Nurse the Hate: Hate the NFL Week 3

It’s hard to believe that it is still officially Summer and the Browns season is for all intents and purposes over.  It’s amazing to me that the residents of NE Ohio have not gathered into a torch waving mob and burned down the Browns Berea complex to the ground.  How many times will the people here permit themselves to be lied to?  Is there any other business that could continue to operate despite doing everything possible to drive away its customers?  All Spring/Summer long the rhetoric coming out of Berea was how improved the team was going to be this season, and then they waited a mere nine days to pull the chord on even attempting to win?  That shows amazing brass balls.  It's almost worthy of admiration.  I’m a huge fan of how Browns President Joe Banner carries a smug attitude of indifference to the fans in his press conferences.  I wish he would take it the extra step though.  “Look, I don’t have to explain anything to you assholes.  We know what we are doing here.  What makes you think you deserve an explanation?  Fuck off.  No matter what bullshit we run out on that field, you’re all coming back for more anyway.  Now go to your shitty low paying jobs and make some money to buy the overpriced jersey of our next bungled draft pick.  We’ve got a season to tank.  Get out of our way.”  (He should then shove a six year old boy in a Browns jersey to the ground and flick a cigarette at a fat guy in a rubber dog mask.)

Who cares?  None of it matters anyway.  The people of NE Ohio need to think of the Browns like a really badly run pizza joint.  They make bad food and treat you like shit.  Just stop ordering pizza from there.  There's lots of other places to get pizza.  People here have been losing their minds.  They need to pull it together and remember what pro football's purpose is...  It is only a diversion from things that really matter like Johnny Cash records, walking the hounds, a great bottle of Bordeaux, a good book, warm clear ocean water, traveling with a pretty lady and finding a good restaurant that serves a perfect meatball.  That’s the stuff.  Well, that and finding a few winners on Sunday.  Here’s the way I see it this Sunday…

God help me but I am taking the St Louis Rams again +4 over Dallas.  I watched some of that St Louis game last week, and they really suck.  Well, they really sucked in the first half anyway.  They almost came back for the cover vs Atlanta, and it appears the Falcons are a hell of a lot better than Dallas.  There is a stat floating around out there that says Dallas does not cover 72% of the time when they are more than a three point favorite.  I don't know if that statistic is accurate, but even the idea of it is good enough for me.  St Louis +4.

I am taking Green Bay -2.5 over Cincinnati.  It's true that Green Bay is always overvalued as they are on national  TV every single week with broadcast teams fighting over themselves to fellate Aaron Rogers.  America loves the idea of Green Bay and the charming Midwestern town.  If most viewers ever went there they would discover that most of Wisconsin is made up of annoying Rubes, but that's not the point.  It's fun to pretend that Aaron Rogers grew up as a farm kid in Wisconsin and is part of the community.  It's like Field of Dreams but where someone gets their spine shattered in slow motion every 20 minutes or so.  The main reason I am on Green Bay though is that Cincinnati is 3-14 ATS after the Pittsburgh game.  Pittsburgh is Cincinnati's Darth Vadar, and they kill themselves to win that game.  It’s normal to have a let down afterward, and I see one here.  Green Bay -2.5  

I can’t remember the last time I saw a pro football game with a 20 point line, but that’s what we’re looking at this week with Jacksonville traveling to Seattle.  Let’s get this out there.  The Jacksonville Jaguars are the worst team since the Browns with Doug Pederson at the helm.  It’s barely pro football.  I saw some of the game last week against the Raiders and I had to turn away lest I turn to stone.  A Jaguars game is an abomination against Almighty God.  Still, I’m taking them +20 over Seattle.  The last 26 times an NFL team has been given 17 or more points that team has covered 20 of 26.  No matter how horrific any NFL team is, the savvy gambler remembers that the league is built on parity.  The Jags will be soundly outplayed in all phases of the game, but when the dust clears they will somehow have lost by less than three touchdowns.  Buckle up.  Jacksonville +20.

Season record:  3-2

Nurse the Hate: The New Hemingway Plan

I have been busying myself re-reading some Hemingway novels, which always leads me to wonder why well-mannered European waiters aren’t obediently fetching me whiskey and Perrier that I can leisurely sip under the brilliant skies of the Cote d’Azur.  Instead I am thinking about buying a Bud King Can at a gas station with bulletproof glass service window for my drive home in traffic under gun metal gray skies.  Such is the danger of immersing yourself in the prose of Hemingway.  It’s a world of individuals that spend their days seeking amusements leisurely and then relaxing for exotic drinks at the drop of a hat.  No one appears to have a real job or source of income with the exception of fleeting mentions of trust funds back East.  It’s really a world I could get comfortable in and frankly excel.

I don’t know if I can somehow become a 1920s novelist.  Is that a job listing on Monster.com or do you just start hanging out in cafes and discussing “your work”?  I can do the Hemingway thing.  I just need to put a modern reference in now and then.   “He walked across the street to the BW3 and it was windy and cold and when the door swung open they looked up from their Buffalitos.  She sat alone at a table with a draft beer in a plastic cup with hair that smelled of the Plains of Africa.  She didn’t look up.  “I told The Colonel that I hate your writing.  He needed to know you are nothing.”  He ordered a beer and ate the garlicky chicken wings brought by the expressionless fleshy waitress.  The beer was cold.  They went back to his room and made love like they had in Vitoria after the fiesta.  She shuddered as God brushed past her.  “I hate you.  Come and take me again.”  It was different this time and she cried and he walked to the window to stare out at the moon.  They slept.”

The stuff writes itself.

I think I would really enjoy sitting at cafes all day, getting together with other dudes that do basically the same thing I do, and then arguing about the merits of what we were writing.  I could go to artist enclaves and act distant and aloof.  Socially I will become much more unpredictable.  I foresee having all kinds of destructive sexual liaisons with women that are financial benefactors, treating them horribly, and then pretending none of it matters at all because of some sort of vague ever changing dogma.  I will be involved in fistfights with publishers and literary agents because I doubt their artistic purity, or perhaps I am just in need to create some type of protagonist drama.  I will argue with everyone about everything from any point of view, but only when blindly drunk on whiskey.  Otherwise I will be silent and quietly judgmental in my gaze.

I will travel to distant glamorous destinations for the sake of “my work”.  At each location I will make myself a self-important cog in the artistic community, quickly establishing myself as the judge of artistic worthiness of others despite not really producing anything tangible myself.  I will need to find apartments in Berlin, Morocco, Marseilles, and Buenos Aires, none of which I will ever pay for or even attempt to pay for in any manner.  I will drift around with my posse of other dudes, all of us convinced we are some sort of quasi Beat Generation on a new Moveable Feast.  The real trick will just to be able to sell it into a few key social kingmakers so we can enjoy this Beatnik Rogue Drifter lifestyle.  We will need hangers-on to pay for meals, drinks, etc. and that can only come from the heads of some key social circles giving us breathless endorsement so their minions will open their wallets.

Eventually I will produce a novel that is either incomprehensible or so simple it appears to have been written by a third grader.  In either case, I and my brethren will hail it as “genius” and we can keep our globetrotting lifestyles intact.  I may need to call on some of you to testify to my “genius” from time to time, but please know up front that I will allow you to absentmindedly smoke cigarettes on my terrace at my villa in Cadiz.  If you hang out long enough, you can start to reference your own “work” and then become part of the gang too.  It’s a good plan.  It’s a wise plan.  It’s a plan whose time has come.

 

Nurse the Hate: Hate the NFL Week 2

I apologize for the late post this afternoon.  I know many of you depend on my NFL insights so you can less than slightly break even on your own ill-founded wagers. I was swaggering around last night after winning a big Bama wager with a bellyful of Southern Tier 2X Rye Ales.  Look at The Big Man flush with cash.  Look at that expression on his face.  Such confidence and with a cocksure strut.  He must have all the answers.  

I found that crisp assurance of a crystal clear vision of the future disappeared when the Southern Tier wore off.  It must be something in the rye.  I took the hounds on their marathon Sunday walk where I do most of my big thinking.  As we worked our way through the woods things began to once again take on an inarguable clarity as they always do.  The quiet calm of nature helps wipe away the noise of day to day life.  It is my own Walden Pond. 

First of all, let’s talk about the Arizona Cardinals.  With the exception of that bizarre Kurt Warner Super Bowl season, the Cardinals have sucked with the regularity of the change of the seasons.  There is a certain comfort to know that as the leaves fall to earth here in Ohio, somewhere the Cardinals are getting pasted in the desert.  That is why it takes a real blind optimism to throw money down on the Cards today, but hear me out…  The Cardinals are playing the Lions in Phoenix today.  The Cardinals are good at home, winning nine of their last twelve.  The Lions can’t win on the road, losing ten of their last twelve.  These are trends that the savvy gambler pays attention to on a Sunday.  I am all over the Arizona Cardinals +2 at home. 

I took Kansas City -3 today, as I figured that the Cowboys got six turnovers last week and still just won by three.  If your team gets six turnovers in the NFL, I believe that team wins by an average of 71 points normally.  The Cowboys must kind of suck.  They get so much press anyone would think that the team is a powerhouse, but they have gone 9-7 for the last 22 years if memory serves me correctly.  Jerry Jones is more worried about being a maverick outlier owner than he is about actually doing what he needs to do to win football games.  I have bought in on the Chiefs hype of being a “surprise team” (despite the fact that every media outlet from US Weekly to Boy’s Life has plugged them).  This is probably a huge mistake on my part.  Regardless, I’m on KC -3.

I’m thinking about the under on the Jacksonville at Oakland game, but I fear that even considering watching this game will mark me as a dangerous degenerate.  This game has so little interest in it, I’m not sure if it even is televised.  The recaps about it in tomorrow’s press will probably be pen and ink drawings.  I do know that Jacksonville is starting Chad Henne, who is considered by NFL scouts to be “the poor man’s Brady Quinn”.   Jacksonville hasn’t scored more than 20 points in a regular season game since last Thanksgiving weekend.  Oakland has been under the total in seven of their last eight.  I’m thinking UNDER 41.  God help me.

Season to date:  1-1 

Nurse the Hate: Hate Everclear

I can’t remember the last time I came face to face with “Everclear” grain alcohol.  This is a very healthy statement for a middle aged man to be making.  Generally people that are over the age of 22 that find themselves in possession of a bottle of Everclear are usually on a path of drinking Aqua Velva and passing out in a puddle of their own urine.  I was unsure if in these politically correct times if The Authorities still allowed this evil potion to be manufactured.  I did look it up out of curiosity and discovered that you can buy a bottle at Bev-Mo! for $18 and it’s “great for making homemade cordials”.  The term “homemade cordials” is a code word for “dumping a bunch of Hawaiian Punch into a garbage can and mix it with this if you have the guts motherfucker”.   

I have had a few experiences with this “cordial” in the past and each ended in complete disaster.  On one occasion I hosted a party with several friends where we had allowed a giant bowl of fruit to soak in Everclear, and then poured the fruit/juice/liquor into a plastic tub with punch.  We had greatly underestimated the strength of the Everclear, but not nearly as much as many of our female party guests.  I had left the party very early to escort a few ladies over to our lair, and in the hour it took me to make the trip the party had denigrated into the End of Days.  Scantily clad women were passed out everywhere, while others crawled on the ground barfing with great vigor.  There were no longer any rules, and anything was possible.  Law enforcement officers had arrived at the scene to discuss what one would later allegedly refer to as “one of the worst things I’ve ever seen”.  I assessed that these security personnel would probably want to discuss this apocalypse with me in great detail, and I slunk off quietly to leave the explaining to others.

One would have thought this would have scared me off from this “cordial”, but if thrown from the horse, one must get back on.  Feeling as if a lesson had been learned, the “cordial” was stepped back in strength at a get together after forgetting the sheer horror of the earlier experiment.  This also proved to be a mistake.  The Everclear, while perhaps less prominent in this version of the “cordial”, still packed an awe inspiring wallop at 151 proof.  The problem becomes when you realize you have had too much, it is too late.  You are already too far in, and have little chance of escape.  You are committed for “the full ride” and you had best buckle in.  It is like liquid LSD.  There is no margin for error. 

On this particular evening I somehow lured a young lady back to my grungy home and got to work with romantic intentions.  Oh, I should be clear in that by “romantic intentions”, I mean “jam my tongue down her throat” and “dry humping her until maybe she took her pants off”.  After what was probably a very brief period of time, she realized she wanted no part of that scene and fled like if she had discovered mysterious scabs on my penis or a green fluid leaking from my anus.  She left with authority.  Imagine if the room had been on fire and she had been wearing a gasoline soaked Kleenex suit.  That is the total focus and desire she had to get out of the room.  I passed out almost immediately, and woke in the middle of the night to barf like a seasick sailor.  It is very unsettling to throw up fruit punch as the red vomit looks like blood to your stunned brain.  “Brain to Greg.  You are throwing up blood.  This is really bad.  Really bad.  Oh wait.. wait… It’s only the Everclear coming out.  Resume barfing.”

I didn’t see this woman for a long time.  It would have been a tall order to repair the relationship to what it had been prior to the evening’s unfortunate turn of events.  I understand this.  I later ran into her at an Indigo Girls concert I was working.  She had a suspiciously short haircut, very comfortable shoes, and a “friend” named Sue that looked like a hell of a field hockey player if you get my drift…  There was no way to sugarcoat it.  I believe her experience with me was so horrific that it changed her sexuality.  That is the power of the Everclear.

As you head into this weekend, many of you might be ready to enjoy a happy hour cocktail.  Today might be a great day to throw caution to the wind and change it up a little bit.  Forget the same old thing.  No Bud Light for you today.  No, today it might be time to try something a little more exotic.  Today, order yourself an Everclear.  Have yourself a “cordial”.   

Nurse the Hate: Hate the Home Run

I used to have season tickets to the Indians from 1994 to 2004.  Although it is difficult to believe now, the Indians were the hottest ticket in town, and sold out 455 games in a row.  During the glory years jacked up sluggers like Albert Belle, Manny Ramirez, Jim Thome, David Justice, and Brian Giles knocked the crap out of opposing pitching, and Jacobs Field was THE place to be.  We loved those guys and always pretended that they weren’t filled with steroids up to their eyeballs.  Hell, folks here still pretend Thome wasn’t on the juice and plan on putting a statue up of him out in front of the stadium.  He does look a lot like most baseball fans, and that goes a long way.  Can you blame them?  Albert was always nasty and Manny was so fucked up in the head it was/is hard to relate to him. Those guys could really play ball. That 1995 team was the best baseball team I ever saw despite their flameout in the World Series.  Through it all in that era, the entire city planned their summer nights around the Tribe. 

For a number of years I had a pair of tickets on the right hand foul pole.  I could literally set my feet on the pole while watching the game.  I had my own personal beer vendor (JD) who would drop everything and come bring me a cold one when I paged him.  Yes, I said paged him… It was a while back.  Back in the days of the horseless carriage and when a man could earn an honest wage.  This was when kids caught fireflies in jars, and things like “twerking” were done privately in your bedroom and left you filled with shame afterwards.  It was “the good old days” when good time bands like Alice In Chains and Creed ruled the charts while we danced The Mashed Potato.  Ice cream was a nickel and no one ever "sexted" computer files of their junk to strangers.  That was done via Polaroid or better yet in person after revealing it from a raincoat.  It was a simpler time. 

The exciting thing about sitting in these seats is that occasionally a home run ball would come your way.  It always looks cool to catch one of those on TV, but in my experience it is not nearly as easy as it seems.  I remember once Ken Griffey Jr. crushed one down the line in our direction.  As it first arched towards us I was thinking “Awesome!  I’m going to catch a ball!”.  Then as it came closer I heard it hissing from the speed.  “Oh my God!  Curve!  Curve!”  It clanged off a seat to my right.  Danger averted.

Before you start thinking “sissy boy”, I want you to knock back a few $8.00 16 oz Budweisers, and step into a 90 mph batting cage and catch a few barehanded.  Not so interested in that, are you?  And look, I’m not bringing my mitt to the game.  What am I?  Eight?  Maybe I can ride my BMX bike to the game too…  Any grown man that brings a mitt to the game and is not in the company of a child in 2^nd grade or less needs to spend less time at the ballpark and more time at places like biker bars, Marine basic training, and whiskey festivals. 

I hadn’t seen a ball in the corner in a long time when I was at a game with the old Cowslingers engineer Tall Boy Dannery.  We had been relaxing out there making a general nuisance of ourselves when the Indians put a couple guys on the bases in the ninth down by two.  Before we really even knew what was happening Russell Branyon smoked one on a rope right down the line.  That thing never went higher than 12 feet, and in seconds ricocheted off a seat behind the pole, right behind me and over to my left.  It happened really fast, and at one point I thought I had a shot at the ball when it ping ponged around on the ground.  I didn’t get it, the Indians won, and we went home.

By the time I got to my car, I had nine messages and seven texts on my phone.  Everyone I knew saw that home run.  Little did I also know that on the two dimensions of TV it appeared like the ball went right into my hands, and I dropped it over to the left for a little kid to deftly handle.  I knew this even before seeing the replay on TV.  I knew this because ESPN led off their Sportscenter telecast with “look at Russell Branyon hit the game winning home run for the Indians and look at the guy that can’t make the easy catch in the stands...  Ohhhh!!! The Shame!!!!” .  Just like that everyone I knew that liked sports across the country began calling me to ask “Dude, how did you drop that?  What are you?  A little girl?”  ESPN would make fun of me every 30 minutes or so for the next six hours.  I think I got off the hook when a member of the Cincinnati Bengals shot a stripper in the pussy and they ran with that story instead.  My phone buzzed all night long as friends in every time zone left me messages to bust my balls.  

That was a long time ago...

As I sit with moderate interest watching this Indians game on TV tonight, I can’t help but feel a little sad for the Indians and their two thirds empty stadium.  The glory days of yore are long gone.  Then again, maybe that’s a good thing.  They are home tomorrow afternoon at Noon.  Businessman’s special.  Hey, I’m a “businessman”.  Maybe I’ll go and sit in my old seats.  If I get lucky maybe a ball will get hit my way.  Just think of how my voice will echo in that empty stadium when I squeal like a little girl.  Maybe ESPN will pick it up.  It’ll be like old times…    

      

Nurse the Hate: Hate the NFL Week One

The football season has once again arrived with the promise of extracting all of my hard won baseball profits.  I don’t know why I continue to bet on the NFL.  It is a wilderness of mirrors with absolutely no hope of turning a profit.  It is the gambling equivalent of dabbling with heroin.  There is no chance in keeping it under control, vast sums of money and resources will be lost, and it will end in utter shame and embarrassment.  Yet, I find myself settling once again into the warm comforting arms of the NFL, sliding into the whore’s womb.  This can’t end well, but it is going to happen, so let’s get on with it…

I believe the Cleveland Browns will defeat the Miami Dolphins this Sunday.  The Cleveland Browns have not won a home opener since Eisenhower was president and players wore leather helmets.  If I am not mistaken they beat the Hartford Filthy Indians (it was a different time then) 24-3 by completing what was then a record of four forward passes.  Later fans went home and watched a young Carl Perkins play his hit “Blue Suede Shoes” on The Ed Sullivan Show and remarked, “I still enjoy that Elvis fella’s version better and I’ll just bet that Carl will later wear terrible hairpieces.”.   Cleveland was the nation’s fourth largest city, had yet to set the river on fire, and at that time was able to identify real professional football talent.  Like I mentioned, it was a different time…

I am concerned that because I have been bombarded by the annual training camp local media storm that is always beset with amnesia about the previous season.  It’s a constant stream of glitter and ponies in the assessment of the team leading into the season.  All the rookies look like All Pros.  All the veterans are set for career years.  No one will be injured.  It is way too early to absorb the fact of another 6-10 season staring NE Ohio in the face.  Even I, the ultimate Cleveland cynic, fall prey to the possibility that just maybe they turn it around this year…

I look at it this way.  Assuming they do go 6-10, they have to get six wins.  What better opportunity than the Miami Dolphins?  The Dolphins have their own shitty team with their own shitty QB.  In a choice between two shitty teams with two shitty quarterbacks, it’s a good idea to take the shitty quarterback playing at home.  Cleveland -1.     

Speaking of shitty quarterbacks, let’s talk about Jake Locker and the Tennessee Titans.  I saw him last year in an otherwise meaningless game against the Jets play in what may have been the worst example of professional football I have ever witnessed.  The people of Nashville would have been more entertained by shuffling around those terrible tourist joints on Broadway and listening to awful versions of Hank Williams songs in Toby Keith’s bar than watch that game.  As far as I know, they had to watch a version of that game every week all season.  Jake Locker makes Brandon Weeden look like John Elway.  OK, maybe not John Elway, but at least Rich Gannon…  OK, Jeff George, but you get the idea.  He looked really awful. 

I keep hearing about how Tennessee has decided to limit what they are asking Locker to do.  This is good news, because I think he is capable of handing the ball to Chris Johnson and hoping for the best.  Tennessee had so many guys injured on the O-line last year that they started a guy that they signed off the street in week 16.  They used two top draft choices on lineman this year, so let’s assume they will be able to run it better than in 2012 when Chris Johnson still had 1200 yards somehow.  They are playing a Pittsburgh Steeler team that appears to be in “rebuild mode”.  The Steelers have no reliable healthy running backs.  They let their only good WR leave in free agency.   It seems that Pittsburgh scoring a great deal of points may be an issue…

I am somewhat hesitant with this pick as in the past whenever Pittsburgh has been written off, they just plug new guys in and continue kicking people in the fucking teeth.  In regards to personnel, they are the anti-Cleveland.  In general their fifth round pick will be more valuable than Cleveland’s first round selection.  I will assume that they will somehow be a decent team, but in that inherently Pittsburgh way of playing great defense, making a late play and then winning 13-10.  As they are giving 7.5, I’m taking Tennessee +7.5 and hoping to high hell Jake Locker doesn’t have to do anything.      

Nurse the Hate: Hate Miley Cyrus

I have a hard time getting my arms wrapped around this Miley Cyrus VMA controversy thing that won’t seem to die.  Let’s take this thing head on, shall we?  The sole purpose of those awards shows for pop acts is to generate press.  That is the only reason, besides ad revenue, that anyone goes to the trouble of putting these things on.  To even be concerned that there is the least importance in the events that unfold at this type of manufactured event is to completely misunderstand their very purpose.  Each one of these “artists” (and I use that term on that absolutely loosest sense possible) has an entire team looking to “maximize” the event.  Each one of these tabloid douchebags had innumerable mind numbing meetings designed to make them the buzz artist after the smoke cleared.  In that respect, the event was a great success for Cyrus.

I cannot comprehend why The Public is so shocked to see Miley Cyrus do her version of the “Look at me!  I’m a big girl now!” dance on TV.  This rite of passage is absolutely key to any pop artist that appeals primarily to tween girls if they have any hope of ever hanging around in show business.  The teen idol is in an unenviable position.  Their rabid core fan base will age, and as they do they will reject their icons of childhood and attempt to attach themselves to something they view as “adult” and more befitting of their budding maturity.  That thirteen year old girl audience of Cyrus’s is busy trying to figure out what sexuality means, and who better to show the way than their trusted pop idol?  The problem becomes to attract any attention whatsoever from the media, a gal has to shoot flaming ping pong balls out of her pussy for anyone to even notice.  The “artist” must go further than what has come before her, or the point is lost entirely. 

While I think one can debate the specifics and merits of the Miley Cyrus foam finger masturbation dry hump dance, the broad goal was achieved.  Team Miley Cyrus put the coffin nail in the Disney image, and has announced they are now playing in the big leagues with Rihanna, Pink, and all those other interchangeable female pop stars I can never seem to identify.  There was no other business choice available, so what’s the fuss?  If I was a father, would I have wanted my 13 year old daughter to hold this behavior up as the standard for her future?  No, but I’m not a father of a 13 year old girl, so I really don’t give a fuck.   

The biggest question that I came away with is wondering how MTV can host a video music awards show when as far as I know they don’t actually show any actual music videos?  Every single time I turn to MTV there are hillbillies arguing on Teen Mom, hillbillies arguing on that West Virginia “reality show”, or super rich kids and their parents trying to outdo each other for their 16^th birthday parties.  I realize MTV was never really a paragon of intellectual achievement, but why does it seem like those Whitesnake videos were somehow less stupid?  I realize that I have no idea what a 16 year old wants to watch for entertainment, but if it were me I would prefer some hot girls dancing around to metal music instead of watching the vapid fuckup girls that had kids at 16 cry because their hillbilly boyfriend predictably didn’t show up at their infant’s birthday party.  Can’t you see that at your own school?  Assuming you go to the high school’s “smoking lounge” of course…

While all the Moms get settled down until the next outrageous awards show stunt, Miley is moving ahead in her fabulous career.  She’s making a documentary on her life.  The fact that she thinks she accomplished something is awesome.  Here’s an actual quote from her:  "Me and Robin (Thicke) the whole time said, 'You know, we're about to make history right now”.  Only a 20 year old teen idol surrounded by Yes Men could think that shaking her ass and simulating masturbating with a foam finger is “making history”.  It’s as if she sailed with Magellan, made advances in string theory, or sculpted “David” with Michelangelo.  I love the idea that she thinks that dancing around like a clumsy stripper is the cultural equivalent to the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.  The lack of self-awareness in the world of pop is my favorite part.  They all think they are really important, each one unaware that right behind them a younger, prettier, more interesting teen idol girl will be willing to jack off Prince and then be shot across the room from a cannon.  Ah, but that is net year’s VMAs and next year’s controversy.  Until then…      

Nurse the Hate: Hate Summer's End

Labor Day is the end of Summer.  Though the calender might suggest that the solstice of September 21st is the official end of Summer, those of us living in this region of the country know that the end of the season comes like a flick of the light switch on Sept 1st or near abouts.  Darkness starts to come early, and before the sun has even set a damp chill slinks in like an unwelcome guest.  Summer is all possibility and pleasure whereas Fall is the check at the end of dinner.  One is expected to be serious in the Fall with the resumption of academic pursuits and increased workloads.  In my mind, it is really the close of a chapter in time.  The end of summer is very depressing for me.

This summer felt as if it passed faster than the one before it, which of course was even quicker than the one prior.  In elementary school a summer break seemed to last an eternity, and when the beginning of August rolled around announcing the actual possibility of returning to school, it seemed impossible that much time had passed.  I don't know if this is only my experience, but I find time to be like the hill of a rollercoaster.  The more time that has passed, the faster the remaining time seems to fly by.  As a kid days go by with the "click-click-click" of climbing that first hill of the coaster.  Something happened at some point that changed the pace.  Certainly there must have been a top of the hill when the long slow days of school vacation turned into the blur of life's current pace.  I have no idea when that was though...

Maybe I just have too many balls in the air at any one time and as a result I am the only one that can't seem to recall the entire month of July.  I really did not accomplish everything I had set out to do this summer.  This could be because I am too easily distracted.  Perhaps I set too many goals.  Maybe I just have too many unimportant things eating away at my valuable time.  Hell, I haven't leaped out of that airplane yet, and I thought I was going to do that last week.  Ah, those fucking hillbillies stealing garbage from one another got me off target there.  Never get too involved with violent hillbillies.  No good can come of it.  Even living in the same county jammed me up.  Note to self, avoid violent hillbillies...

I spent one summer taking classes at Kent.  I was subletting a room in a terrible house living with some guys I barely knew.  I had taken a class called "Great Books II" that summer.  Since it was a summer class, they jammed it all in over a much quicker time period.  I think what was normally a 12 week class became a six week class, so as a result the pace of "Great Books II" was insane.  I would go to class Monday morning and the instructor would say, "Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf" was one of the first surrealistic novels.  On Wednesday we'll discuss it, and then have a test on Friday."  As a result, I would have to knock out Herman Hesse's "Steppenwolf" in four days, which I did while sitting outside in the sun on a cheap beach chair.  Over the course of four weeks I read complete novels from Hesse, Kafka, Dostoevsky, and Voltaire while working on a tan that would have made George Hamilton weep with envy.  At night I would sell magazine subscriptions as a telemarketer, and then stop in this bar called Ray's and drink until close.  It was, without question, one of the best summers ever.

It would be great to recapture somehow that feeling of freedom while enjoying a slow languid pace.  When your biggest responsibilities are to finish "The Trial" while sitting out in the sun, and maybe renew some guy's "Field and Stream" magazine on the phone, things are pretty relaxed.  It's hard to wrap your arms around the fact that you may have actually had it all figured out years ago, and then let it slip out of your fingertips.  Of course, if I had maintained a life of heavy reading and small labor, I would be one of those bearded guys shuffling around college towns that had a cat, went to poetry slams, and spent most of my limited energies on tricking the patchouli smelling grad student bartendress at my favorite bar into taking off her stinky jeans in my rented room.  This, while offering many legitmate freedoms, is also very sad.  I don't want to wear little round glasses and assume everyone is as worked up about foreign labor conditions as I would inevitably be.  "Hey man, I only drink free trade coffee.  Getting that stuff from Dunkin Donuts is like shooting a kid in the head man..."  Nobody needs me singing out front of some jam band.  What the hell would I do during the seven minute guitar solos?

I suppose it becomes all about staying on your own course while trying to keep that rollercoaster moving at as slow a speed as possible.  It's nice to look around and enjoy what is happening while it is happening.  I feel like I was shortchanged this summer.  That won't happen this Fall.  No way.  OK, it might...