Doris' Day

Forget about Al Gore and his little Nobel Peace Prize. Any wimp can win that. The Nobel Prize for Literature, on the other hand, is a genuinely difficult accomplishment. The closest I came to winning this prestigious award was in 1993, when I finished in fifth place behind the wildly overrated Toni Morrison and a few other hacks. So three cheers for Doris Lessing: Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! If you've never read anything by Doris Lessing, give this short story a shot. It's called Through the Tunnel. She's a commie pinko, but she writes real purdy-like.

What to Call Bad People

Warning: This entry contains language of a most foul and degrading nature. So deal, motherfucker!

Person of Bad Conduct	What to Call Them
The guy who yells at cyclists from a passenger window	Assclown
The corpulent man at the next table who blows his nose like a goose and mumbles something like "Mebs" for no reason	Douchelord
Woman who instructs you on your way out the door to pick up some fucking Menthol Lites or don't come the fuck home	Battle Axe
The server who ignores you the whole meal and then puts on a big smile when she gives you the check and explains how busy she is	Slutmonkey
The guy who comes to a complete stop in the right lane and makes a slow left turn	You don't call him anything; you just check out his demographic, because you have a working hypothesis...
A politician who doesn't recall anything while testifying	Republican
The guy who sets off a bomb in a crowded bus station	Silly Goose
The guy who calls someone a "Fucktard"	Fuckwit
A manager who yells at workers	Captain Happy
A guy who calls people with children "breeders"	Dog Fucker
The slick guy who talks aloud into an ear phone in a public place	Tit
A guy from Colorado Springs	Asshole
They guy who throws cigarette butts into a urinal	Turd Bloom
The person with an ongoing car alarm problem	Pudsniffer

Is SNL Still Funny?

I haven't seen Saturday Night LIve in ten years and I haven't watched it regularly in about fifteen years. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I used to watch it regularly from the early years, and I mean the early years, back before Bill Murray replaced Chevy Chase. It reached a peak for me when Dana Carvey and Phil Hartmen were stars. With TiVo/DVR, there's no reason not to watch it, even when there are a bunch of hosts I've never heard of.

I heard an interview yesterday with an SNL writer who discussed the Ten To phenomenon, which I assume are the bizarre, experimental episodes that air near the end of the show, at ten to one. The interviewer referred to a Barry Gibb sketch as one of his favorites, so I decided to check it out. Like other late sketches, this one is bizarre and uneven, but it cracked me up. Maybe I need to start watching again.

Idol Worship

I'm not an American Idol fan. I was going to say that I don't have anything against the show, but now that I think about it, that's not exactly true. I actively dislike the show. Even though I don't watch it, it's so ingrained in our culture that I know who Kelly Clarkson and William Hung are, and there's a big black guy named Reuben who should have wowed me. From what I've seen on YouTube videos and in the quick flip-by glimpses on television, there are two types of contestants: the laughable and the annoying. I don't enjoy laughing at people who can't sing, because I have them all beat in terms of poor singing talent. And of the decent contestants, most of them have the same melismatic pop style derived from the likes of Christina Aguilera, which is not a good thing in my book. Instead of hitting one note, why not run through a bunch of notes? I blame it on Jimi Hendrix and his ridiculous rendition of the national anthem at Woodstock. Now everyone has to show off their range of notes. Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wa - hay - HAY - hay - HAY - ave . . .

That said, a co-worker sent me this link of a phone salesman who thinks he can sing opera. I liked it, corniness and all.

Levels of Winning

The great Bill Simmons updated his "Levels of Losing" column recently, but he has yet to create a "Levels of Winning" column. Until the World's Greatest Sports Fan creates the definitive list, this one will have to suffice:

X. The Cheap Win

Your team ekes out a sloppy win, but only through luck, opponents' mistakes, and perhaps a little help from officials. The victory makes you happy but defensive; you don't want to watch a replay of the game. If you're a Democrat, you admit that your team caught a few breaks to win, but it all evens out in the end, so let's sing Kumbaya and move on. If you're a Republican, your team won, end of story, now shut the hell up.

Examples: Royals over Cards in 85, Heat over Mavs in 06, Pittsburgh over Seattle in 06, Argentina over England in the 86 World Cup, Pats over Colts from 03 to 05.

IX. Someone Had to Win

Your team wins, but no one else cares.

Examples: 84 BYU Cougars, 97 Marlins, 03 Bucs, 06 Cards, 98 Shakespeare in Love, any Tour de France winner after Lance Armstrong.

VIII. A Regular Win

Your team wins a game.

Example: In 1987, the Cleveland Browns defeated the New England Patriots 20-10 in the regular season to improve their record to 3-1. A reserve linebacker separated his shoulder.

VII. A Championship Win

Your team wins a championship.

Example: The Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl in 2001.

VI. Birth of a Dynasty

Your team wins that second or third title within a five-year span, allowing them a place in the hallowed "Greatest Ever" discussions.

Examples: Yanks over Braves in 99, Pats over Carolina in 04, Spurs over Cavs in 07, Lance Armstrong wins his third Tour de France title, Season 3 of The Wire.

V. Winner of the See-Saw Battle

Your team wins a thrilling back-and-forth game (or series) against a great opponent.

Examples: Reds over Red Sox in 76, Celtics over Lakers in 84, Lakers over Celtics in 85, USA over China in women's soccer, Hagler over Hearns in boxing, Swayze over Farley in a dance-off.

IV. The Champs Hang On

A great team near the end of its reign is overmatched by a younger, more talented team, but your guys somehow gut out a victory.

Examples: Steelers over Rams in 79, Celtics over Pistons in 87, Bulls over Jazz in 98, Niners over Packers in 98, Michael Flatley winning the "Lord of the Dance" title in 04.

III. The Huge Upset

Your team comes out of nowhere to win. David beats Goliath. (By the way, I told the story of David and Goliath to the twins last night during dinner. For your information, Luke and Max both have really, really strong muscles and wouldn't need a sling to kill Goliath.)

Examples: USSR over USA in basketball, USA over USSR in hockey, Douglas over Tyson, Truman over Dewey. And any non-Holocaust movie that wins an Oscar for Best Documentary.

II. The Non-Upset Upset

This is oddly more rewarding than the huge upset because you feel like you're one of a handful of people who thinks your underdog team is going to win.

Examples: Duke over UNLV in 92, Denver over Green Bay in 97, Seattle over Pittsburgh in 06 (oh, wait).

I. Over the Hump - Finally!

Your team ends some sort of losing streak by winning it all in dramatic fashion. This is especially satisfying if rival fans taunt your team, such as when generations of Yankee fans chanted "1918" to remind the kind-hearted New England folks of the last time the Red Sox won the World Series. This highest level of winning is even better -- if that's possible -- when your team beats the hated rival on their way to the championship. In other words, the 2004 Red Sox fans had the perfect sports moment, coming back from an 0-3 deficit to beat the Yankees and go on to win the World Series for the first time since . . . 1918!

Other examples: The Brooklyn Dodgers finally beat the hated New York Yankees in 1955; the New York Rangers finally won a Stanley Cup in 1994; Steve Young finally won a Super Bowl in 1995 (personal favorite #1), Peyton Manning won a Super Bowl in 2007 (personal favorite #2), and Martin Scorcese finally won an Oscar for Best Picture in 07.

Feel free to add categories and examples in comments. I reserve the right to update this entry by "leveraging" your suggestions.

Children of a Lesser Corn

It's one of those days at work. I'm between projects right now, so there isn't much to do. You'd think not having much to do at work would be relaxing. You'd think. But every writer or editor I know feels the same way about this lag time. It's vaguely stressful. There are always little tasks to do, but since I don't throw myself into them, I feel like I'm procrastinating. Another problem is that I have too much time to Think with a capital T about my job. How long am I going to keep doing this? What's next? So I've spent a lot of time not writing my novel and looking out the window where dozens of construction workers are building a huge new office space. I'm jealous. I could be outside driving a bulldozer or smoothing out cement or making lewd comments to passers-by. That has to feel good. When those guys drink water, they really need water.

For some reason, this reminds me of my very first pay-stub job. After my family had moved from Nebraska to Colorado when I was 13, I spent a year feeling lonely and sad. This was a difficult time for me because I had a bunch of great friends in Nebraska who diametrically opposed the bad, awful, evil inhabitants of Colorado Springs. The following summer, I was thrilled to take a bus back to Nebraska and stay with my best friend Paul. Paul's parents were strict and old-fashioned, so they didn't want a 14-year-old child (or his house guest) to go through life without learning the value of the dollar. It was about time we started taking some responsibility. Paul's mother persuaded us to take a job detasseling corn. The next morning, we woke up a 5:00 am, got a ride into Bellevue ten miles away, and then rode a bus for another hour into Iowa.

Not only were Paul and I were the youngest and smallest kids on the bus, but the other kids all seemed hard and mean, like part of a juvenile chain gang. When we got off the bus at the designated farm, an older kid started shouting the day's plans. Paul and I were the new kids, so we were the only ones paying attention to the guy. All I knew was that we had to pull the little brown tassels out of the tops of the corn stalks. This apparently made the corn sweet enough for people to eat. Each kid was assigned a row. The young foreman reluctantly showed Paul and me how to detassel the corn, and then he asked us to demonstrate. I bent the corn stalk down because I was too short to reach the top, battled with the tassel for about 30 seconds, and finally worked the tassel out of the corn. Thwap. I expected praise -- "That's real good, Bobby" -- but the foreman just grunted and said he'd see us at the end of the row.

The taller, more experienced kids plucked the tassels hand over hand, thwap-thwap-thwap, sending the tassels flying. They'd stop every now and then to smoke pot or sit down. After about two hours of hard work, I got my time down to about 10 seconds per stalk -- way too slow. The other detasselers were far ahead of me. My neck ached, my hands were bleeding, and I dealt with the feelings of failure about as poorly as you'd expect of a sensitive 14-year-old boy. It was almost enough to make me want to go back to Colorado. Almost. Time crawled by. When I finally arrived at the break area between rows, the foreman called me out by name. "Bringhurst! Come here!" According to the foreman, I not only picked too slowly, but I also missed a bunch of tassels. "Do you think the farmer's going to be happy with your row?"

I spent the next 8 hours (yes, it was a 10-hour work day) doing my best to detassel corn quickly. It was torture. When we all piled on the bus at the end of the brutal day, the foreman read names of people who were going to be fired: "Henderson, Grady, Bringhurst, Carter..." Adding to my humiliation, Paul's name wasn't called. When we got back to Bellevue, I approached the foreman and begged for another chance. "It was my first day. I'll do better tomorrow. I promise," I cried. He gave me another chance.

The next morning, I picked up the pace. Dreaming about corn stalks all night long must have done wonders, because I was no longer the slowest guy. And I figured out a system to make sure I didn't skip any corn stalks. We crossed one of the break areas between the rows, and I kept picking. My hands, neck, and back still hurt, but I didn't have the sense of failure that weighed me down the previous day. When it was lunch time, the foreman called me out again. "Bringhurst! Come here!" He then pointed out that the row I was assigned to was entirely unpicked.

"There must be some mistake," I muttered. "I did my whole row."

By the time I figured out what happened -- I picked someone else's row after the break between rows -- it was too late to talk to the foreman. I was already sitting on the bus. I sat alone on the bus for six hours.

Postscript: Paul worked one more day and then convinced his mother that he should quit for my sake. We spent the rest of the summer mowing lawns and going to the swimming pool.

Post Postscript: A week later, I received my paycheck in the amount of $23.14 for one-and-a-half days of work. The government do take a bite.

Post Post Postscript: A year later, I received an invitation to return as a foreman. Paul and his family teased me about that letter for the next twenty years, until I moved to Seattle. (Action item -- Dug or Fatty, during Fall Moab, ask Paul about detasseling corn. I guarantee he'll laugh before he says a single word.)

Autumn Music

The sun was shining through the window this morning, so I lay on the floor and let the sunlight bake me for a few moments. Then I announced to anyone who happened to be around that I was taking the day off. What this means, of course, is that I got to watch the kids while Wendy did her thing*. No matter. Since I was in a good mood, I wanted to hear music. "I'm going to turn on some music, Little Dove. What would you like to hear?" Here's what she said:

"Play some Autumn music."

I didn't want to display a lack of self-confidence by asking what constitutes Autumn music, so I put on a Cake album. I got wheels, of polished steel... Wendy told me in no uncertain terms that my selection wasn't Autumn music. Hmm. All I could think of was Vivaldi, and Vivaldi is rainy day music. Do The Killers remind me of yellow leaves, coonskin caps, and cider presses? How about Jimi Hendrix? So I put it to you, Dear Reader: What is Autumn music?

* Note: In this case, Wendy's "thing" happened to be vacuuming and dusting the house, but I don't like murky facts to get in the way of pure emotions.

Another Word of Which I Disapprove

Rock. As in "I rocked a new sweater." Please stop saying that. One does not "rock" an article of clothing. One rocks a cradle, a boat, or a stormy love interest. The proper usage in this case is "wear." Example: "I wore a new sweater." If one wants to add a touch of flair to indicate that the article of clothing is being worn in a particularly flashy manner, the term "sport" is preferred: "Sporting a new sweater, a fedora, and a monocle, I was deemed fashionable by my colleagues."

Friday Night Lights

Last Thursday night, I'd just read the great Bill Simmons ranting about the fact that Friday Night Lights is about to be cancelled. All the fuss about this show reminded me of the buzz around Battlestar Galactica and Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- seemingly lame television shows that are smarter than what they appear to be on the surface. Still, the word-of-mouth buzz wasn't enough to get me to watch Buffy since I watch too much television as it is. I would have kept my distance from Friday Night Lights as well, only all the Season 1 episodes are available on the web. Right here. So I thought I'd watch an episode or two online to see if it was worth renting the DVDs. And here's the thing. I couldn't stop watching the show. In three days, I watched all 22 episodes. I watched the season finale Sunday morning around 2:30 am. Not only did this make me tired all weekend, but Wendy wanted to watch the show with me because she's heard similar raves. Too late, babe. No way I could drag out 22 episodes over a month or two.

And while I'm telling you things, here's another thing. I've never liked shows about high school kids, which are all melodramatic, and I rarely like shows (or movies for that matter) about sports. Unrealistic sports shows drive me nuts. In fact, the sports scenes in Friday Night Lights aren't realistic, and they're sometimes painful. The actors are decent athletes, so you don't get ridiculous problems like Gary Cooper swinging like a sissy or Leonardo DiCaprio dribbling a basketball like a 6-year-old with an inhaler. Friday Night Lights has too many dramatic finishes, especially when you watch all the episodes in 3 days, and the editing is way off when it comes to down and distance. Fortunately, the sports scenes end quickly enough and don't do lasting damage.

So why watch the show? The actors are talented and likeable and the writing is sharp. The arguments between the coach and his wife are charming and realistic, complete with overlapping dialogue. Mrs. Coach is a dang good actress, as she shows here. But the showstopper for me is the kid named Landry. He steals every scene he's in. Like this one:



There are a couple more Landy scenes here and here.

I'm not saying the Friday Night Lights is the best show on television. That honor belongs to The Wire. But it's up there. I'm a convert. Give it a try. It starts out a little rough, but it hits its stride after a few episodes.

My Worst Moment

I was trying to think of the single worst experience of my life. It can't be a stretch of a few days or weeks, but a single bad moment. No one close to me has died, so I have to dig deeper than most people. I remember a particularly depressing walk home after being cut from the high school baseball team. And there was the time I had to throw a used condom against the wall. Those were bad, yes, but here's what I think is the single worst experience of my life.

I had recently returned from my mission, and I was sincere about my religious beliefs. Despite some growing doubts about the Mormon story, I believed in God. As I was trying to adjust to my new life as a 21-year-old Mormon, I had to deal with the awkward blend of hormones, shyness, and religious devotion. To my eternal shame, I started peeking at covers of Playboy magazine whenever I went into a convenience store, and after a few weeks I even opened a magazine and shuffled through enough pages to become twitterpated. That combination of titillation and guilt stays with me to this day whenever I look at porn, but back then both elements were much more intense -- especially the guilt of betraying my God. This may seem kind of silly now, but in 1983, pornography wasn't nearly as pervasive, especially in my sheltered world.

I used to ride past an adult bookstore in Moreno Valley every day on my way home from lifeguarding. One day, while driving my Dad's yellow pickup, I decided to stop in. I say this casually now, as if I were curious about a pawn shop, but this act of going into a porn shop put me in a state of frenzy, angels battling demons. Walking towards the door made me feel like I was simultaneously dragging someone and being dragged by someone. When I opened the door, I saw things I shouldn't have seen. Remember, my only experience with porn was looking at Playboy pictorials and trying to make sense of scrambled cable channels, so I was alarmed at the nasty display of sexual deviance. What in the hell is THAT?! Why are they . . . oh no, oh no. A man behind the counter asked if I needed any help. I looked at him and was struck by his eyes, which looked like goat eyes. Dead goat eyes. I asked him where the Playboy magazines were. The evil man scoffed.

I left the store feeling nothing but guilt and shame and dread. Never again. Never, ever again. As I climbed in the pickup cab and fumbled with keys, a man standing outside my window startled me. He knocked on the window. What should I do? Lock the door and drive away? I rolled down the window slowly and snarled in a high-pitched voice, "What do you want?" He handed me a born-again Jesus Saves pamphlet. Relieved that he wasn't going to make me squeal like a pig, I actually took the pamphlet. So that's it. Hearing the strange man tap on my window as I sat shame-faced in my pickup truck was my single worst moment.