Nurse the Hate: Amsterdam, Game Shows and the NFL Divisional Round

 

 

I was running on a treadmill the other day at the gym.  The TV was set to a Price Is Right rerun.  I have a philosophy that once you hit a certain age, you are either “sore” or “fat”.  There is no option that exists for “looking presentable and feeling comfortable”.  The only choices are various shades of misery.  My feet made dull thuds on the treadmill track.  On the screen an overtly gay heavyset black man made wild gesticulations at the very thought of winning The Showcase Showdown prize package.  It was a pool table, shoes, and a wind surfing rig.  As far as I could tell, he wasn’t going to play pool, was too fashionable for the cheap shoes, and had absolutely no chance to balance on a windsurfing board.  He was VERY excited though.  He made his bid.  It looked like about $3000 worth of crap.  He bid something like $27,000.

The next showcase came up.  It was a woman in her thirties in a conservative top and sensible flats.  She was sort of cute, like if she put forth an effort, she would make everyone at her 20^th high school reunion go “Woah!  Did you see Michelle Jenkins?  She didn’t look like that in high school!”.  However, Michelle didn’t feel a national TV appearance warranted that type of effort, so she looked like she had just popped out to Home Depot for some wallpaper samples.  The big doors opened up with the announcer screaming “A NEW CAR!!!!!” and a shot of the studio audience going apeshit.  It was a Hyundai Elantra or something like that, a sensible entry level car.  In fact, I would bet almost anything Michelle had driven an earlier model of the same car to the show taping.  Hers probably has a dent in the driver’s side where she misjudged a parking lot pole, and a small tool kit in the dashboard, because Michelle seems like a prudent woman from the 8 second assessment I made while running on the treadmill.

This is when things got exciting.  The announcer waited just the right amount of time between the crowd reaction to the car to slightly settle before really letting them have it.  “A trip to Amsterdam!”  By this time the crowd was ready to have heart attacks they were so blown away by the frenzy of it all.  Even Michelle seemed pretty jacked up.  This is when I started to hope Michelle lost the Showcase Showdown.  In what is clear evidence of a personality defect, I decided Michelle didn’t deserve to go to Amsterdam.  What kind of adventure would she have there?  Maybe she’d get crazy and buy some street fries and try them with mayo, but that would be about it.  Oh, it was pure envy on my part.  Michelle has every right to go to Amsterdam.  I just didn’t want her to go and me to be stuck in Ohio typing into a computer making other people rich.

I have been to Amsterdam twice, but both trips there added up to about three hours.  I was on Daredevils tours both times.  Once we stopped to buy some music equipment.  I think Bob needed a pedal or something when some of our rental gear took a shit.  We pulled in fast and hoped junkies wouldn’t break into our van in the 55 minutes we had to park the van.  They didn’t and we went on our way. 

The other time there we decided to walk around town for a bit on our way to some crazy town in Holland that had a British submarine base where most of the crew showed up to our gig and drank the bar dry of Amstel.  It was a gorgeous afternoon.  Obviously, Leo’s agenda was to go to one of the famous “coffee shops” and sample the local weed.  We sat outside in the Red Light district sipping beers, our faces in the sun.  It was that time of year when the sun only has so much heat to give, so you try to lap it up when you can.  We sat next to a canal and watched shitfaced pale Irish drunk boys shuffle past.

It came to our attention that the coffee house also sold mushrooms.  A theory began to emerge that it would be a good idea to buy some “just in case we needed them”.  When you are drinking beers in the middle of the afternoon on a rock tour with a driver ready to take you to the next gig, this seems not only reasonable, but irrational NOT to secure these supplies.  Leo went in to figure out the particulars.  It was interesting as they offered four types of mushrooms.  These were made available on a menu board that looked like a chicken wing joint.  As I recall, the first three options were geography based with increasing strength.  For example, “Maui provides pleasant feelings and an overall body buzz” followed by “Mexican provides giggles and enhanced color sensitivity”.  The one at the very top caught my eye.  It said something like “Golden Teacher:  Only for the most experienced cosmic adventurer, for those that want to travel to the very limits of the mind and break into new dimensions”.

I sat outside at a small bistro table.  I was in cowboy boots, playing music with my friends, sipping an excellent crisp beer in a place that looked like a movie set.  We had a show tonight, tomorrow, and the night after that.  The entire world just consisted of getting in and out of a van, playing the songs we made up in our basement, and then doing it again somewhere new the next day.  I heard Leo come out of the shop.  He was holding a bag.  I asked him what he got in there, already knowing the answer.  “Golden Teacher…  As much as I could get.”  He nodded his head while he said it, knowing in advance that I knew what he was going to tell me. 

Are you going to tell me Michelle was going to try to have that kind of Amsterdam trip?  Yes, I had completely projected my image of Michelle based on nothing really.  As far as I knew she would spend her day in art galleries and at night engage in forbidden sex acts with sullen Eastern European prostitutes and their business associates.  If you really get down to it, I was just jealous that she was going to have the chance to do something interesting, whatever that might be, and it felt like she was stealing that opportunity from me.  I wanted to go back to the nice afternoon on the canal.  Why did she get to do it instead of me?  I kept running.  Thud thud thud.  The heavy gay black guy was only $1800 off.  Michelle came though though, winning her Amsterdam trip and car by being just $400 off.  She seemed really happy.  Winner.  There was much rejoicing as the credits rolled.

I’ll tell you something, I’ve got a couple winners this week.  I like Tennessee -3.5 and the Rams +3.  Tennessee has everyone coming back healthy.  They are the most underrated #1 seed in the playoffs I can ever remember.  They had injuries to most of their key offensive players (Henry, Brown, Jones) and went on this run starting Oct 18th- Bills (W), Kansas City (W), Colts (W), Rams (W), Saints (W).  Now they are healthy and are coming off a bye week and get to play at home?  Vrabel is twice the coach Taylor is, and the Bengals are that point where they partied all week at their great fortune.  Their dream dies this week.  I’d like it better at -3, so I might wait for kickoff to see if it drops. 

Tampa has had an amazing run, but those dudes are decimated at the skill positions.  Brady now has two receivers in his circle of trust (Gronk and Evans) and has to face a defense that is great at up the middle pressure.  I don’t trust Stafford, but I think the Rams defense keeps the Bucs offense in check.  I hate betting against The Witch, but the points are too much to pass up.  The Rams just have too many matchup advantages all over the place.  If I can tease on threes, I am going to go Rams +9/Titans +3.   

 

Season Record:  35-34