undisclosed location. All He ever really wanted was for us to love each other, accept each other, be kind to one and other and for us all to live in peace. He died so that we could all be free of sin, not so that we could use Him against each other.
The Kidnapped Jesus rolls his eyes when athletes point to Him after scoring touchdowns or hitting homeruns. He knows that isn’t about His glory but the athlete’s own. He cries when wars are fought in His name. He is despondent when His words are used as ammunition for people who are not accepting of others. He wanted His people to spread the good news, not to force it on others, but by loving them unconditionally, as He loves us, showing them that His truly is the truth, the way and the light.
He despised those who spawned hypocrisy in His Father’s name. The high and mighty of the world, those who worshipped money and fame and power were the ones He spoke out against. It was the poor and meek and to whom He promised the greatest rewards in Heaven.
It is possibly the greatest irony ever inspired by the Bible that modern day Christians, so high and mighty, so sure of right and wrong that they choose to judge instead of love, fail to see how similar they are to the very people of Biblical times that Jesus spoke out against.
I was raised Catholic and I still believe in all that I was taught. My faith in God is strong and unwavering. It’s my faith in people that is shattered. It is my faith in many—not all—who were taught the same things I was that troubles me. Sometimes, I think that maybe I read a different Bible; that I was taught a different religion than others who claim the same labels I always have, because I just don’t understand the things that they say and do.
So, I’ll borrow His words when I pray for those who have kidnapped Him: Forgive them, for they know not what they do. And I think that from now on, when anyone asks me what religion I practice, I’ll tell them that I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ the Kidnapped, a Christian who feels the Jesus that I know has been stolen from the world by those point to the sky after their own personal touchdowns. I don’t spend my time with my head on a swivel looking for Him though. He lives, as He always has, in my heart and in hearts of those who choose to love as He has loved us.
Jacobs concludes in his book that every and any person who looks to the Bible is in some way like a Cafeteria Christian, picking and choosing which parts of the Bible apply to them. If it weren’t so, no woman could ever speak in a church, no one could ever discuss the Tennessee Titans football team because merely saying the word Titan counts as idolatry. Sinners and blasphemers would be stoned on a daily basis. So, even the most hardcore Christians and Jews have to interpret and allow the words of the Bible or Torah to evolve along with us.
I agree with him. And that’s why religion is such a personal thing to me. I interpret what I learned when I was young and have learned as I’ve grown and apply it as best I can. I don’t expect others to see it exactly as I do and I’m put off by those who feel I should see it their way.
I just don’t see how the obsession with being right is, in any way, in accordance with the Bible and I’m appalled by the arrogance of those who think they have it all figured out. I wonder if most Christians are really the way they are portrayed, or if maybe they are just the squeaky wheel making noise, while the rest of us live our lives in much more Christian ways? I hope it’s the latter, but I’m not so sure.
I think that maybe Jesus has been kidnapped, in a figurative way and it’s a sad thing indeed. As Jacobs found out, it’s impossible to walk in the footsteps of our forbearers. We have to make the best of what we have, learning from the past and evolving to whatever comes next. It’s a personal journey, not one that’s meant to be taken en mass. Not that it’s wrong to celebrate what you believe with others—the opposite is actually true, just that it can’t be so sanctioned, so regimented and so predetermined, after all, our own free will is the bit of divine spark that was placed inside us all, and if we don’t exercise that gift and instead depend on the interpretations and the will of others, what greater sin could we commit?
Friday, December 26, 2008
Year In Review? Nah.
Well, Christmas has past and New Years is approaching and between now and then, tis the season to review the year. Everyone and their mother feel the need to rehash the past 12 months, as if we weren’t along for the ride. Every magazine I receive has it’s annual Year In Review issue out. Every blog is covering it. Every website out there is busy reviewing their year. Even Christmas cards come with amazingly annoying 3-page letters informing us of every single inane and mundane detail of Aunt Mildred’s life and the lives of her family, friends and, of course, her cats, Fluffy, Peepers and Hermione.
I’m just not sure I understand the need to re-chronicle every stupid thing that has happened this past year though. My memory is pretty good, I can still remember who won last year’s NCAA Championship, so my magazines aren’t doing me any favors. It’s hard enough reading most blogs as it is, but rereading them is simple torture. Reviewing poorly written ignorance is far beyond cruel and unusual. And I just don’t know of a single person who could even remotely care that Aunt Mildred’s newest kitty Hermione is the cleverist kitten ever.
Still, the year end reviews are unavoidable. If you read anything that isn’t a book over the next week or so, you’ll inevitably read some kind of yearly review. You’ll read about the best and worst of 2008 as decided by arbitrary people who probably aren’t qualified to decide which is which. What ever happened to letting old acquaintance being forgotten and never brought to mind? Whatever happened to the good that men do lying interred with their bones? What’s with the analysis of something that we just got through analyzing?
When the election was going on, we drubbed it to death. We wrote about every imaginable aspect of it. We know that Obama won and that Palin believes people and dinosaurs coexisted. We don’t need reminders. The same is true of every notable event from the past year and this new-fangled interweb allows us to easily access that information, so it’s not like we’re documenting for posterity. People won’t need to read a year in review to know that Joe the Plumber had his fifteen minutes of fame, that The Sopranos ended with a cut to black and that after decades of rumors and promotion, Guns ‘N Roses finally released Chinese Democracy in 2008, all they have to do is Google it.
Maybe there was a place for year end reviews in the past, but we have instant access to any little minute piece of information we want these days, and even if we didn’t—if we can’t retain the information for twelve whole months, it just couldn’t possibly have been important enough for us to remember in the first place. I guess the point is that the past is supposed to be prologue and if that’s the case then the parts of it we failed to commit to memory couldn’t have been all that important in the first place. The song has it right. Let the trivial bits of the past year fall away, look to the future and let the historians worry about the documentation.
Happy New Year.
I’m just not sure I understand the need to re-chronicle every stupid thing that has happened this past year though. My memory is pretty good, I can still remember who won last year’s NCAA Championship, so my magazines aren’t doing me any favors. It’s hard enough reading most blogs as it is, but rereading them is simple torture. Reviewing poorly written ignorance is far beyond cruel and unusual. And I just don’t know of a single person who could even remotely care that Aunt Mildred’s newest kitty Hermione is the cleverist kitten ever.
Still, the year end reviews are unavoidable. If you read anything that isn’t a book over the next week or so, you’ll inevitably read some kind of yearly review. You’ll read about the best and worst of 2008 as decided by arbitrary people who probably aren’t qualified to decide which is which. What ever happened to letting old acquaintance being forgotten and never brought to mind? Whatever happened to the good that men do lying interred with their bones? What’s with the analysis of something that we just got through analyzing?
When the election was going on, we drubbed it to death. We wrote about every imaginable aspect of it. We know that Obama won and that Palin believes people and dinosaurs coexisted. We don’t need reminders. The same is true of every notable event from the past year and this new-fangled interweb allows us to easily access that information, so it’s not like we’re documenting for posterity. People won’t need to read a year in review to know that Joe the Plumber had his fifteen minutes of fame, that The Sopranos ended with a cut to black and that after decades of rumors and promotion, Guns ‘N Roses finally released Chinese Democracy in 2008, all they have to do is Google it.
Maybe there was a place for year end reviews in the past, but we have instant access to any little minute piece of information we want these days, and even if we didn’t—if we can’t retain the information for twelve whole months, it just couldn’t possibly have been important enough for us to remember in the first place. I guess the point is that the past is supposed to be prologue and if that’s the case then the parts of it we failed to commit to memory couldn’t have been all that important in the first place. The song has it right. Let the trivial bits of the past year fall away, look to the future and let the historians worry about the documentation.
Happy New Year.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
I Support Illiteracy--and you should too!
“No.”
That was my answer. The question? Well it wasn’t really a question at all and that was the problem. It was a statement. For an extra dollar you can help support literacy in Illinois—and then she stared at me. And when I say that she stared at me, I mean to say that she gave me a look that said, only a complete asshole would refuse to give one little dollar to help people read.
Well color me a complete asshole, because my dollar stayed in my pocket and will likely go towards something off the value menu at a local fast food joint while people here in my home state continue to not be able to read—and I’m fine with that.
Now, it’s at this point that I feel it necessary to tell you that I am that guy. I’m the guy who can always be counted on to buy a candy bar from you so that your snot-nosed kid can get new soccer uniforms. I’m the guy who never misses a Salvation Army kettle. I’m the guy who buys tootsie rolls or paper carnations to support whatever disease is having it’s big day. I’m the guy who’s a mortal lock to pledge to your Walk-For-Whatever. The girl scouts all know I’m a sucker for their cookies. I’m a giving kind of guy.
And if you came up to me and asked me to help support literacy in my home state, I’d give to that cause too, but when you try to guilt me into it while I’m in line at the store, you can bet your sweet ass that my money is staying in my wallet, thank you very much!
Ask, and you shall receive. Try to guilt me into giving and I’ll be stubborn just for fun.
The whole idea that any organization would accost me and put me on the spot like this is insulting. If I want to walk by a bum on the street and not give him my spare change, all I have to say is—sorry buddy, I don’t have any, even if I have $0.97 jingling around in my pocket. If I want to walk past that Salvation Army kettle, I need only put my head down and ignore the bell ringer.
But when Little Miss Cashier Girl at the bookstore tells me that I can help people learn to read, she knows damn well that I have money. I just handed it to her. It just means that I get less change back. It means that one, itty-bitty little dollar isn’t going to make it back to my wallet.
So, she looks at me with those big doe eyes and says her line: For an extra dollar you can help support literacy in Illinois. She might as well be saying: For an extra dollar, you can save a bag full of puppies from being set on fire! Or, for an extra dollar, you can keep babies from being dunked in acid. That is the tone she says it with, that is the look she uses to accompany her request.
In her eyes, it is, of course, a moral imperative that I donate just one little dollar. Well I say no. I say no because I will not be bullied into giving. I say no because I’m offended that you try to hold my change hostage. I say no because I don’t care if some 17 year old girl working the register at Borders thinks I’m an asshole. I say no because you have a lot of nerve trying to hijack my dollar like this. If you want to station a person at the door who ASKS me for a donation, I’m all for helping you to end illiteracy. But as it is now, with your guerilla-warfare tactics, I am proud to say and shall scream from the mountaintops: I SUPPORT ILLITERACY IN ILLINOIS!!!!!
More books for me! Now, I won’t have to worry about someone coming in and taking that last copy of the book I want to get off the shelf, because that fool can’t read! Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Somewhere, in some board room, some asshole stood up in front of a bunch of people and presented them with this idea. He got a raise, a promotion and a pat on the back because I’m sure it’s wildly successful. Most people don’t give from the heart. Most people can be guilted into giving though. The change-jack is probably a very successful strategy. And all of those people in that office probably think it’s brilliant.
Well, I don’t think it’s brilliant. I think that when you stop relying on people’s good will and start relying on guile to achieve your means, you are no longer a worthy cause. If you are duplicitous in how you get your money, surely you will be duplicitous in how you spend it. You justify your means with the end. Well, I justify my lack of charity with your lack of scruples.
In all seriousness, illiteracy is no joke. But neither is my point—when not-for-profits start resorting to these kinds of methods, they lose all integrity. They lose any sense of trust I might have had in them, had they approached me in an honest way. Which is why, in the end, that dollar won’t really go to some item off the value menu at McDonalds, I’ll just add it to the dollar I wind up giving to the next bell ringer I see outside a grocery store, or the next guy at the red light who wants to give me a tootsie roll.
I’m happy to give. I just refuse to be taken.
That was my answer. The question? Well it wasn’t really a question at all and that was the problem. It was a statement. For an extra dollar you can help support literacy in Illinois—and then she stared at me. And when I say that she stared at me, I mean to say that she gave me a look that said, only a complete asshole would refuse to give one little dollar to help people read.
Well color me a complete asshole, because my dollar stayed in my pocket and will likely go towards something off the value menu at a local fast food joint while people here in my home state continue to not be able to read—and I’m fine with that.
Now, it’s at this point that I feel it necessary to tell you that I am that guy. I’m the guy who can always be counted on to buy a candy bar from you so that your snot-nosed kid can get new soccer uniforms. I’m the guy who never misses a Salvation Army kettle. I’m the guy who buys tootsie rolls or paper carnations to support whatever disease is having it’s big day. I’m the guy who’s a mortal lock to pledge to your Walk-For-Whatever. The girl scouts all know I’m a sucker for their cookies. I’m a giving kind of guy.
And if you came up to me and asked me to help support literacy in my home state, I’d give to that cause too, but when you try to guilt me into it while I’m in line at the store, you can bet your sweet ass that my money is staying in my wallet, thank you very much!
Ask, and you shall receive. Try to guilt me into giving and I’ll be stubborn just for fun.
The whole idea that any organization would accost me and put me on the spot like this is insulting. If I want to walk by a bum on the street and not give him my spare change, all I have to say is—sorry buddy, I don’t have any, even if I have $0.97 jingling around in my pocket. If I want to walk past that Salvation Army kettle, I need only put my head down and ignore the bell ringer.
But when Little Miss Cashier Girl at the bookstore tells me that I can help people learn to read, she knows damn well that I have money. I just handed it to her. It just means that I get less change back. It means that one, itty-bitty little dollar isn’t going to make it back to my wallet.
So, she looks at me with those big doe eyes and says her line: For an extra dollar you can help support literacy in Illinois. She might as well be saying: For an extra dollar, you can save a bag full of puppies from being set on fire! Or, for an extra dollar, you can keep babies from being dunked in acid. That is the tone she says it with, that is the look she uses to accompany her request.
In her eyes, it is, of course, a moral imperative that I donate just one little dollar. Well I say no. I say no because I will not be bullied into giving. I say no because I’m offended that you try to hold my change hostage. I say no because I don’t care if some 17 year old girl working the register at Borders thinks I’m an asshole. I say no because you have a lot of nerve trying to hijack my dollar like this. If you want to station a person at the door who ASKS me for a donation, I’m all for helping you to end illiteracy. But as it is now, with your guerilla-warfare tactics, I am proud to say and shall scream from the mountaintops: I SUPPORT ILLITERACY IN ILLINOIS!!!!!
More books for me! Now, I won’t have to worry about someone coming in and taking that last copy of the book I want to get off the shelf, because that fool can’t read! Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha!
Somewhere, in some board room, some asshole stood up in front of a bunch of people and presented them with this idea. He got a raise, a promotion and a pat on the back because I’m sure it’s wildly successful. Most people don’t give from the heart. Most people can be guilted into giving though. The change-jack is probably a very successful strategy. And all of those people in that office probably think it’s brilliant.
Well, I don’t think it’s brilliant. I think that when you stop relying on people’s good will and start relying on guile to achieve your means, you are no longer a worthy cause. If you are duplicitous in how you get your money, surely you will be duplicitous in how you spend it. You justify your means with the end. Well, I justify my lack of charity with your lack of scruples.
In all seriousness, illiteracy is no joke. But neither is my point—when not-for-profits start resorting to these kinds of methods, they lose all integrity. They lose any sense of trust I might have had in them, had they approached me in an honest way. Which is why, in the end, that dollar won’t really go to some item off the value menu at McDonalds, I’ll just add it to the dollar I wind up giving to the next bell ringer I see outside a grocery store, or the next guy at the red light who wants to give me a tootsie roll.
I’m happy to give. I just refuse to be taken.
Monday, December 1, 2008
I hate you Barry Manilow!!!!
Well, it’s December and Thanksgiving is behind us, the first snow of the year is outside my door waiting to be shoveled, so I suppose it’s officially the dreaded HOLIDAY SEASON. As much as I’d love to deny it, as much as I wish it weren’t so, there just doesn’t seem to be any way to put it off any longer.
This promises to be an especially dark Christmas. There is something out there, something so horrible and so frightening that I give pause to even mentioning it. I choose to do so only because you can’t possibly avoid hearing about it—and worse, hearing it.
Yes my friends, you guessed it. The Christmas Nightmare I’m referring to is The Greatest Songs of the 80’s---AS PERFORMED BY BARRY FREAKING MANILOW!!!!
Now, I am a child of the 80’s. And I love my 80’s music. Almost all of the ringtones on my phone are 80’s songs. My Sirius satellite radio is currently tuned into the 80’s station. I have several 80’s compilations CDs (as performed by their original artists, thank you very much). So, it’s safe to say that the music of the 80’s has a very special place in my heart.
Would you like to know who doesn’t have a very special place in my heart? Barry Freaking Manilow! And before any you crazy Fanilows try to get all up in my business about this issue, know that I will defend to my very death the contention that Manilow should be tarred, feathered, hung and shot for this dastardly deed!
This is just wrong! This is wrong like Britney Spears teaching a parenting class. This is wrong like cats and dogs making out. This is wrong like Rosie O’Donnell doing naked jumping jacks. It’s wrong I say!
It’s bad enough that Manilow is butchering songs from music’s greatest decade, but what’s potentially even more disturbing is that he has decided that he should choose the decade’s best songs! Some examples of what, in Manilow’s opinion are the greatest songs of this decade? Islands in the Stream, on which he duets with Reba McEntire is the first. Shame on you Reba! Dolly and Kenny are rolling over in their graves of irrelevance over this outrage!
Tired of being rickrolled? Well prepare to be barrolled because Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up is one of the best songs of the 80’s according to Barry. You may be surprised to find out that Stevie Wonder recorded one of the best songs of the 80’s with I Just Called To Say I Love You—even Stevie can see that has to be a mistake!
I can live with him butchering songs I don’t care about though. Obviously, they aren’t even in the conversation for best songs of the 80’s, but butcher away Manilow, I don’t care! But when you start butchering Open Arms by Journey and Against All Odds by Phil Collins we have an issue Barry! You can sing Right Here Waiting and knock off that no-talent assclown Richard Marx all you want, but you have no business touching Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time!
And it’s just so sad that you, Barry Manilow are the first straight guy to record the great Wham song, Careless Whisper. I don’t really care who else may have done it, but why God? Why couldn’t it have been a man who covers up his chest hair?
I’m distraught. I’m saddened beyond grief. Sure, you say that if I don’t want to be exposed to these songs, just don’t buy the CD right? Wrong! Barry Manilow is like a virus! When he puts out a CD, it is immediately piped into our malls and elevators, the lobbies of our doctor’s and dentist’s office will be infected for years to come. You cannot run from Barry Manilow and you cannot hide! He spreads like wildfire—the evil Fanilow’s will see to it! We will all be infected!!! There is no escape!!!!!
And for those of you who are children of the 90’s out there laughing at me, enjoy it while it lasts I say! The assured success of this CD will only embolden Barry! You’re next! Just wait until Smells Like Teen Spirit get covered by Manilow! Cobain will roll over in his grave! Dr. Dre will openly weep when Nuthin But A G Thang is covered and Snoop Dogg literally rip the braids from his head! Close your eyes my friends, now picture Manilow onstage rapping, “All right stop! Collaborate and Listen M-lows back with a brand new addition, something, grabs a hold of you tightly flows like a harpoon daily and nightly, will it ever stop, yo—I don’t know, turn off the light and I’ll glow, to the extreme I rock a mike like a vandal, light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle, Barry, Barry baby! Duh-dun-dun-dun-dada-dun-dun, Vanilla Barry, Barry baby!
The only thing that might be worse will be Manilow’s cover of Hanson’s Mmmbop!
So, bah freaking humbug, I say to you! My holiday has been ruined. Manilow has conspired to ruin Christmas! And he will ruin elevator rides and doctor’s visits for years to come. I will cringe with every playing of an 80’s classic by this no-talent loser! Go back to the 70’s where you belong Barry! Go back to your platform shoes and your butterfly collars! Your Fanilows will continue to buy your crappy CDs of songs from that decade. Stay the hell out of the 80’s!!!! And thanks for ruining my Christmas!!!!
This promises to be an especially dark Christmas. There is something out there, something so horrible and so frightening that I give pause to even mentioning it. I choose to do so only because you can’t possibly avoid hearing about it—and worse, hearing it.
Yes my friends, you guessed it. The Christmas Nightmare I’m referring to is The Greatest Songs of the 80’s---AS PERFORMED BY BARRY FREAKING MANILOW!!!!
Now, I am a child of the 80’s. And I love my 80’s music. Almost all of the ringtones on my phone are 80’s songs. My Sirius satellite radio is currently tuned into the 80’s station. I have several 80’s compilations CDs (as performed by their original artists, thank you very much). So, it’s safe to say that the music of the 80’s has a very special place in my heart.
Would you like to know who doesn’t have a very special place in my heart? Barry Freaking Manilow! And before any you crazy Fanilows try to get all up in my business about this issue, know that I will defend to my very death the contention that Manilow should be tarred, feathered, hung and shot for this dastardly deed!
This is just wrong! This is wrong like Britney Spears teaching a parenting class. This is wrong like cats and dogs making out. This is wrong like Rosie O’Donnell doing naked jumping jacks. It’s wrong I say!
It’s bad enough that Manilow is butchering songs from music’s greatest decade, but what’s potentially even more disturbing is that he has decided that he should choose the decade’s best songs! Some examples of what, in Manilow’s opinion are the greatest songs of this decade? Islands in the Stream, on which he duets with Reba McEntire is the first. Shame on you Reba! Dolly and Kenny are rolling over in their graves of irrelevance over this outrage!
Tired of being rickrolled? Well prepare to be barrolled because Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up is one of the best songs of the 80’s according to Barry. You may be surprised to find out that Stevie Wonder recorded one of the best songs of the 80’s with I Just Called To Say I Love You—even Stevie can see that has to be a mistake!
I can live with him butchering songs I don’t care about though. Obviously, they aren’t even in the conversation for best songs of the 80’s, but butcher away Manilow, I don’t care! But when you start butchering Open Arms by Journey and Against All Odds by Phil Collins we have an issue Barry! You can sing Right Here Waiting and knock off that no-talent assclown Richard Marx all you want, but you have no business touching Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time!
And it’s just so sad that you, Barry Manilow are the first straight guy to record the great Wham song, Careless Whisper. I don’t really care who else may have done it, but why God? Why couldn’t it have been a man who covers up his chest hair?
I’m distraught. I’m saddened beyond grief. Sure, you say that if I don’t want to be exposed to these songs, just don’t buy the CD right? Wrong! Barry Manilow is like a virus! When he puts out a CD, it is immediately piped into our malls and elevators, the lobbies of our doctor’s and dentist’s office will be infected for years to come. You cannot run from Barry Manilow and you cannot hide! He spreads like wildfire—the evil Fanilow’s will see to it! We will all be infected!!! There is no escape!!!!!
And for those of you who are children of the 90’s out there laughing at me, enjoy it while it lasts I say! The assured success of this CD will only embolden Barry! You’re next! Just wait until Smells Like Teen Spirit get covered by Manilow! Cobain will roll over in his grave! Dr. Dre will openly weep when Nuthin But A G Thang is covered and Snoop Dogg literally rip the braids from his head! Close your eyes my friends, now picture Manilow onstage rapping, “All right stop! Collaborate and Listen M-lows back with a brand new addition, something, grabs a hold of you tightly flows like a harpoon daily and nightly, will it ever stop, yo—I don’t know, turn off the light and I’ll glow, to the extreme I rock a mike like a vandal, light up a stage and wax a chump like a candle, Barry, Barry baby! Duh-dun-dun-dun-dada-dun-dun, Vanilla Barry, Barry baby!
The only thing that might be worse will be Manilow’s cover of Hanson’s Mmmbop!
So, bah freaking humbug, I say to you! My holiday has been ruined. Manilow has conspired to ruin Christmas! And he will ruin elevator rides and doctor’s visits for years to come. I will cringe with every playing of an 80’s classic by this no-talent loser! Go back to the 70’s where you belong Barry! Go back to your platform shoes and your butterfly collars! Your Fanilows will continue to buy your crappy CDs of songs from that decade. Stay the hell out of the 80’s!!!! And thanks for ruining my Christmas!!!!
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