4/30/03:

Today's villain is the old man at Paragon who tries to sell you the baseball gloves.  My friend Dinny recently had to go there in search of a new softball glove.  I think Dinny managed to avoid the prick (wrong).  The guy is such a pushy creep I want to run and hide when he approaches me.  He tried to sell me one of those lobster-style Rawlings gloves a few months ago.  I think it was called "the vise."  It was a piece of shit, and he forced me to put it on and have a catch with him.  That's what he does.  He tosses you little lob throws from nine feet away.  When you catch the ball, he nods as if to say, "Some glove, huh?"  The throws are so soft I could catch them with a Freezy Freaky or some crumpled-up paper towels.  But to him, the fact that you are able to catch the ball is irrefutable proof that the glove has been blessed with magic.  You'd have to be a fool not to take it.  He also badgers you and insults you, maneuvers he must have learned at some sales seminar in 1957.  He'll be like, "You could get that other glove, but that would be stupid. This glove is just way better, anyone can see that.  It was featured on The Today Show."  I don't think I've ever seen the old bastard make a sale.  Maybe he's a millionaire and he just comes to work as part of some sociological experiment.  Either way, he's trouble.  Stay away from him.  New Yorkers, you know the guy I'm talking about.  He's on that list of "Things that are just completely substandard about New York City, but that we all have to deal with at some point."

1. Him

2. Nobody Beats the Wiz - you know you've bought something there

3. Dirty Fast Food Restaurants

4. Times Square

5. Sbarro

That's just the tip of the partially submerged turd.  Let me know what else I've forgotten.

4/29/03:

About two weeks ago, everyone in my office received new business cards.   They were pretty sharp looking compared to the previous ones, and we all enjoyed about eight seconds of mild excitement upon their arrival.  Some people then complained about the fact that the little boxes they came in were big enough to hold about 1000 of the cards, even though there were only about 400 in each of our boxes (way more than most of us will ever need).  Some people can actually complain about anything.  Today, someone complained that the speaking, eating, drinking and breathing apparatuses are in the same location, which apparently leads to all sorts of problems.  This prompted a discussion about other poorly located body parts, a discussion that was taking a turn for the scatological.  I cut the idiots off by saying I feel thankful to be alive. Anyway, we got those business cards about two weeks ago, and then today we each got approximately 30 more cards, identical to the 400 we got in the first batch.  What could possibly have caused this?  Is corporate headquarters trying to drive us all mad?  I might add that it is extremely gratifying to work for a company that has a generic "corporate headquarters" in some faraway city -- it's great for venting frustration over policy without having to attach names and faces.

One of the human body's great unsung abilities is the ability to avoid sitting on one's nuts.  Have you ever sat on your nuts?  I sat on mine about a year ago, not squarely, but hard enough so that it really hurt.  Considering how carelessly we fling our bodies around, it's remarkable that we don't sit on them several times a week.  Try sitting on 'em one time.  It's no fucking treat.  Luckily, we are born with an uncanny sense of where our balls are at all times  -- and for most of us, they are attached closely enough to our bodies to prevent ball sittage.  Speaking of which, have you heard stories of men cutting a tendon in there somewhere to give them ridiculous ball-hang distance?  Apparently in some social circles, having a really long, low-hanging sac is tremendously sexy.  Those guys must constantly be sitting on their nuts.

Is Eddie Murphy still alive?  I see that a guy named Eddie Murphy still appears in movies that come out every year or so, but he can't possibly be the same brilliant comedian who burst upon us back in the early 80's.  He's a robot or something.  I am barely aware of his presence.   There are plenty of bright young stars who shoot across the pop-culture sky, burn out by 30 and completely disappear from view.  But Eddie Murphy has managed to remain a huge star while leaving behind almost everything that made him good in the first place.  I would be fascinated to see a new stand-up film of his; I wonder if he still has the talent or if it's just completely gone.   Do we all remember how fucking great he was?  How his funniest bits (not necessarily his movies) still stand tall today? 

Holy Shit!  I just looked it up.  Eddie Murphy is 42 years old.  I must be 80.  Eddie Murphy is older than John Stockton.  I watch Stockton dribble the ball up the court and he still looks the same, like a faithful retriever or something, constantly looking around, gently probing the defense, pulling it back out, bounce bounce bounce.  It almost seems sad, like he doesn't know what else to do.  He's not very exciting to watch, and his game has fallen a few notches.  Of course, he probably makes 10 million dollars a year. 

4/28/03:

Do you ever encounter people, either during your workday or during your daily travels in society, who appear to be drunk all the time?  I don't mean alcoholics who are actually drunk all the time.  I'm talking about people whose everyday personality is that of a rambling, gesticulating drunk.  I walked by one such gentleman on the street today.  He was standing outside a shop on Broadway with two of his co-workers.  Business was slow so the three of them were outside instead of working.  The other two guys were seated on a little bench thing and the third guy, who appeared to be the manager, was just talking up a storm.  He was talking about some car he was gonna get or something and he just couldn't hide his excitement.  He had the tone of voice that I fear I have when I am in a bar and I'm drunker than I realize -- the kind of night I wake up from and feel like I have cost myself several friendships.  The other two guys were just nodding.  You could tell they didn't care, they wanted him to stop, but they couldn't say anything either because he was the boss or because they just couldn't get a word in.  The guy looked like fun -- he had a drunk's enthusiasm for life without needing to be drunk.  I wonder what he's like when he's drinking.

We have the digital cable in our apartment.  It vastly improves the quality of our lives.  The digital cable recently added some "on-demand" channels so you can watch certain movies whenever you want to.  You can stop 'em and start 'em whenever you want.  It's insane.  It's also free.  The digital cable box is very powerful.  I feel that it is ready for whatever entertainment challenges present themselves over the next few years.  The digital cable box makes me feel very secure.  I am sure if there was some kind of trouble I could use it as a shortwave radio or a weapon.  We don't have TiVo, which is probably good.  If we had it, we'd be unfairly powerful, and we'd probably be corrupted by our power.  I'm sure we would eventually use our combination TiVo/digital cable to do some evil to mankind.  For now, we are happy with just the digital cable.  The rest of you should just go about your business and not worry about what happens if we do get the TiVo.

4/27/03:

What happens when you find an eyelash and make a wish as you blow it into the air, and then you find it later, sitting on a piece of paper on your desk?  Does that pretty much assure that the dream won't come true?   I guess all eyelash wishes should be made outside in a strong wind.  I ask because I made a ridiculous wish the other day as I blew a pair of eyelashes off my thumb, and when I found the eyelashes, I realized my wish was way too much to ask from an eyelash, or even a pair of eyelashes.

Summer is coming.  I know because the two-week season of Spring has arrived.  Those first few warm days and fresh smells fill me with nostalgia, and make me want to spend an afternoon drinking cold beer outside. 

Going to my dad's house for the Lakers-T'Wolves game.  This should be interesting -- I fully expect the Lakers to win, but I don't think they can count on the usual help from the officials.  There were so many bad calls in the last game, about 75% of which went the Lakers' way.  If they get the advantage again today, there will be a mini-outrage.  I expect Shaq will finally assert himself in this game, shoving people around and creating such mayhem that the officials won't know what to do.  I think he'll get 40 (unless the Lakers are winning by so much that he comes out early), and Kobe will get his 30-plus.  I hope I'm wrong.

4/25/03:

I like it when a band/director/writer/comedian, etc. achieves "cult" status.  Because inevitably, some members of the cult feel threatened when the cult starts getting too big.  There is a genetic characteristic present in some people that needs to take ownership of their favorite entertainers.  It's so silly.  These people need to know this: your cult is bigger than you think.  Enjoy the art for what it is, don't get too upset when it starts breaking into demographics that you don't like, when the frat guys show up and scream out for the big hit single.  Your favorite artist really appreciates those frat guy dollars, and doesn't everyone have the same right to appreciate the music/art/movies that you do?  Maybe it's the fear that you are not special, that your taste is not unique, that you are a lot like everybody else --it can bring you back to earth a little.

I was watching the dogs in the dog run today, and I wondered, "What makes a tired, lazy old dog get up from one position, walk around for like 30 feet, and then lay down again?" It takes a compelling reason for me to get off the couch and go somewhere.  What intellectual process is going on in the dog's head that tells him he needs to move his resting spot just a few yards away from where it was? 

How much does Arvydas Sabonis's head weigh?  That man is a fucking giant.  He and Mark Eaton are the only two guys I've ever seen who totally dwarf the rest of the league...they're not just tall, they are mutants.  They have that big giant head and they look like they are about three feet across.  I must add, other than the Dallas-Portland series, this has been the best playoffs I can remember.  The NBA has somehow stumbled onto something good again.  That Lakers-Wolves game the other night was so good, my 76 year-old dad called me today to let me know that he stayed up until 2:45 am watching it.  And he was bitching about the officiating, too. 

4/24/03:

More good NBA playoff coach lip-reading -- Flip Saunders to the refs: "Are you shitting me?"

I guess I need to mention what happened to me at lunch yesterday.  I went to a moderately nice diner with three co-workers, and we had a nice, laughter-filled meal.  We had all been chatting, bad-mouthing co-workers and friends as is customary, when all of a sudden, one of the women in our group started feeling weak.  She has a history of panic attacks and public fainting.  We got her a cool wet napkin for her head, but she was basically slipping out of consciousness and slumping down in her seat. I kept talking to her and rubbing the cloth on her head, and the manager of the restaurant brought over some ice.  We happened to be seated next to a window/door.  It wasn't open, but the manager swung it open so she could get some air.  She was coherent enough to turn towards the breeze, and I thought maybe she'd be OK.  Then she calmly vomited up her entire tuna salad sandwich, all over the floor.  I was surprised she couldn't get to the window/door.  I had my hand on her back, trying to comfort her, and I saw three women walking by at the street, taking in the scene.  This door, propped open on a 45 degree day, and this teeny woman ejecting her lunch within a foot of the street.  She just couldn't get there.  The women walking by were just laughing without any sympathy whatsoever.  It was a freakshow.  I wish you had been there.

The eight of spades turned himself in today.  Or was it the ten?  I think the U.S. is unwise in pursuing the inside straight.

This Laker team is the most unlovable champion of all time.  There's not a likeable soul on that team.  They make me sick, right down to their soul-patch wearing coach.

-Derek Fisher - flopmeister extraordinaire
-Shaq- hulking bully
-Kobe - arrogant loner
-Horry - fresh-prince-looking, towel-throwing opportunist
-Coach Phil - phony, wife-dumping frontrunner
-Rick Fox - jheri-curled Canadian punk
-Devon George - lucky drifter
-Mark Madsen - pale Mormon thug

The Lakers flopping and the refs buying into it during tonight's game has been about as bad as anything I've ever seen.  The Timberwolves should sue.  And they should waive that chump Sczcerbiak while they are at it.  I can't believe I stayed up until 2:30 am on a weeknight to watch this dreck.

4/23/03:

I think Don Nelson may be the most lip-readable man in pro sports.  During tonight's game, which I was barely watching, I got one "God DAMN it!" and a "What the hell's the matter with you people?"  I also caught Steve Nash with a "That's fucking bullshit."

Kind of interesting that these two pieces of news came in today:

From the Washington Post, an article talking about how the U.S. underestimated the power and influence of the shiites in Iraq.

"As the administration plotted to overthrow Hussein's government, U.S. officials said this week, it failed to fully appreciate the force of Shiite aspirations and is now concerned that those sentiments could coalesce into a fundamentalist government. Some administration officials were dazzled by Ahmed Chalabi, the prominent Iraqi exile who is a Shiite and an advocate of a secular democracy. Others were more focused on the overriding goal of defeating Hussein and paid little attention to the dynamics of religion and politics in the region.

'It is a complex equation, and the U.S. government is ill-equipped to figure out how this is going to shake out," a State Department official said. "I don't think anyone took a step backward and asked, 'What are we looking for?' The focus was on the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.'"

Then this AP story, almost as a response:

"American forces in Iraq captured four top officials of Saddam Hussein's former government Wednesday, including the air defense force commander and the former head of military intelligence."

It's like, "Guys, we may have completely miscalculated this whole war/occupation/democracy-building thing here, and it may lead to a situation more dangerous to the U.S. than anything Saddam Hussein ever imagined, but look at the bright side -- the six of hearts is in U.S. custody!  Have no fear!"

I am always pretty naive about war, but didn't the "Deck of Cards" thing seem tasteless?  Sort of like Bush's "Wanted: Dead or Alive" posters about Osama (those didn't do much good).  It's like the administration is desperate to break down complex international situations into terms a moronic cowboy can understand.  They want so much to paint it as good guys-bad guys so we can all relax and assume everything's taken care of -- them varmints is on the run.  I know the guys on the deck of cards were part of a horrible regime (many of them were probably forced to be part of it for fear of their lives and their families' lives -- not that that is an acceptable excuse), but let's face it, their day is done.  Capturing them  should be on our to-do list, but somewhere waaay down on the list, like right after "figuring out a way for the National League and the American League to have the same number of teams without having to expand or giving at least two teams the night off every night (the answer must involve some interleague play every night, or contraction). 

The sentence "As the administration plotted to overthrow Hussein's government, U.S. officials said this week, it failed to fully appreciate the force of Shiite aspirations and is now concerned that those sentiments could coalesce into a fundamentalist government" is really amazing.  I remember reading the big NYT Magazine article a few months ago about Wolfowitz, and his grand plan for Iraq becoming the model democracy for the middle east, and who knows, maybe he'll be right after all is said and done.  But the fact that the administration is admitting already that they didn't understand the strength of the shiites, etc. is just appalling.  Are we listening to like five people here?  Aren't there experts on Iraq and the region all over the place?  How can we not completely understand the very basic nature of the country we are invading, before we invade it?   Why are we such douchebags?

I have in my possession a really disgusting picture that I find funny.  Should I post it?  It's pretty offensive.  Let me know.

4/22/03:

Nice to see KG bounce back tonight. And Robert Horry is such a smart player, so calm.  Forget about all the huge shots, he just does a lot of little things over the course of a game that are beneficial to his team.  I never liked the guy, but I respect him.

In the last week, our office spent one entire day without: internet service/the ability to print/email/communicate via computer.  We also had a day in which the pipes backed up and the entire office reeked of raw sewage.  My company has two offices, and mine is sort of the unwanted stepchild.  Problems take a while to get resolved.  Yesterday was the internet problem, and only our internal email worked.  IS sent an email that said that someone had cut a fiber optic cable in Atlanta, and they were working hard to restore service.  It took them 24 hours to do so.  It showed how fucking interconnected and precarious our telecommunications networks are.  My boss pictured a guy with a big pot belly sticking out from his too-small T-shirt, drilling right through the cable, which was probably marked clearly.  The sewage system is probably just as complex -- it's only a matter of time before the U.S. starts sending all its sewage through one big pipe into some developing nation's backyard.  Or jettisoning it into space in gigantic ziploc bags.  I think we take for granted how remarkable our plumbing is, and how consistently it's been serving us for a long time.  Where does it all go? 

I was having nostalgic thoughts about Mark Leyner's heyday.   Amazing what a huge deal he was for a brief minute in time, and now you just don't hear about him anymore.  Even online, while there are lots of google hits for him and some fan tribute sites, there's not much recent that I saw.  Here was a clip from a 1997 interview, when he was already in decline (in my opinion):

"You came up with such names as Donna Tartt, Douglas Coupland, Elizabeth Wurtzel and Martin Amis. Then when you come back to the states, you discover that impostors have claimed to be these mythical "hot" young novelists, when actually, you wrote all those books. What inspired this particular joke?

From my difficulty in seeing any writer, other than myself, get any attention. Ever. I think every single writer, if they were honest, would admit this. When someone wins an award, or someone has a wonderful review in the New York Times, or someone has a big movie made, it's hard. I have to say that I admire myself for one thing in connection to this: I've always been playfully honest about it. In one of my books, I set up a writing workshop, and if anyone shows any promise, they are either beaten or eliminated, so they aren't in the competition. It's a playful way of dealing with my anxiety about being eclipsed at some point by a new batch of younger writers and no longer being the enfant terrible. You know, if you ask some very hip person who they read, I want to be the person on their tongue, and I know that is not always the case. Nor should it be."

I hope he's happy right now, and busy, and maybe he'll come out with something else great, but it's sort of like having a favorite band that eventually leaves the scene.  You kind of hope there's some amazing comeback in them, but you sort of know there isn't, and part of you just wants them to stay away, so their small body of work remains pure in your memory.  Does anybody know what he's been up to?

4/21/03:

Watching Stephon Marbury push the ball up court is a privilege.

I know there is a movie coming out this year (I forgot the name) in which a midget / dwarf / "little person" has a real part, plays a real character with real emotions and problems, which is good.  Up until now, the general public's exposure to these folks has been limited to freak shows or the mocking, humiliating treatment they get in Austin Powers and Farrelly brother movies and the Howard Stern show.  My knowledge of their lives and dreams is as incomplete as anyone else's, but as usual, that's not stopping me from drawing a few conclusions.  Based on some anecdotal evidence and my own powers of deduction, I think that a lot of midgets suffer from alcoholism.   Hank the angry dwarf, Beetlejuice, and Verne Troyer all have substance abuse problems.  Hank the angry dwarf and Beetle are both such depressing figures.  They are both miserable, drunk, pitiful creatures who seem to lash out with rage at just about anything.  Although Howard and the Farrelly brothers would argue that at least they give these creatures some notoriety instead of the lives they might otherwise  expect, lives spent as anonymous outcasts, I would argue that being famous only for your physical deformity makes you more obsessed with those shortcomings, and more depressed on the whole.  Either way, I envision the lives of many dwarves and midgets as being filled with sadness and alcohol.  It probably takes much less alcohol to get a little person drunk than a full-sized person, and I imagine plenty of alcoholic little people get completely drunk trying to disprove this seemingly obvious point. We all know how difficult it can be when you are in the bar with one of your misanthrope pals, and the booze starts flowing, and all of a sudden he's firing off verbal shots at the human race and all the bad breaks he's gotten, and he becomes completely unbearable after awhile.  You can only float his sagging ego for so long. Now imagine your buddy is a drunk, hateful midget -- how do you handle that? How do you tell an alcoholic dwarf that everything is gonna be OK?

4/20/03:

I played some basketball outside yesterday on the courts near my house.  I much prefer to have at least one friend along with me when I go play pickup ball, but this worked out really nicely.  I went alone, played three full-court games, didn't injure myself, and had a great time.  I think my future in sports is as an official weekend warrior.  I don't think I am going to play professionally in any of the major sports, but there are still other opportunities out there for me.  How hard can bass-fishing be?  Or slam-ball?  If I wanted my kid to be a professional athlete, I would teach him to be a field goal kicker.  There are so few people capable of performing this simple act --- if you practiced all the time since you turned seven, you'd definitely be the best kicker in the NFL.

4/17/03:

I updated a bunch of shite on here today...the Ask Johnny page, the "Touching" Page, the Learning Center Page and the lists page.  Oh, and I made my NBA playoff predictions as well.  The trivia questions have been a complete bust.  I've only gotten one answer so far, and it was wrong.

When you read a book, do you muscle your way through it no matter how boring it turns out to be?  Or do you sometimes just quit in the middle?  I have quit in the middle of some acclaimed authors, pretty much without regret.  Sometimes I am ashamed that I don't have the brains or patience or whatever it takes to get through the heavier shit, but usually I am relieved to put it down.  White Noise by Don Delillo was one such book for me.  I felt kind of stupid for not liking it, but I couldn't help it.  I got about halfway through and then had to put it down.  It was fucking boring.

4/16/03:

They lowered the threat level to "yellow" today.  I find the whole threat level thing a little ridiculous.  It seems like one of those ideas where the administration had appointed this terror Czar guy Ridge, and they gave him like a Monday deadline to come up with something, and it was like 11 o'clock on Sunday night, and they were panicking because they rightly realized how hard it is to stop terrorists, and they had no solutions at all, and then somebody goes, "Wait! I have an idea."   And the idea is a fucking color-coded threat level chart?  It's like a junior high school project.  Granted, they have done a good job preventing attacks, but I think that's probably because they've arrested or investigated half the country.  But the chart...wow.  Now I understand that the threat level is based on tons of information, and they have to get that info to local authorities, etc. so they can modify their defense approach or their manpower or whatever adjustments they make.  And so the color coded thing may help them with that.  And I guess if you are going to release it to the police and stuff, you have to release it to the public, or we would find out through our friend's cousin's ex-boyfriend's mechanic's liver donor's mailman's parole officer anyway.  But when they release that stuff to us, what effect is it supposed to have on us psychologically?  When they jack up the threat level, we panic.  When they lower it, I, for one, exhale for 12 seconds and then start wondering if the terrorists have just gotten better at communicating or something.  I'm like, why are we relaxing stuff?  And then I think, wow, this information is really useful to the terrorists, too -- oh, look, the terror level is down, that means reduced law enforcement.  Cool, let's act now.  Of course, this whole conversation is meaningless unless you believe a word of what they're telling us.  They've got agents under our beds and they are listening in on our phone conversations.  Speaking of which, I have lately been hearing a click after I connect on certain phone calls...I've heard that when your phone is being tapped, you hear something like that.  I am a scary dude, i can't blame them.

It's Jordan's last game tonight.  I guess I've already explained how I blame him for the Wizards missing the playoffs, and how I can't understand the way the media continues to blame everybody BUT him.  They also (for the most part) insist on calling this comeback a success, despite all evidence to the contrary.  He had some decent players around him, and he still failed two years in a row to get his team to the playoffs in a weak Eastern Conference.  Can you imagine even the 1998 Jordan failing to bring these guys to the playoffs?  Not to say he embarrassed himself, because he didn't -- he just failed to live up to his own legend.  The thing that surprised me is not his physical decline, because we had already seen that starting in the previous comeback.  It was his lack of will.  I never thought that would fade.

In fact, as we all pretty much accept at this point, what made Jordan so remarkable as an athlete was that he represented the perfect marriage of physical skill and emotional will.  In his case, he may have been THE most physically dominant and THE most mentally tough player in the league. Either one of those would have made him great; he had both.  It was unbeatable.  Of course, he was always the enemy, and I always sort of disliked him.   I thought he was a bit of a phony outside of basketball.  I hated the Bulls fans who appeared out of nowhere and I hated the Bulls announcers who seemed to confuse his accomplishments with their own.  He was too perfect, and I resented that he wasn't on our team.  I guess now that he is leaving, I can appreciate him safely.

4/15/03:

Thanks a bunch to everybody who sent in stuff to the site.  Today I went semi-public (so 6 of what I hope will eventually be 9 visitors have now seen the thing) and everybody was really nice and supportive. I hope people got a kick out of something on here.  I am a little confused about my next step.  I have added little pieces of content to some of the pages, but how do I mark that down for people who are visiting more than once?  I have added a date/time stamp to the top of some of the pages, maybe that will help.  Maybe I will update all the pages except this one once a week or something.  Who cares?  If anyone has anything else they'd like to send in or want to pass the URL on to others, please feel free to do so.  Johnny has been itching to give out some more free advice.

I guess there are no takers on the trivia questions.  I'll leave 'em up for a couple of days.  They ain't that hard.

Are the greatest moments in life the big events -- the weddings, the babies, the triumphant comeback TV concerts in black leather?  Or are they simple, stupid little victories that nobody else remembers but the victor himself?  For me, memories don't come any warmer than the day I threw a tennis ball out of a moving car (approximate speed: 20-25mph) and caught it on one bounce.  The throw was magnificent, but I still had to reach high to make the grab.  I wasn't leaning out the window or anything -- just my arm was stuck out there.  When I made the catch, my hand was above the roof of the car, and I kept it there for a moment after I secured the ball  so the other three guys in the car could spin around and look out the back window to see if they could spot the ball rolling away.  When they didn't see it, the drama built for a moment, and then I thrust my hand (and the ball) inside the car, and let out a victory cry.  And then we all screamed together.

4/14/03:

I was just watching "The Salton Sea" on HBO, and may I declare a moratorium on movies where people are saved by bullet-proof vests? Especially regular citizens who happen to secretly sport the kevlar in a pivotal scene...a guy is shot 5 times from a distance of three feet, collapses in what appears to be a bloody heap, and then we are supposed to be excited and surprised when he reveals, moments later, that the vest he was wearing blocked EVERY bullet!  Yay!  Luckily, the bad guy chose not to shoot him in the head!  Whew!  It's almost as tired as the scene in 4000 movies when the bad guy has aimed his pistol at one of the good guys, and he is describing in excruciating detail how he is about to kill him, he points the gun right at the good guy's head, cocks it, and a shot goes off...bang! But WAIT, the good guy wasn't shot after all...and the bad guy collapses with a fatal gunshot wound.  And in the background, still holding the smoking gun in the air like a jumpshooter extending his hand cobra-style on his follow through...it's the OTHER good guy (or maybe the morally ambiguous guy), the one who we thought was dead minutes earlier (maybe he was wearing a bulletproof vest?).  He's hurt all right, but he's gonna make it, and he came back to save his buddy.  Perhaps we could see a variation on that scene in a movie.  We pick up the action just as the bad guy is carrying on about the imminent murder of the good guy.  In the new version, the bad guy then shoots the good guy dead, and the camera cuts to some nearby bushes, where the OTHER good guy has just arrived with his gun, a few seconds too late.  "Holy Shit!" the OTHER good guy gasps to himself, before putting his gun down and running away.

4/13/03:

I hate when comedians, talk shows, columnists, etc. pick on easy targets.  It's what sort of turned me off to Letterman (the eventual sadness of Larry "Bud" Melman, for example) years ago, and to Howard Stern (take your pick) after that.  Finding a freak or a loser to mock in the aim of comedy is so cowardly -- people are laughing because they're so relieved to consider themselves better than the freak.  It makes me sick; it's like jocks picking on unpopular kids in high school.  Peter Vecsey is a master of ripping apart the marginal players.  OK, now that I have said that, I must admit that I have selected Granville Waiters as a target on this site, and if it ever gets back to him (likely?) I apologize.  Granville, you deserve better.  You've accomplished plenty in your young life, and I have a feeling you are a very nice guy.  Peace to you.

4/12/03:

At work yesterday we got in a big conversation about religion.  Only two out of the six people in the room had any real knowledge about religion, me not being one of 'em.  We talked about confession and how if Adolf Hitler had confessed his sins and accepted Christ as his savior, he could go to Heaven.  As a matter of fact, Hitler was Catholic and probably confessed a whole mess o' shit before he croaked.  How can there be backdoors into Heaven like this?  What kind of a God would accept us on our professed religious beliefs over our actions?  Is it important to lead a good life as well?  If I live a biblically decent life in every way, but don't acknowledge God's presence, then David Berkowitz gets my party invite?  What an unjust God that would be.  I just can't believe that any creator powerful and wise enough to create our world and to decide the ultimate destination for each of us is so insecure about His powers that He would send us to hell based on our religious adherence.  If there is an afterlife, can't our life's actions serve as a simple resumé?  Also, religious faith is usually seen as something noble, even brave -- isn't it actually a bit cowardly to tailor your life's arc towards a big reward, rather than facing the prospect of a simple and final death with dignity?  And isn't it naive to plan your life in an effort to please a being whose name, guiding principles and very existence is contested and debated with such fervor by so many people who are thousands of years removed from any evidence to support their beliefs?  How do we choose a right God?  What if one religion is "right"?  Does that mean all those people who were never exposed to that religion, never given a fair chance to pursue it, are doomed to hell?  What kind of a universe is that?  Clearly, every person's circumstances in life go a long way towards determining which, if any, God they worship, and also what kind of a moral code they live by, religious or not.  Do these circumstances get noted on our admissions form?  I don't mean to offend, I just need a few answers.

It almost makes it possible to forgive the unforgivable celebrities (and regular-folk assholes)  who say things like, "I don't really believe in one organized religion, but I'm like, a VERY spiritual person."  Almost, anyway -- at least they're smart enough to hedge their bets a little bit in the religion department, in the hopes that whichever religion turns out to be right in the long run will cut them a little eternal slack.  And when all these books were written, and all this cool shit supposedly happened, wow, that's like a LONG time ago.  I really don't have much faith in the way the story has been passed along.  Think about how often people come along claiming to be the messiah.  We're sort of smart enough now to doubt them -- L. Ron, David Koresh and co. are only fooling people who are desperate to be fooled.  But what if they came around a couple thousand years ago, before we had CNN and cult deprogrammer people to hook us up?  Would history treat them like the real deal?

4/11/03:

I love smokers.  God bless 'em.  I am really enjoying this whole mini-uproar about the smoking ban.  I mean, I really don't give a shit about smokers' rights.  I don't like the smell of cigarettes on my clothes.  I do believe that second-hand smoke is hazardous to one's health. Even if there wasn't a mountain of evidence about this, I would believe it to be true.  Imagine walking around in a big pool of toxic smoke all day.  I don't think that is good for you.  I think people may have suspected this hundreds of years ago.  It's like being in a burning building for hours at a time.

I like going to smoky (or unsmoky) bars.  I sort of believe that bars should have a right to decide for themselves if they want to allow smoking.  I guess the law is there to make sure a bartender or waiter has opportunities for un-smoky work, but I wonder how many people go into bartending with an aversion to cigarette smoke.  And I also sort of believe in the BS about how smoking and drinking are just a perfect match, so why separate them?

But mostly, I'm just fascinated by the smokers.  What a crazy habit.  I wonder how it starts.  Those early, troubled days in high school.  Then there must come a point where actual addiction sets in.  So every time you see someone over the age of 25 smoking, you can pretty much assume they are in the throes of an awful addiction.  They're just a mess.  They can't hide it.  I love them for their humanity, their weakness. How can that shit taste good?  And now that they're relegated to huddling outside in the cold, with their shivering little circles of misery, I like them even more.  It's like a smoking safari, walking through the city.  And yet new generations of smokers keep coming along.  Other than looking cool and providing a rush, and maybe eventually tasting good, what's the attraction?  OK, maybe that's enough. 

4/10/03:

There are people who flash across the public landscape from time to time who are just really obvious targets for criticism and ridicule.  This tool Hootie Johnson from Augusta National is one of those guys.  Mocking him almost seems redundant.  He's got that name, that hair, that offensive political stance -- he's just a sitting duck.  I think we need to look deeper into his psyche, find out what drives this amazing man, really get to know Hootie Johnson, so he's not reduced to a symbol for 1950's old boys' club America.  Or not.

One of the more awkward moments of the war was that kid from Brooklyn hanging the American flag over the head of that Saddam statue.  It's hard to criticize a young kid who's been sucking down sand for a month, but man, that was inappropriate.  I liked how then he climbed back up and put up the Iraqi flag. "My bad."  It really blows me away how every moment is televised, how a naive act by a foot soldier is being broadcast throughout the Arab world, sending precisely the opposite message than we wanted.  We're fucked.  It was actually a pretty symbolic moment for this whole campaign:  "We hereby declare this an American colony -- oops, I mean, we hereby declare Iraq a free country!"

4/9/03:

While I was in LA a couple of weeks ago, two friends and I got into the whole war discussion, each bringing to the table our own opinions, the little bodies of knowledge that helped form the opinions, and the need to run our mouths.  My friend Chris had a major argument with my friend Nick about the public opinion on the Vietnam War.  Nick asserted that support for the war among Americans remained high all the way through the final days of the war.  Chris vehemently disagreed, saying that the strong public opposition to the war was a major factor in bringing it to a close.  "That is patently untrue!" he yelled when Nick made his initial statement.  We considered checking the ol' unreliable internet, but decided it was pointless -- there'd be plenty of support for both cases, lots of really definitive statistics proving both mutually exclusive arguments.  Then Nick mentioned a book he had been reading about some war from the 1800's.  I forget which war -- my mind is unable to retain much unless it's related to "Real World" plotlines -- but he used his recent reading to support his position in whatever new discussion we had started.  And I thought, here we are, three reasonably intelligent people, talking passionately about things that mean a lot to us...but do we really know what we're talking about?   If we had all been history majors, our conversation would most likely have been more informed, but we'd still be disputing every third fact.  Where do we find truth?  I have heard that Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" has come under fire for its inaccuracies and staged scenes.  How can someone like him, who is so consumed with self-righteousness, allow for such neglectful or intentional errors?  If some of the mistakes are as bad as people say, it's unforgivable, and his film amounts to little more than a guy stomping his feet and yelling.

4/8/03:

I have been having so much trouble thinking about the war.  I can't face any part of it.  I sort of appreciate Michael Moore being a voice of dissent, but he is such a vindictive, easy-target attacking asshole that he turns my stomach.   I spoke to my friend Dave who just joined the Navy a year ago as a psychologist (again Billy Joel references swirl in my brain), and he was talking about troop morale and how important it is.  He may have to go to Iraq in the next 6 months.  He started talking about how declining morale was a huge factor in Vietnam, and how the antiwar sentiments back home really hurt the effort.  As usual, I am not informed enough to agree or disagree with him about his Vietnam statement, but it made me stop and think about how sensitive we should be in our criticism of the war.  That said, I don't understand how anyone could consider being anti-war unpatriotic.  That kind of blanket dismissal of millions of opinions is not just inaccurate, it's illogical.  The U.S. is not a sports team.  I'm not being anti-team if I fail to jump on the bandwagon.  We're not going to miss the playoffs.  We don't all have to band together in these tough times to help the U.S. win.  Anyone who opposes the war quite likely does so out of a concern for human life -- our soldiers', the Iraqi people's, and, in my opinion, the American people's, over time.

When we drop a bomb to try to take out Saddam, there isn't even a mention of collateral damage in the reports I've read.  I mean, I know it's a war and people can get killed by accident, but isn't this a little different than WW II, where we were trying to protect the entire world's interests?  We claim to be liberating the Iraqi people, so isn't it our responsibility to show a little concern for how we achieve that?  If Saddam's grip is loosening so fast, is he as a target worth the deaths of even 10 innocent people who might be in the same building as he is?  Maybe the buildings that have been targeted are vacant except for military personnel, I don't know.  Maybe our intelligence doesn't know.  The daily horror stories are really starting to weigh on me.  I just want to watch Blind Date.  

4/2/03:

Bobby Knight is one of those people who I know I should despise on a number of different levels, but somehow I can't help rooting for.   I hate the way he treats his young players, I hate his relationship with the press, I hate his sarcasm and condescension, I hate his political views, I hate his attitudes towards women, I hate his old-fashionedness, I hate his hotheadedness and his stubbornness, I hate the blandness of his teams, I hate what I secretly assume are his racist views.  In short, he's a man that I'm sure I have absolutely nothing in common with on any level, yet I always pull for his teams and I'm fascinated by him whenever he's on TV.  It's like I keep waiting to see a crack in his personality, a sign of softness.  I read "A Season on the Brink" and I loved it, and I was riveted by Knight's crazy mood swings and his love-hate relationships with all his players.  I remember Isiah Thomas' quote about Knight.  It was something like this:  "You know, there were times when I when if I had a gun, I would have shot him.  And there were other times when I just wanted to put my arms around him and tell him I loved him."  So I sheepishly admit that I feel the same way about Knight, with very little reason to care about him.  Maybe I admire him for being so willing to alienate people.   I also sheepishly admit that I just bought his autobiography, and I am enjoying it.  He passes blame for every bad thing that's happened to him on to someone else, but he comes off as a little more human than usual.  Weird, fucked up guy.   I mean, he must be smart, but I guess smart people are assholes all the time.  And maybe there's a lesson there:  act like a jerk 98% of the time, and every nugget of kindness you toss out to people is gobbled up lovingly.

I watched Michael Jordan killing the Knicks at the garden a few weeks ago, and I thought, wow, he's still got something left.  Then I look at his team, and his performances over the last few weeks since then, and I am just shocked by how passionless he's been.  His team is right in the middle of the playoff hunt (were until another loss tonight, anyway), in a weak eastern conference, and they are losing games 88-72 to teams like the Nuggets.  And I look at the box score, and he is like 9-23 with 1 FT made.  I watched them play Sacramento tonight and he was just listless.  I know he's old, and he's tired, but it really looks to me like his spirit is broken.  Forget the skill drop-off; the old Jordan had bad shooting nights, too.  But on those nights, he would put his head down and force the other team to foul him.  He would yell at teammates.  He would demand the ball in the closing moments.  He would assert himself in numerous ways. Now it looks like he's giving up on this entire comeback.  He worked so hard to get back, and now he's basically at the finish line and he's just quitting.   If they make the playoffs, anything could happen in that weak conference.  Yet he doesn't seem to care.  It's amazing.  Where have you gone, Michael Jordan?  I just saw Greg Anthony (one of my least favorite athletes of all time, but a serviceable announcer) talking about what a shame it is that the Wizards are getting nothing out of Kwame and Haywood, and how Jordan has put so much into this season, blah blah blah.  Well, I agree that those guys are underachieving, but part of that is Jordan's browbeating.  And more importantly, Jordan is underachieving himself.  I know he has lost a step, but he can still impose himself onto a game when he wants to.  It looks to me like he doesn't want to.  Like he's saying, "You guys suck, so fuck you. Win without me if you can."  I hate how announcers worship the superstar athletes and criticize the role players.  Is that easier or something?  Are they worried that they'll offend the superstars and miss out on some future favor?

I was thinking about college players leaving after a year or two, and how that just kills a college program.  I have no objection to the kids doing it, I just think it's unwise for coaches to waste time pursuing these mega-talents, knowing they've only got 'em for a year, tops.   I think major coaches should start recruiting second-tier players, guys who will stay and learn and develop over 4 years.  Guys who aren't quite big enough or fast enough for the pros.  Juan Dixon is a perfect college player.  Just a great player in every sense, but not quite big enough to get lured by the pros.  The 6'3" shooting guard is the secret to a successful college team.  Unless you can get a guy as good as Carmelo Anthony and go to the Final Four immediately.

4/1/03:

There are at least three people at my job who I feel might actually go on a murderous office rampage any day.  I've only had about three jobs in my whole life, and I've had this one for going on ten years, so I don't think I'm really qualified to make workplace generalizations...but it doesn't stop me from doing exactly that.  So today as I was thinking about our own personal office psychos, I said, "You know, every office in the world has a bunch of people who are just about ready to go off the deep end."  Now that I think about it, I am probably wrong -- it very well might be just our office that is teeming with these lunatics.  Many offices are probably made up of happy people, working hard and getting along.  Which makes me wonder:  what do you do when you suspect people in your office have turned a corner and might actually be dangerous?  I guess that's what HR departments are for, but sometimes it seems like a big step to report someone to HR when they are just acting vaguely psychotic in the workplace.  Do you sit someone down and ask them what's bothering them?  If you do, do you do it out of genuine concern for their welfare or out of self-preservation?