10 Reasons Why Michael Sam Coming Out Gay Shouldn't Be a Big Deal

1. He's pretty damn good.
The kid made SEC Defensive Player of the Year honors. Something that has garnered a First Round pick in the NFL Draft the past seven years running.

2. He's going to be Rich.
All of you, presumably not rich people, who hate that Michael Sam is going to be an NFL player--as these eight NFL insiders supposedly do, need to remember one important thing: If he gets drafted, he's going to be rich. He won't give a shit what you think.

3. He probably ain't the first.
According to various population demographics I've just looked up, the gay population is actually pretty high. Michael Sam is probably not the first gay guy in the NFL. He's just the first guy to tell everyone that he's gay heading into it. Is it the wisest thing to do? Probably not, considering that "MichaelSamisafaggot" is trending on twitter right now, I'm inclined to believe he's going to have it difficult--at least until people forget, which they will. Because people are dumb--Agent K taught me that. 

4. Money, money, money...
It's pretty good business for the NFL. Having an openly gay player is a great way to make inroads into a segment of viewers that they've never made significant headway with before. If you think they don't want the extra viewers, then you've never been a multi-billion dollar industry before.

5. Pro locker rooms are already weird.
This is coming from someone whose spent a lot of time in locker rooms...it's already intensely weird that everyone is naked in college and pro locker rooms--and everyone flirts. I don't know if pretending to be gay or being fake gay is a thing, but...it's a thing. We've seen it on TV shows before...with 'bros' as the central characters. "Gay chicken." I'll leave it at that. Locker rooms are weird places--I find it difficult to believe that an actual homosexual would make it in anyway weirder. Would a hetero-sexual male do that with every girl he saw? Not if he wanted to get a girlfriend ever...or stay out of jail.
 
6. His teammates probably aren't too worried.
Is anyone really worried about him hitting on his teammates? Has anyone seen a football player before? This guy is going to have money. His men are going to be GQ models.

7. He's going to know all the hottest girls.
Going with in the vain vein of number 5. Gay guys know all the best girls. His teammates will probably have to sign in on some kind of list to hang out with him. He can just post it on his locker. "I'll be at such and such at 10 PM tonight, Beyonce and her back up dancers will be in attendance--only accepting 10, the ladies love defensive players and beards. Must wear suit and tie."

8. A bunch of college kids supported him, grown-ups can too.
Michael Sam has been pretty open about this, and according to him--he came out last August, before the season was fully underway. It apparently didn't hurt the team, as they got all the way to the SEC Title Game before losing to the National Runner-Up Auburn Tigers--and then winning their Cotton Bowl struggle vs. the dominant defense of the Oklahoma State Cowboys, 41-31.

9. Jonathan Martin and Richie Incognito agree about this.
This particular drama cycle needs its very own post. I came back to writing the blog just after the Incognito/Martin circus arrived and then eventually packed up its tents and left town. I'll eventually write a post about this or submit an article to Yahoo Sports. But suffice it to say, if the supposed bully-ee and the bully-himself don't care about the kid being gay, then the average dude in the NFL probably won't either. (I keep saying "probably" so as to leave room for all the stupid that may happen.)


10. The NFL needs this to go well.
The NFL has had a rough year. The Hernandez murder(s). The allegations of an NFL team asking a player about his sexual orientation--a highly illegal practice...the bullying claims from Jonathan Martin and subsequent defense of Richie Incognito by his Dolphin teammates (which, one way or another is going to lead to changes in the NFL player-culture.) Essentially, the NFL can't be seen to handle this issue poorly. It's just another PR nightmare waiting in the wings.

Cat Cafes -- My Greatest Fear, Realized

Yes! Finally. The time for my personal Duality of Man crisis moment has come.

My greatest enemy and my greatest love (sorry Honey) have finally been combined into one, amorphous, terrible and yet beautiful business-related-blob.





This is a cat. He's probably annoyed about something you're doing.

                                 


                       This is a cup of coffee. It's probably delicious.

This is a small cat, sometimes known as a kitten, in a coffee cup. It's probably plotting your death.








That's right, beloved readers. There are Cat Cafe's, and they're coming to America. No word yet on the Eddie Murphy connection. The article states, "The cafes will be located in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif., and will be named KitTea and Cat Town Cafe. Both of the cat-themed restaurants are looking at a 2014 opening."

As you may know, I am deathly allergic to cats. It doesn't take me long to realize I've entered a cat infested house. The itching feeling, the watering and swelling of my eyes, the disturbance in the Force that tells me my death is near--all sure signs that someone has made the mistake of not adopting a dog.

You can probably see why the news of cat-toting cafes is disheartening for me. I already have to deal with cigarettes, constant agitators of my bi-annual struggles with bronchitis, at most cafes I regularly attend. That is to say Starbucks (pick it up entrepreneurs.) I don't know if I could handle this phenomena spreading to Orlando.

Of course, Korea is experimenting with Puppy Cafes. Which is probably worse news. I pose to you this question: How many times can a husband come home with a new puppy before he's just a single man hoarding dogs?

The Rise of the EPO

What is the deal with Engagement Photo Ops? When did this become a thing? Was it a thing before Facebook became a thing? 
 
There are probably millions of these photos out there, lost to the World, neatly filed but decoratively arranged in albums with the couple's names engraved on the cover.

Of course, they are almost certainly covered with dust and sitting in Grandma's closet in a picnic basket that hasn't been used since picnic baskets were also things. Because no one looks at an EPO collection more than one time.

It was nice, the first time I saw one. (Of course, it actually was my Grandparents album, and it was a Wedding Album with some pre-Wedding photos.)

And then, it was still relatively nice when I was in my early twenties and my friends and old high school classmates getting married was still a relatively new phenomenon. That was back when people thought Facebook was a really great way to meet girls and rekindle lost friendships rather than a convenient way to share photos with the family or lose a job with style.

And sure, even then, sans Facebook, it was nice to see that, wow, Grandma and Grandpa were kids once. Damn, they got married young. It was even interesting seeing me standing next to my Mother and Father, looking like a boss with a stupid grin on my face.

Nowadays, everyone has a cousin or girl-friend that's a photographer. Five out of every four people have gone to Best Buy and looked through their camera section thinking, "Damn, if I could only afford this one I would take the absolute shit out of some photos." 

Because, of course I would be great at it.



The thing that gets me, and this may seem horrible, Future Wife, but, I really can't think of anything I'd like to do less, in regards to getting married, than pose for an EPO. Wedding Photos? Sure. We're having a good time. We're dancing. Our friends and family are here. Let's take those photos. Someone get over here and take the absolute shit out of some photos.

But the idea of finding a photographer, (Not hard, got forty or so on my Facebook, I'll just post a status like "Hey need a photographer for something." And before I hit "enter" I'll have three personal messages and a price quote.) finding a location, and then smiling at my fiancee for however long an EPO takes to get done sounds suspiciously like torture.

I can just hear the not quite Hipster not quite Preppy photographer talking now:

Smile at her lovingly.

Now smile at her lovingly but tilt your head to the left.

Now lean against this tree, touch her stomach, and smile at her lovingly.

Too lovingly.

Whoa. Not lovingly enough? Dude, are you cheating on her?

Let the love reach your eyes.

Now stand in front of the sun. Lean on the tree. Climb the tree.

SMILE LOVINGLY AT HER FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY!

Eventually, because I'm me, I'll get frustrated. Then I'll get smarmy. Then Future Wife will get mad, and then I'll get mad. But she'll smile, because she loves me (but she's beginning to question it) and say to me, in her most supplicatory voice, "Do it for me, baby."

And then she'll smile lovingly. 

And of course I'll do the damn EPO, and the entire time I'll be thinking, if I am ever actually tortured, I'm sure it will be to the tune of "Do it for me, baby."



So now, it's a Tuesday evening and (the Collective) we see that Sally is getting married. Yey, Sally! Congratulations!

10 seconds or so after her status changes to "Engaged" (because that's the most important part of being engaged,) an EPO surfaces. As a member of Sally's 500 friend strong Facebook circle, we feel that we are wanted, if not required, to take a look. So we glance, we click through the photos leisurely, or if the album seems to go on into Eternity, then rapidly. Then we move on with our day.

Sometime later, let's say less than two years after our run in with Sally's EPO, we run into her at a bar. Or a coffee shop, grocery store, whatever floats your fantasy boat.  And the following conversation inevitably happens:

"So how have you been, David?"

"Oh, I'm doing just fine, thanks. The job isn't what it used to be and the girlfriend thinks I need a haircut, so I'm picking up this bag of M&M's to make myself feel less morose about the whole situation."

"Wow."

"Yeah. So how are you?"

"Well, my husband and I went to the Ke--"

"Oh! You got married! When?"




*Sally is a fictitious character used to make this blog more relevant and connect to you, the reader.
*David is my name because I'm the writer and I get to to put my name in prestigious places. Like the Internet.

5 Reasons You Shouldn't Care About Lil' Wayne's Thunder Arena Ticket Shenanigans

If you follow sports, there's a good chance you're following the NBA playoffs. The Spurs were the talk of the Nation with their twenty game win streak that ended in a stunning 4-2 (four in a row for the Thunder) route by the Durant and Company.

It was an amazing series to watch and there are plenty of newsworthy tidbits that popped up from the surprising series. Questions that will fuel sports analyst's debates until the 2012-2013 season. (Will Tim Duncan finally retire? Can the Spurs still hang? What will Charles Barkley do next?)

But, interestingly enough, the biggest, most talked about story (at least on Twitter) to come out of the Thunder/Spurs series had nothing to do with basketball.

It had to do with Lil' Wayne. 

Of course it did.

Reportedly, (So reportedly, in fact, that I felt the need to restate the word in italics.) Lil' Wayne was denied entrance to the Chesapeake Energy Arena for game 3 of the Western Conference Finals.

Lil' Wayne tweeted his displeasure (Oh, Twitter, the things you inspire us to say.) "Was going to go to the Thunder game tonight but was denied by the team to be in their arena. Wow. Smh. Go Spurs!"

 Now. If Lil' Wayne was actually denied to be in the Arena for any reason other than "didn't have a ticket," or "was carrying a weapon," I would sound the Call to Arms. Long live the People's rights! Especially when they rap reasonably well and not all of their lyrics suck! Yeah!

But when the reason actually is, "Doesn't have ticket," I kind of lose some steam.

So here are my 5 Reasons You Shouldn't Care About Lil' Wayne's Thunder Arena Ticket Shenanigans: 

1: The Thunder have sold out every single home playoff game this season. Every single one.  In fact, they are already sold out of season tickets for the 2012-2013 season.  Whether or not you're rich, famous and good looking doesn't really come into the debate. If you don't have a ticket, and all these other people do, and there aren't any seats left, you're not getting in. This is called Capitalism. Or even deductive reasoning.

2: Lil' Wayne wanted a front row seat. Court side. Sigh. I can possibly see Thunder Management pulling strings and getting him in a box. I can see them asking a "normal" fan to give up their seat for some kind of reimbursement.

But the people who sit front row during Conference Finals? They put large amounts of money down. Some of those people probably make more money than Lil' Wayne. Taking their seats could actually mean a lawsuit. That they themselves may be able to pursue. Because they could be lawyers. Comedy logic, Weezy, it could be true.

3: Is he even a Thunder Fan? I thought he liked sizzurp and cash money. Doesn't that mean he should be a Heat fan? I jest, I jest. He should be an early 2000's Trail Blazers fan. 

4: He made it a race thing. ["That's not the point, though," he told The Associated Press in an interview Friday night. "It's the players stepping up but of course the players aren't white. I don't want to be sitting there on behalf of you and I'm sitting next to a (person) that's like, 'I don't want this (guy) sitting next to me.' (Forget) you ... I'm in Forbes," he said, laughing.]

How? How do you even make the tickets being sold out a race thing?

In other news, Lil' Wayne goes to grocery store, but they're sold out of cookie dough ice cream, because they're freaking racists. 

5: Just to bundle this in with the race thing (italics aren't italicsy enough for that) he (in the above quote) blames the fans for not wanting him there. What? What type of indirect logic is this. I'm going to follow it through for you in a few easy steps. (I didn't say they'd be logical, but they aren't my steps.) 


FIRST: The Thunder make it to the Western Conference Finals.  

SO NOW: It's Game 3 (their first home game.)  

THEREFORE: People, i.e. fans, want to go see the game live.  

DUE TO THIS: They buy tickets to go watch the game at the arena.

BASED ON HOW MANY SEATS ARE PHYSICALLY IN THE ARENA: The tickets sell out.  

"KEVIN DURANT IS A G": Lil' Wayne decides he wants to see the game, too.  

SEE "TICKETS ARE SOLD OUT": He can't purchase a ticket. Or even, there are no tickets, for to buy.

IPSO FACTO: The fans hate Lil' Wayne. 

"Was going to go to the Thunder game tonight but was denied by the team to be in their arena. Wow. Smh. Go Spurs!" Wayne tweeted.

Read more at: http://www.nesn.com/2012/06/rapper-lil-wayne-mad-at-thunder-for-denying-him-from-entering-arena-without-ticket.html

"Was going to go to the Thunder game tonight but was denied by the team to be in their arena. Wow. Smh. Go Spurs!"

Read more at: http://www.nesn.com/2012/06/rapper-lil-wayne-mad-at-thunder-for-denying-him-from-entering-arena-without-ticket.html

"Was going to go to the Thunder game tonight but was denied by the team to be in their arena. Wow. Smh. Go Spurs!"

Read more at: http://www.nesn.com/2012/06/rapper-lil-wayne-mad-at-thunder-for-denying-him-from-entering-arena-without-ticket.html

A Conversation About Jobs

There is a morbidity that comes with taking a new job. It's not something we often think about because, hey, we just got offered a job, and we love money. But the cold, heartless reality of the majority of job offerings is that they come come as a direct result of someone else no longer having said job.

Say what you will, maybe he got promoted! Maybe she left for a better job somewhere else!

But, someone, somewhere got fired and now you have this job. Or maybe they died.

And more importantly, imaginary person who said "maybe she left for a better job somewhere else!" Do you really want to take the job that someone left for a better job? I want the better job in the first place.

In accordance with this subject I was having lunch with my colleagues (I say, pretending that I'm not an assistant who sits around and waits to see if anyone needs help all day--if I'm not proctoring, of course.)

As is the case with most lunches, we ate food. With our food came conversation, and the slight discomfort one gets when they know that they don't quite yet have gas, but it is most assuredly on the way...

So we had a conversation. It was a pretty good conversation. We talked about girls, until actual girls showed up, and then we talked about sports and students and why Chik-fil-A pissed us off or what we loved about it. (Sundays. Chicken.) The discussion finally turned to various projects and assignments we (sigh) had been giving our (siiiiigh) students. I told them some of my ideas on how to handle things and looked around to see if this would, indeed, be a good way to handle said things.

Everyone seemed impressed, as if they were all simultaneously (generously) thinking, "Hey, this guy might not be an idiot!" (But he probably is, so keep watching him.)

One of the teachers spoke up and said, "Why don't you talk to the Principal about taking his job." Emphasizing the "him" by jabbing her fork in another teacher's direction.

I immediately felt uncomfortable. Fears of gas and eating a little too much aside. That just seemed like a hurtful comment.

He (the teacher in question) looked slightly put out by this entire conversation.

She (the fork pointer) said, "He won't be with us next year, you could just take over for him!"

He (feeling forced by my look of curiosity and her fierce waving of cutlery) went on to tell me about his future Mission and how he'll be raising money to plant a new Church in Vancouver and see if it grows. He used this terminology exactly and I was only slightly bothered by the cascade of questions that rushed into my head.

You can plant a church? Do you add water or does the plumbing help? Do money trees actually exist? Is my mother, in fact, made of money? Will I ever know the meaning of GCB? (And no, I will not google it.)

It turned out he hadn't been put out by her lack of empathy towards his leaving, in fact, he was rather sure I would make a great replacement and the team of people he worked with already know and like me. How perfect.

No he was upset because he would have to find a summer job, and Canadian women and waving cutlery aside, that downright sucks.

Boring Jobs -- Does the Title go to "Test Proctor?"

I've been thinking a lot about jobs lately. I work as a tutor and test coach at a High School. It's a pretty enjoyable job--and a rewarding one. I get a chance to coach football as well, and I get a real opportunity to make a difference.

But then they make me proctor.

Being a test proctor is a lot like watching paint dry in a room full of televisions that only show baseball (and golf on Sundays.)

To proctor a test in Florida you have to have a certificate to be a teacher. So they can hold the certificate over your head if you do anything wrong.

"Oh, you thought that you would be able to look at your cell phone, crack open a book, or skim through a magazine after you do a walk through? Think again."

In a standard test, that is to say, one that lasts about an hour, it's no problem. You walk around, maybe offer some vague words of encouragement and make sure no one is cheating or taking pictures of their screens so they can sell test questions.

But in the retakes the kids get the entire day to take the test. From 7 am until 2:20 pm I am walking around in a room with maybe 10 kids in it. And I'm not allowed to do anything.

In honor of this torture, my sullen fate during the time that is owned by FCAT, I've begun a list of jobs I consider worse, more boring, or slower than this.

Feel free to add your own to my list.

1) Retail sales employee at a major company on a slow day. You're still expected to "work." So you basically walk around dusting and talking to your "friends." You get yelled at by your managers who are doing the exact same thing, but don't want to get in trouble with their bosses. Also at the average retail establishment you have more bosses that Cal Ripken Jr. has career hits.

2) Video Game Tester. I know it sounds fun, but (apparently) you mainly just end up playing the same level over and over again and looking for "bugs" in said level. Name a game you love. Now go into that game and play the same level over and over again for one hour. See if you still love that game. Even if that level is perfect, it's perfection will eventually get to you. Driving you mad.

3) Front counter at a slow hotel, or overnight shift. Yeah, you're the face of the hotel. You have to stand there and look pretty, or at least professional. Until the invention of the smart phone this was job probably seemed a little bit like the Chinese Water Torture of the Hospitality Industry. (Imagine if you didn't like reading.)

4) In that same vein of thinking, overnight shifts at grocery stores. After the third month you've done all your homework, written an unsuccessful novel and you know every damn thing about every damn celebrity. You haven't seen the sun in the past six weeks and your girlfriend left you and didn't bother to tell you. In the eyes of the World, you no longer exist.

5) Traffic cop (on an empty road.) Think about it. Traffic cop is the punishment that is handed down to the rebel cop by his stern, yet caring, Captain in every cop movie before rebel cop gets a break in his case and solves it off duty. Somehow making everything better rather than getting him fired and sued.

6) Substitute teacher once you've finished the reading material you've brought. This is why most subs bring movies along, God forbid the teacher actually has the class working when s/he is away.

7) Tech support. It's not that it's boring. In fact, I'm sure there's always something to do. But how many times can you run someone through a list of possible problems to find out that the machine isn't plugged in or that they were using the CD player as a cup holder or that the computer's built in fan wasn't keeping the room cool enough before you go just a little bit insane?

I'll come back to this later. Maybe throw a cartoon in. Just some thoughts.

Former Stars to Help Fix Major League Baseball

As some of you who follow sports may know, Magic Johnson (and Friends!) recently bought into become a partial owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Many people in sports think that this is the most important thing that baseball can do to make itself more accessible to it's slowly declining fan base. This "celebrity" or "super star" involvement has most certainly proven itself to work for teams like the Pacers (NBA) and Penguins (NHL), but it is not a "sure thing." Otis Smith of Magic fame (infamy) was an NBA player as well. And I hope I'm not alone in saying that I ha--that he should no longer be a part of the Magic Organization.

So while, indeed, Magic Johnson's (he's already a minority stockholder in the Lakers, and the fans love it) move is definitely a stroke of genius by and for the Dodgers (on par with the Rangers hiring Nolan Ryan as their Fearless Leader and the failure of the Jaguars to acquire Tebow,) it's not going to fix the core problem that the MLB is having in regards to business...

Baseball is freaking boring.

It's nearly impossible to watch an entire game of baseball without wondering why you aren't doing something else. Didn't I need to mow the lawn or something?

I'll even take you a step further, why watch an entire game of baseball (even if it is the Braves, I know you really really love the Braves) when you can turn on Sports Center in the morning and see every important play that happened in the entire game. Sure you run the risk of hearing something along the lines of "This is the 15th game in a row the Clippers have won at home on a Tuesday when Magic Johnson ate a hot dog with his left hand in Boston." But thems are just the breaks.

Assistant: Pssst. Dude. The boss wants you to tell them about the amount of sodas consumed this year in relation to last year in Los Angeles as a factor in how the Orlando Magic are playing this season as compared to last.

Stuart Scott: Well, I just don't see how that's relevant at all. In any way.

Assistant: Relevant? Dude, this is SportsCenter.

Moving on. I read an interesting article last year (it was actually written in 2000) about how much baseball is actually played during a Major League Baseball game.

It was not pretty. The most important quote I found in the article (although there are so many interesting tidbits) was this:

"Time the baseball was actually in play, including pitches, batted balls, foul balls, pickoff attempts, relays, throws to bases and anything else even Bob Costas might consider actual sporting activity (and I was being generous with the stopwatch): 12 minutes, 22 seconds."

This is baseball's core problem. It's not fun to watch. Is it fun to play? Of course. Why else would we make it easier and change the rules so you could drink alcohol while you play?

The future of sports. Only bowling could possibly be better.

But I'm not the one who has to worry about how baseball can save itself. I don't need to figure out how management needs to change, ownership needs to change or even what rules they need to change.

All I need to do is change the channel.

The Twitterverse is Buzzing about Something, Let's Write an Article About It!

Twitter, or as I like to think of it, New Media's bastard child with illiteracy, is getting out of hand. I use Twitter. I'm sure you can see that, it's over on the side thing (oh my God, follow me! Follow me!) but I use it specifically to call attention to my blog and my generally awesome sense of humor. Not because I feel like I can say anything meaningful or World changing in 140 characters or less.

However, the reality of Twitter (aside from its aforementioned existence) is that it is incredibly useful to those of us who are in the entertainment and media industries. (I say in, in my case I really mean, fitfully running around a locked house looking for an open window or a hidden key.) The majority of Twitter accounts are held by high school kids who use them as quick facebook status updates and random people trying to get that mystical Justin Bieber retweet. (If he retweets anything you say, you gain a level in real life.)

Twitter has launched quite a few careers and even spawned multiple books and TV shows, I give you "Shit my Dad says." You may remember it as the one funny preview with William Shatner a few years back on CBS. The book is actually fantastic as the majority of it's entries are longer than 140 characters and it actually tells meaningful stories from Jim Halpern's life. (So I guess he tells them.)

Look for this:

Not for this:

So why am I on this random Twitter spiel? Well, I find a lot of my funny news via twitter links and the like (I follow a lot of people that are funnier than me, and a few that just have more followers.) However, I get the majority of my news from credible news sites, i.e. Yahoo! News, MSN news, and so on and so on. (I used to do NPR, but then my iPhone software updated, and I never re-downloaded the app. Odd time for that revelation to hit? Or meaningful? I'm going with meaningful.)

So the two news stories that struck out to me today were not truly news stories. They were bullshit hidden in a news story-like article on MSN. The first was about Tebow's trade to the Jets...and what it was doing to Twitter. I'm not altogether unhappy with the move (for Tebow), but going to Twitter and and quoting three Tweets is not a news article. Reputable media outlets should not begin quoting something that inspires poor (I mean non-existent) grammar and odd little abbreviations that rarely make sense.

The second was either a complete space filler or a shameless plug for this writer's personal Twitter project (it only has [currently] 363 followers, one of whom is me) GoddamnDora. That's right. Naughty Dora the Explorer, something that I feel has taken far too long to come into existence. And while I agree with the sentiments of a cursing Dora, or a Depressed Darth Vader, I just can't get behind actual news reporting on Twitter trends. That's ridiculous.

It's like the media is turning into one big Entertainment Weekly website.

It's freakin' depressing. And I'm not featured, which is also lame.

Bookworms to Arms! Literary Criticism Gets Physical

People are finally starting to take literary pursuits seriously. It's been so easy for everyone to just judge literary criticism by its multi-colored cover.

And occasionally by it's less threatening cover as well.

But finally, after years of quiet debate in near empty classrooms populated only by angsty (Screw you, spellcheck, angsty is a word, and a correct one at that.) hipsters and creative writing majors struggling through a sleep deprived professor's sleep inducing course, literary criticism has gotten physical.

Hell yes, fellow Bookworms! That is real! The shit be on now, yo! Now we rollin'. And any other such phrases that inspire a "to arms" response! Yeah!

Here's a picture of puppies, getting ready to throw down. Cry havoc, again, and all that.

(Yes it's the same picture as before, and yes I love it that much.)

What's that article actually say for all you non link-clickers out there? Basically some nerds got into a fight over in Ann Arbor. Boom. Over what? Books. The argument was said to be over Tolkien and (or vs, it all depends on perspective, I suppose) C.S. Lewis. (Oddly enough, both were decidedly Christian thinkers and members of the Inklings, a very non-violent group.)

Apparently somewhere during a "conversation about books and authors" (quoted from this website) "The 34-year-old man was then approached by another party guest, who started speaking to him in a condescending manner." (The "34-year-old man" was the one who was attacked, by the by.)

Really? Imagine that. Someone who reads (Let's just assume he's also an aspiring writer himself.) and discusses books got condescending. Who da' thunk, a literary enthusiast thinking he was better than someone else, even a fellow wordage connoisseur. For shame.

And humor.

The Ides of March (And Substituting)

Last week I substituted for an English teacher whose class was doing Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar.

For $9.95 you can get this "Julius Ceasar" wig and also look like the great Ceasar himself, re-imagined as a lesbian.

I was so excited! This was my first chance to really get into the stuff I love about teaching English. Writing, reading, plays! Yes! The kids were going to love this!

They didn't.

Not even a little bit.

I had to pick students to read in each class. One student volunteered that she was by far the best reader in the class. Everyone else agreed. I made her Brutus, chose a Cassius and a Marcus Antony (We were in Act II) and I narrated.

Brutus, as you may have guessed, has quite a few large verses in this section of the play. And while I wouldn't say the student lied to me. I would say that she is not the best reader of a play. It was Shakespeare as read by Ben Stein.

Yeah, you thought you were getting a picture of Ben Stein or maybe an irritated eye? Balls to that.

It was horrible. And to think, this was my little social activist in the class, she was all about saving Uganda and finding Kony and blanket days, and she couldn't muster up any emotion when it came to the death of a friend, hero and tyrant.

About twenty minutes into our (incredibly boring) reading, I asked the class what had happened so far in this scene.

They all just looked back at me blankly. Finally one of them said "Marc Antony is trying to get Ceasar's body for a funeral thing."

I was impressed. I was about to ask her why that was important. Before I could open my mouth another student interrupted, "Wait. Ceasar's dead?"

Were I a dragon, this is the face I would make.

"Yes, sir. He died on the second page of the reading."

"But no one mentioned that!"

"I'm pretty sure I did."

"When?"

"When I read the line, 'they all stab Ceasar.'"

"Oh."

So I asked again. "Alright, Class. What is happening right now?"

Blank looks. It was time for a break down.

"OK. So Ceasar was kind of being a jerk. He had taken over Rome, right? He was this tyrant, he had taken the title 'Dictator for Life, yo.' He was the Ancestor of the first OG (Original Gangster for all my non-80's kids.) So Brutus, who really really loved Roman society, Rome and the Roman Republic, was convinced into a plot to murder him. This could be argued to be a great crime, but more than that it, was one of the World's greatest betrayals, as Ceasar had given Brutus nothing but chances, leniency and friendship over the years. (That link is about Brutus, he stirred up some anti-Ceasar shit before.) After they kill him, they need to immediately explain it to the Roman people, and their rivals, like Marc Antony."

"So, Marc Antony was Ceasar's friend? Why did he come back and grovel then? Shake hands?"

"Grovel, good word. And I would say, because he didn't want to die. If your friend, your best friend, was murdered and the ten dudes with knives asked you, 'hey, you cool with this?' Would you say 'no' or 'yeah, guys, totally.'?"

"Marc Antony was smart. He was humble to their faces but when they left, it was all 'Cry Havoc' and dogs and stuff. It was about to be on. As they said in the lingo of my youth."

And I was all "HAVOOOOOOOOOOC!" and then I let them loose.

"Then he gives this really great speech about friends and Romans right?"

"Well, he opens up a speech that way."

"What's the speech about?" Asked one of the students.

"Dude. You read the Marc Antony part out loud."

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry."

Roman statue facepalm.

Hand Sanitizer and a Mother's Worst Fear

I was at Disney recently, and not exactly by my own choice, but the story there gets hazy and is full of cartoons and roller coasters and there's no real reason to go into further detail. We'll begin and end the Disney segment with this: I was at Disney recently, and not exactly by my own choice.

A reality of theme parks and public places in general is their near uniform lack of cleanliness (on the germ level.) You can pay people to walk around picking up trash and wiping down glass...

Smiles? Here, sir. Anti-bacterial spray? He didn't show up for work, sir. Damnit, forget him boys, we'll do this with brooms and trash scoops alone. Once more into the breach, gentlemen.

...but in the end, every park goer, mall goer, boardwalk walker and roller coaster enthusiast, is touching every park surface, every bathroom faucet and every single one of those roller coaster line railings. Just running their hands all the way along them. All the way along.

I give you for evidence, my dear ladies and gentlemen of the Jury, Exhibit 1.

So it should be no surprise to a country full of scared mothers that those very same women who help perpetuate those germs, are terribly afraid of them, in a deep and lasting way. Germs scare mothers on more than one level.

a) They're gross. You touched this, and you probably went to the bathroom this week. And you probably didn't wash. (And mothers have this talent for saying words like "probably" so they sound more like "definitely." And they're so good at it that you actually begin to feel guilty.)

b) Germs can get their kids sick. And there's nothing a mother hates more in the entire World than anything that harms her baby. Unless of course it's the fact that she had kids in the first place, a lot of mother's seem to hate that. Under their breath, to other parents, when their kids aren't looking, or are so young to not hear (or rather, understand) the insult.

c) When kids get sick it's really inconvenient. Work has to be called in. Schoolwork has to be sent home. Lots of driving. Lots of appointments at lots of doctors. Waiting in waiting rooms, waiting in line at the grocery store for soup, waiting in line at the pharmacy, watching the same cartoon movie four times in as many hours, and when the child is finally asleep, not being able to think of anything other than that damn cartoon the rest of the evening.

At the end of my Disney day, I was sitting with my friend on a bench, waiting for our bus to come take us back to the car. We were settled in right next to a couple and their young daughter. It was about five o'clock in the afternoon and the mother and father were watching their child run around with open surprise. I could see the question floating through their heads, "What did she take to get this kind of energy and where can I get some?"

The daughter kept running over to a bench, touching it, hitting it, and sprinting back to her mother. And like clockwork, her mother would demand of her daughter, "Show me your hands." With a sullen obedience the girl would put out her hands, allowing her mother to put anti-bacterial on, before she sprinted off to explore our little corner of Disney.

After about five minutes of this the mother just had her hand sanitizer at the ready, and the daughter would sprint over with her hands out. Time savers, all.

Finally, the young girl runs over to me. She says something along the lines of "Diiiiiisneeeey" before running over to the trash can. This was the last object in our space that she hadn't explored. She hadn't touched.

But the carrot was on the string. The apple had been seen. Temptation is a cruel bitch.

Her mother looked on with a kind of distant horror, I would describe it as a pure understanding of the fact that nothing good could come of this. Her daughter continued to look at the trash, so she said, "Come here, honey. Why don't you play with your toys!"

Without even a look at her mother the little girl grabbed both sides of the trash receptacles opening, and shoved her entire head inside.

The mother's head mimicked the girl's motion, but instead of into a trash can, into her lap.

Dear God, why do I bother?

Finally the father got up, fighting a smile, and pulled his daughter's head out and hands off of the trash can.

She Has to Buy a Ticket

I'm walking out of the doors at work today next to a small group of guys talking about "the one that got away."

I heard the phrase "Great White Buffalo" being tossed around. Two of the friends were getting on the other one for his inaction in relation to a girl that had recently moved away.

Apparently she had been "the one." This kid had to be around nineteen. If only he knew.

But his response to the jests of his peers?

"Dudes, she can't just magically fly to Daytona."

He's right. Today we use airplanes. Much more comfortable than broomsticks and you get the added inconvenience of airport security.

Suck it, bros. She can't magically get here.

She has to buy a ticket.

Frosted Flakes -- Supporting Irresponsible Parenting Everywhere

Fuck this guy. Who makes his kid field grounders all morning before eating breakfast? What type of father is Kellogg's supporting here? The Nazi Sports Dads?

There's one with them playing football before breakfast too. Freakin' Frosted Flakes.

A Ho-Hum Routine and the Tire Douche

I set my alarm each night for exactly one hour before I need to be at work the next morning. This leaves me exactly enough time to not get a complete breakfast, miss most of Sports Center, and make it to work with a little less than two minutes to spare.

This system allows me to do things like, but not limited to: complain about being tired or having low energy levels all day;need a lunch because I didn't have a good breakfast; not know anything that's going on in the sporting World until someone brings it up.

Yesterday began no different than any other day. Wake up at nine for work at ten. Eat a single cookie, hold on longingly to the second one before putting it back, all the while telling myself that this was the place the battle would be won, this cookie would be the first of many victories. (I feel you should know that I am currently eating an ice cream.) Get dressed, take one last wistful look at the clock. Leave.

A ho-hum morning to the tee. I threw myself into my little Oldsmobile with typical abandon, put on my music and morosely pulled out of the parking spot.

The differentiating factor this particular morning was the UPS driver--who I imagine had, much earlier than I, gone through his own ho-hum morning routine and was now in a mental state that fell somewhere between utter anguish and happy pink butterflies. The point of that metaphor? He was taking up both lanes.

Being the astute morning driver we all know me to be, I reacted about ten seconds too late and flung myself up and over a (maybe) six inch curb. Something that should of, at worst, made my car complain the rest of the drive to work. "Dick move, Dave. Dick move." Yeah, it would have been annoying. But I would have understood.

Instead, my tire exploded like an overripe watermelon. It would be safe to say that it handled the situation poorly.

So instead of getting to work two minutes early, I got to work fifteen minutes late. And then, as my shift came to it's seemingly unreachable conclusion, I had to call my roommate to come pick me up, who, like any good mother, was at the door waiting and waving as I left the building.

Florida seemed to know exactly when I'd been forced into an outdoor situation, and immediately reacted with what I'll loosely call a "fierce heat." As I've long associated mind-numbing with cold weather and boring people and hate the word "sweltering."

As with most flat tires, I had to replace this one. In so doing I had to locate a spare, locate the jack, get the car up on said jack, get the wheel off and the spare on, the only difference between this and any normal flat-tire situation? It was like a rookie league pit crew. I had about thirty minutes to get the car into the shop and get it fixed.

This undoubtedly doesn't sound like a problem to most of you, but for me, changing a spare without a book telling me exactly how is a lot like putting LEGO's together without a guide. Sure, it'll look the same, but I always end up with fourteen extra pieces and a building that tilts to the left the ten-percent of the time it isn't tilting to the right.

Inevitably, we (my roommate was there for the whole ordeal, because he cares) beat the clock with two minutes to spare, an appearing theme in my existence, and got to the tire shop exactly twenty minutes after my appointment. But an hour and a half before close.

The guy, who I will jokingly (not really) call the Tire Douche, "spit his game" at me, as it were, for the next ten minutes. Wasting time as, at this point, I would have bought whatever the Hell he told me to. Instead, he pulled a super exaggerated "Captain Morgan" pose. He managed to get his leg all the way up to a counter that was a little higher than my waist. As if he wanted to say. "Look bro, I'm taller than you. Also, my cock is in your face."

Good times.

About an hour later, I made my glorious return to the land where Tire Douche ruled as King and finished paying for my tires, alignment and subsequent soul harvesting. He spent about twenty minutes reassuring me that I had done the right thing in getting tires. He did this despite me, after minute one (more accurately, second ten) telling him, "Yeah, they were not in good shape."

To which Tire Douche responded, "Good shape? Dude, you should play the lottery, I'm freakin' honored to be in front of you right now, man. You should have died!"

Awesome. But, he was right. There were small pieces of asphalt stuck in the glaringly obvious fibers sticking out all over the damn place. In places the tread was so destroyed that you could count the layers the road had chewed through. My tires essentially looked like they had been made of felt rather than rubber. Like someone threw out a couch and I said, "Fuck yes, I want that on my car."

Maybe I just care about the roads comfort more than you.

Internet Table

Day Twenty-Five Without the Internet:

I've eaten the Cat5e cable. It was sinewy and tasted like dried up joy. I haven't seen Epic Meal Time in two weeks. Reading online cartoons seems like a fever dream I had once...years ago.

I can no longer pay my bills without calling and leaving a message, like some relic of a bygone age. I am a technology Neanderthal. I'm using my phone as a phone--watch as the children throw rocks and me and feed on my suffering.

I tried writing--to pass the time, until I remembered that I had thrown my keyboard against a wall earlier, cracking it open like a piggy bank in a classic cartoon. I had hoped the internet would fall out through the shattered keys and broken plastic and I would gather up its fluffy goodness in my arms like so much spilled Styrofoam packing on a long since forgotten Christmas morning.

Sadly, it did not. I still have no internet.

I'm in a local Ice Cream Store, Neighbors, owned by a friend of a friend of a roommate. I'm sitting here, considering squatting long term (in a bid for future ownership,) growling at passerby as they look enviously at my table. The table with the power chord. It is mine and you cannot have it.

This seat is where the Internet is and it is now mine.

I am the uncrowned King of Internet Table. Fear me.

Bear Society