The End of Tiger's Tale

Dear Jack Nicklaus,

Your record for most Major Championships won by a human being on the PGA tour is safe.

You can go on about your business; no need to tune in every Easter or Father's Day Sunday to check the leaderboard. Go ahead and mow the yard or play with the grandkids or build another golf course. Whatever you were doing with your spare time 15 years ago... go ahead and perfect that activity.

Sincerely,

TMZ

This is where the legend that was Tiger Woods comes to a halt. I don't believe that he'll win another Major. The Tiger is without teeth.

He has blood and he bleeds. He has emotions and they un-check. He has temptations and they groove. He makes mistakes; and instead of costing him a paycheck or a trophy, they might now cost him his marriage, idyllic status worldwide and the facade of respect he has been paid for the last 15 years. He's just like you and me, even though we never thought it possible.

I feel sorry for Tiger. Not because he got caught, and not because he did whatever he did and now the world wants into his ultra-private inner sanctum. I feel sorry for him because I warned him in 1998 about how this would go down if he didn't loosen up and he didn't listen.

Until now, the mention of his name would elicit one of the following thoughts in your head:

1) Amazing

2) Greatness

3) Rich

4)Powerful

5) Tenacious

6) The G.O.AT. (greatest of all time)

7) Unbelievable

8) Winner

9) And on and on and on and on and on

There were few amongst us-even the harshest media critics-who could find a flaw with El Tigre. He had a million dollar smile and physique, a billion dollar bank account and a trillion dollar inertia for greatness in the golf and post-golf world. His yacht is bigger and better than any Ward Parkway mansion. He can beat your club champion with a range ball, a 4-iron and a Jaegermeister hangover. If he doesn't play in a tournament, the unlucky network's ratings suck worse than a Browns-Chiefs Monday Night matchup.

I wrote a column for Kansas City Golf Magazine in 1998 that warned Tiger to chill out and take some time to normalize.I asked him to stick a frog in his pocket to remind himself he was still young; and for God's sake to stop throwing clubs lest he get a reputation as a spoiled rotten brat. "Be human", I said, "vulnerability is a strength." He didn't listen to me (though more often than not, he's been just peachy not to. After all, I've spent my time as a billboard for neurosis and epic failures.)

I feel sorry for Tiger the same way I do for Todd Marinovich, Ryan Leaf, Brian Bosworth and Tony Mandarich. Way too good to be true as advertised. Sid Finch was a hoax, but we bought it until April 2nd and then felt silly for taping the pictures of him on our wall.

I will not judge him for what he's done...but rather for what he didn't do. I always felt that the armor he put up to keep the image alive was too thick. I wish he would have read my column, because it was damn good and he might have just gone and screwed up a few times and had to apologize and learn from it. He should have roomed with John Daly for a season on the road just to feel what it was like to paint or drink yourself into a corner...only to realize that people get second (and third through fiftieth) chances to change, admit failures and move on. He should have taken a year off to travel to Prague and smoke fatties. He should have crashed that car 10 years ago.

I think this will be the end of Tiger's magnificent run. He is the G.O.A.T. and I will always believe that his talent would have been suficient for him to achieve all that he had sights to achieve. But the crowds are going to be ugly, the endorsements and adorers will begin to crumble; the failures on and off the course will be so much more vivid than his past achievements (if that is even possible) that I don't see a human being-with blood to bleed-having the emotional strength to endure what he has coming to him. I'm not saying he deserves it....but you make your bed and then you lie in it. To date, it seems he's made his bed from perfectly fluffy hundred dollar bills and Green Jackets. Now, it just looks like anybody else's Sealy. (Actually, he's probably got himself a nice spot on the couch...but I digress.)

Who will be cheering for him against Phil next year? Who won't be cracking infidelity jokes on late night about him for the next three years? Who will drop their endorsement first?

I forgive him already. He bled blood. I didn't think he could. He came clean. I didn't think he would. He screwed up and around and I believe he's in the same pool as most professional athletes and movie stars on that count. He will pay his pennance with Elin and his kids and family. He will bleed more in the next six months than in the 31 years he's been here. But you know, humans deal with this kind of shit everyday and they find a way through grace and character to manage their way through it.

I hope he has some of both stashed in his trophy case.

My Chance To Hang With The Jury

Let's see here...changing diapers. Kissing your 100 year-old aunt. Getting your oil changed. Standing in line at the DMV. Attending Christmas pageants. Purchasing (and selling) coffee, raffle tickets, garbage bags, flowers, wreaths, candy and cookies on behalf of children in your family and neighborhood. Wathcing Fox and Friends in the morning with your wife. The annual turn and cough grab. Jury duty.

All these things rank just below dental instrument jabs on the popular and world accepted list of Things You Feel Morally Or Legally Obliged To Do But Would Rather Be On Fire For Three Minutes And Have A Doctor's Excuse Note to get out of it list we all carry in our pockets.

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to serve jury duty. "Serve" is an excellent word for it. One might be inclined to say "attend" or "perform", but they would be innacurate. You "attend" a baseball game and can drink beer or eat a footlong, laugh, holler and leave whenever your team begins to stink. In KC, that moment comes whenever Zach Grienke is not physically touching the ball. You could "perform" a one man improvisational comedy routine at a local establishment to the joy and applause of everyone there and earn the adoration and fame that comes with such an act...If only you still had your chops from 20 years ago.

You "serve" jury duty. You start to involve the goverment, courts and bleach-wigged barristers in things and everything is about being served. You get "served" a subpeona. You "serve" jail time for holding a glass container outside a Mazatlan discotheque at 4:30 in the a.m. and you "serve" up a $20 bill and your more-worn-than-Wetteland Yankees cap to avoid "serving" more than that 3 hours of jail time in said Mexican holding cell. You "serve" your community after an MIP by cleaning trash near the highway from Laramie to Cheyenne, Wyoming. Most of the time, you've simply been "over-served" to begin with.

At jury duty, you get the chance to "serve" or be "served", as in, "You missed Jury Duty when we asked you to be there...Here's your fine and bench warrant. Ha! You got SERVED!"

Jury duty is awesome. There are many aspects of it that people who've never been part of it will really be jealous about missing. First, there's the unbelievable people-watching. You want to see a melting pot? It takes a village to raise a jury, and folks from every single solitary walk of life roll into that holding cell...err...waiting area for this pleasurable three hour staring contest. Some people realize they might know somebody and stare around the room for the three hours, praying their neighbor or local grocery store manager is there so they can go sit with them and bitch. Others stare at the ground or the back of their eyelids. More still create new "friends" and bitch about being there for three hours. That room should be called the Bitch Room.

Boredom reigns...until the movie starts. This is my second go round at JD since moving to KC. The last time, a weird woman who memorized her life for a living recited some important facts about completing our civic duty. This time, KC's finest celebrities made this awesome infommercial that really had me hooked. George Brett was the star. He wore some sweet khakis and deck shoes (no socks...totally laid-back-ready-to-head-to-the-golf-course-George look) with an equally awesome untucked Tommy Bahama number. Local news anchor Elizabeth "Probably Pretty Salty Twenty Years Ago" Alex was his co-host and the "serious" of the two. Throw in Charles Gusewelle and weatherman Bryan "Cleveland" Busby, and you had the veritable Who's Who of people that ought to make me love this civic duty of the KC scene. It was a good move on the part of Jackson County, but my gut tells me that George makes more money shooting 78 at Wolf Creek than he did for that three hour shoot, and was none to happy to "serve" his community by doing it.

Around 11:30 (or 3.5 hours of wishing I'd brought a book or could magically melt into the floor), 70 of the roughly 300 people in the pool were asked to scoot on upstairs to the courtroom for selection and assigned a number (yours truly at number 31). The other 230 people were sent home with their $6 check and a promise not to be bothered until 2012.

The next 18 hours until I left were a blur. Both sides of the case asked questions of the "panel" to try to vet the best 14 for their purposes. The closest I've ever come to being on a "panel" before was in 1988 when I went down the stairs of the Sigma Nu house on skis and embraced the wood paneling on the other side of the room. I was only on that panel for a very brief time before retreating to become part of the floor for the rest of the evening.

The very best part of the panel vetting and jury selection comes in the form of "That Guy" who really doesn't want to be part of this jury. You know the guy...

He's the same guy that is so insolent and bold that he's been slapped by hundreds more women than he's ever dated, and he still thinks that 15 year old pick up line is going to work. He's the same guy that fights his Grandpa and insists that he was defending himself. He's that guy you want to punch in the face just to hear the rest of the panel stand up and scream, clapping wildly as they put you on their shoulders and carry you out of the courthouse (the judge and lawyers are cheering just as hard).

In our case, "That Guy" was really on his game.

Prosecuting Attorney- "Raise your hand if you're simply too bigoted and backwards to trust that Police have sworn to take an oath to tell the truth, and that the presence of a Policeman on the witness stand will not cause you to hate the defense."

That Guy: (Hand flies up faster than Usain Bolt's feet) "Oooh!! Oooh!! Meeee! Meee! I hate cops, Man, hate em."

Prosecuting Attorney: "Duly noted." (Scratches something on a notepad)

Defense Attorney: (Under his breath and with great joy) "I've gotta have this guy..."

But it gets better.

Defense Attorney: "Does anyone in the courtroom, just by looking at the defendant here, at his skin color or appearance, feel that they cannot be fair and impartial and uphold your sworn oath to find the defendant INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY? Anybody?

That Guy: (In his best Horseshack immitation) "Ooohh!!!! Ooooh!! Me, me!!!! I mean look at him, man. He looks so, well, mean and horrible and not white! Guilty! I hate that guy already!"

"That Guy" deserved 69 knuckle sandwiches.

He and I are not serving on the actual jury this week, and for that I am extremely grateful. We were both excused; me with my dignity and he having been forced to sit through the same amount of waiting as the rest of us. His dream of being tossed early for blatant idiocy was never granted by the Judge, who I presume has seen enough "That Guy's" in his day to enjoy watching them have to sweat it out even after making 69 enemies for two days.

My sincere hope is that That Guy does something stupid or gets sued about three years from now and the judge calls a special panel of the "November 69" (as the rest of us that had to put up with him have come to be known) and we get the chance to "serve" at his trial. He will be served well-done.

A Most "Nobel" Effort

I'm rarely critical of politicians. Check my record. I love them all and hate them all equally.

I despise their power. I am entranced by their worthiness or lack thereof. I am horrified by their politics. I am begging for normalcy in a vacuum designed to leak.

Somehow (maybe its my issue and not theirs) I'm drawn to talking about them. I guess in a vacuum, you need dirt. And in a bag of dirt, you need a cleansing agent or a filter. Otherwise, all you have is a bag of dirt.

Let me once again opine about the current topic of the day, which happens to involve our (seemingly) unlucky at-least-in-this-case-44Th Commander in Chief.

I don't apologize for people I've never met. I've never met our President. By the transitive property (my favorite property in mathematics aside from a little known lemma entitled "The Florence Lemma: A study of 'The Florence Lemma'...by Florence Lemma") I cannot apologize for Obama's actions, principles, legislation, ideals, hairstyles, choice in dog or massively unexpected wins in World Peace Medal competitions. Had I known, by the way, that winning the Nobel Prize for whichever selected category carried $1,400,000 clams as a "bonus" to actually hoisting the medal with Alfred's golden noggin forged into it, I can promise that I damn sure would have tried harder to bring peace to the world than I already have.

Things I've done to bring peace to the world:

-I changed a flat tire for a MAN in the parking lot of the Credit Union where I work. (Note: I didn't do this. Someone I work with did. I didn't fire him for wasting time on the job so that gets me big points.)

-I stopped a fight between my dog and the substitute Mailman she was attacking a couple of months ago. By all accounts he was just doing his job. Of course, if my dog could talk we would have the whole story and I'm sure he teased her or something devious. Either way, I stopped it and that's all that matters.

-I bargained with a would-be swindler at my local Farmer's Market over a loaf of bread she supposedly "hand-baked" and eventually got her to give it to me for free since the market was closed and she was tired of arguing with me. Don't give me that "hand-baked" crap you swindler... Everyone knows that bread grows out of the ground like pumpkins and pineapple and bacon.

Now, my credentials are pretty sweet and it would be hard for most of you to put up a resume that would rival it if we were both to enter the Nobel Peace Prize Contest officially at the committee website (http://www.gimmethepeaceprize.com/).

As it turns out, you don't even have to own a computer (much less register for the drawing) in order to win the sweepstakes.

Ponder this if you will, and bear in mind that I've asked this question in mixed company a couple of times with the expected mixed results..."Who do you think got second place behind Obama?"

Crickets covering the mouth of their young under a 50 lb. bag of flour in your basement couldn't describe the silence that question provokes. And you know why?

Because this is the first time in the recent history of the Nobel Peace Prize Sweepstakes that anybody ever really cared who won. Because it's polarizing. Because it's "news".

Who won the Super Bowl in 1997 and 1998?

-The Denver Broncos

Who leads the AFC West this year at 5-0 despite being predicted by lukewarm fans to finish 2-14?

-The Denver Broncos

Who played Mark Ratner in Fast Times at Ridgemont High?

-Brian Backer

See? You went 3 for 3 on that quiz and it still doesn't make sense. So why exactly is it that you can't even name another plausible candidate for Runner-Up at this year's Nobel Super Sweepstakes? I know you're scouring your brain for a name, so let me give you a couple that I suspect might have been close to the prize that Obama claimed by virtue of their contributions to World Peace last year...

-Me (the dog thing is pretty compelling)

-Kate Gosselin's Lawyer

-The Actress Who Played Ahmadinejad's Wife on SNL last week

Okay, we all got second.

Even Tucker Carlson was quoted as saying that this prize was the last thing BHO could have possibly wanted...the bar just got raised for him right beyond the area where NASA shot the moon with rockets...to search for water...on the moon.

Why aren't we criticizing this move? Shooting a rocket at the moon? What if we blew it up? What if the moon fired back at us?

I might dedicate the next 11 months to brokering a peace treaty between the Earth and the good people of the Moon. Not in the hopes of winning the 2010 Nobel Rock Star Prize, of course, but because I'm genetically engineered to solve problems for the most altruistic reasons. Plus, if the people of the Moon do have this water we're searching for, they're going to be way more likely to allow me to have exclusive rights to bottle and distribute it here on Earth.

Everyone wins. That's how you make peace.

Sad Day for The U.S and A.

I can't toss a picture up here per normal rules of the self-governing blog today. It was a toss up for a Google search between "Wide-Eyed School Child Watching A Presidential Speech" and "Disgusting Lack of Focus On Behalf of Normally Respectful Patriots"...neither returned the requsite emotions for the way I feel today.

I'm sad. I'm not a Liberal. I'm not a Conservative.

I'm a forty year old Conservabal Liberative.

I am a hearty fence-rider in most cases, struggling to balance myself between foolish obligation to any political or moral force that I may one day regret. I piss people off some times, appearing unwilling to choose a side and rolling around in the middle ground that is simultaneously created by and despised by polarity that we call the "Democratic Idealogy".

Conservatives spit at Liberals...Liberals spit at Conservatives. Whatever doesn't hit one side in the face falls into the middle, and I make it my politics by sifting through the mud in the middle to find some rational understanding of the human heart and brain. Most of the time, I find solace in the middle. I can rationalize and empathize with the greatest rationalizers and empathizers in history...Most notably musicians, poets, comedians and huggers (not trees, but huggy people).

That being said, it's much easier being me to simply stay away from politics and talk about anything else. Alas, today, I am just too sad.

My middle of the road mindset finds time for Bill Maher, Bill O'Reilly, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Billy Bragg, Billy Carter, Billy Graham, Bill Bradley, Bilbo Baggins and Bill Hader. My middle of the road brain cannot find time to listen to Bill "Hater"...the everyman quoted in blogs, headlines, reports and TV shows all week denouncing a speech designed to rally the kids of America to stay in School and delivered by the President of the United States.

I'm sad on two levels.

Level one:
The President wrote (or had his writers write) a speech designed, at least in theory, to inspire kids to set goals, work hard, and stay in school. He implored them to be respectful of and listen to teachers and to never give up on themselves. He asked that schools allow students to hear his message.

I don't have to tell you how schools and parents obliged.

I read it. I watched it. It was a good speech. It was the President of our country talking to my kids with the notion of leaving a lasting memory for them.

My kids did not hear it. No choice in that matter. I'll show it to them, so it's no big deal. Kinda pissed about that having to be an issue, but I'll survive.

Level Two:
This country is so self-absorbed that we have completely forgotten to wade into the spit filled middle of every battle to find common ground. Our President delivered a speech to kids and the freaking ALARM went off. I won't even say the following words to describe the public outcry that led to the banning of this speech to school kids. I want to, but I won't mention these words:

short-sighted
trigger-happy
ridiculous
wasteful
cold
internet driven-garbage

It's really sad. I won't waddle to one side of the fence to defend anybody's actions over the past week, but it's tempting.

Days like today, I hate the viral Internet. I wish that the speech would have shown up in every classroom as a matter of fact...not a prejudicial and political tug of war. I cannot imagine jerking my kid out of class for any speech delivered by any sitting President since I've been alive.


That's why this overly-saturated, Internet-fueled ignorance and fuedalism must be stopped. Please come visit my Internet Blog again soon to find out the answer to how we take it down and get our sense of national pride back without tearing each other down to do it.

(Note: Ironical statement noted.)

Has the jury reached a verdict?

I love dogs.
When I was young, I had two dogs. Patches, a black lab mix and Muffin, a total mutt in every sense of the word. They lived like king and queen in our house, surrounded by love and attention, fed like army troops at precisely three intervals per day. They escaped our capture only long enough to chase squirrels and be returned by some other, equally dog-loving neighbor.
They both died of old age, but they appear in many family pictures, stories and memories.

I (my wife) got a dog of my own (hers) shortly after first getting married. She was a mean but sweet looking little Shar Pei, and we neamed her Emma. She was gentle and sweet to us...but not so much to every other oxygen breather. She lived a good ten years and enjoyed all the comforts a broke pair of newlyweds could offer.

I now have two rescued dogs...Trotter and Bessie. Both crazy, both requiring more excersise and attention than an entire herd of cattle could possibly provide, but ostensibly loved and cared for day in and out.

I love dogs. And that is why it seems weird for me to author this blog.

Here it goes...

Dear Michael Vick:

You were cruel, inhuman and despicable. You killed dogs for a profit. And as Green Day puts it so artfully in their new album, "You are forgiven".

Get the hell out there and prove me right.

Please, sign a medium sized contract to play the slash positon, back up a pocket passer, run the wildcat and get paid for a while. Learn how to be a man from the dirt floor up. Endure the humiliation and learn of humility. Trade in your crew for your family.

Get a couple of interviews under your belt. Tell people your story. Write a book. Get a new contract with someone willing to pay you for your heartfelt honesty. Capitalize, man! You're going to need money for the next part...

Save all that money for your kids and for their kids. Teach them something everyday. Become a spokesperson for the ASPCA, PETA, or the Humane Society. You may have to ask them first, and you may have to ask more than once. You likely will need to be sincere. Learn sincerity from your new friend, humility. They rarely are not in the same room.

Condemn your past affection for gambling on the outcome of a dog fight. Adopt, feed and raise ten dogs with the watchful eye of the media scrutinizing everything, from how hard you pet them to whether their brand of dog food is substandard. Endure the minutae of scrutiny that accompanies any famous footprints.

Appear on The Dog Whisperer and learn from goofy genius Cesar Milan as he shows you the power of the pack and the trust a dog can have for you if you show trust in him. Mostly, learn how to trust in yourself. Ultimately, Mike, a low self esteem can drive a man to kick a dog, both figuratively and literally. Believe what you're going through is worth it.

Visit the shelters in the city that pays you to come play there. Do all this with happiness in your heart! Miss practice because you got too wrapped up in it. Mean it when you tell the local beat writers and pundits that you have changed...

Convince other dog fighting rings to shut down. Crusade against it like the battlers of Whale Wars! Start a non-profit that saves old fighting dogs, and believe it when you tell ESPN that you really have changed. Endure the lonely nights cruising message boards, staring at the hurtful and unrelenting world that judges you and calls bullshit. When they spit at you and call you a fake and a phony and a thug...Go hug your dog for comfort. Feel it in his beating heart, the love and adoration that accompanies true unrequited love and trust. Know then, that your heart is pure, and that any message board is unworthy of your fear and depression. You have to earn both the hatred and the love.

Retire from football, and continue your pursuit at making your second chance the thing that defines you...your present will be your legacy despite your past.

You have a short leash Mike...just enough with which to hang yourself or to build an unsteady bridge.

It's your turn to learn a new trick.

Chips off the old block.

What makes someone a good father?

Is it the number of teams you coach for your kids?
Is it the number of dance or piano recitals you attend?
Is is the number of knots you fail to tie or tents you fail to pitch perfectly at boy scout camp?

The answer:
Yes. And no.

Is it the number of hours you work to provide the financial resources to attend boy scout camp?
Is it the number of baseball or football games you miss because of work?
Is it the number of sales calls you make to afford the new piano or guitar that make the recital possible?

The answer:
No. And yes.

Being a father is a balancing act of massive proportions. I honestly believe that being a mother is easier than being a father. Before you freak out (Moms)...

Imagine a rock, for argument's sake, that was "conceived" by virtue of two rocks rubbing against each other. The mother rock, in this case, gets larger while the baby rock is in incubation. They are one rock and they carry on like this for nearly a year like best friends with worlds of familiarity until the baby rock splits off one day and (yes, all the horrible pain of childbirth included) baby rock then immediately turns around and begins latching back on to Mama rock by design (in order to keep the natural order of the universe intact.) Meanwhile, proud Papa rock sits in the waiting room hoping that baby rock will even remotely resemble his shade and strata so that his friends don't make fun of him. Forget about how he's gonna pay for this avalanche...

Papa rock, you see, is not really a big part of the deal.

Salmon, whales, tigers (who eat their kids), and turtles are all the same. Absent as fathers from the beginning. Only in Emperor Penguins do the fathers suffer more than the mothers for the birth of the baby.*

*As far as I've ever learned from Nat Geo and that dancing penguin movie.

So, Dads, we have to earn it.

One dollar, one hour, one smile, one tempestuous fight at a time. We have to introduce ourselves to our kids in a way that mothers don't. We have to prove to our powerful mates that we have the right stuff to lead this bandwagon to the promised land. We have to show our daughters and sons that we are wise enough, sturdy enough, envisioned enough and loving enough to be their father. It's a difficult task.

Nobody ever questions who their mother is...but we all know the saying, "Who's your Daddy?"

Why?

I'll tell you why. Because your Daddy is the one who you listen to, respect and follow because he told you he was your Daddy. And he didn't lie about it. How else would you know?

I think that a good father has three traits:

-Love
-Compassion
-Balls

Take that however you will...there are many definitions for those words.

On this Father's Day, I want to thank my own father for having all three, though not necessarily all of them at the same time. We are all human, as it turns out. He is a man of great conviction, love and support. He has never wavered from his path and he is learning so many lessons as he grows and ages that I can truly be proud that anyone can ask me, "Who's your Daddy?" and I know the answer without a shadow of a doubt.

I hope my boys have the same red phone hotline my old man gives me. I hope they get the same amount of rope he gave me to go find my L,C and B.

Most of all, I hope he knows I love him and wish him a great Chip Off the Old Block Day.

Worst Funeral Song...Ever.

"Kiss me. Please kiss me. Kiss me out of desire, Baby, not consolation. Oh, you know it makes me so angry, cause I know that in time...I'll only make you cry. This is our last goodbye."
-Jeff Buckley

When my friend Sully and I were youngsters with boomboxes and magwheel bikes and no facial hair, we made promises to each other that would bind us as BFF's. The first one was a promise that we would be riding shotgun in the other one's car when we took our first solo drive as 16 year olds. Check. The second was that we would be at each other's weddings. Failure on my part, but not his. I shall never forgive myself.


The last was a promise I made to Sully that if I was to attend his funeral, I would make sure that whoever he had put in charge (future wife, children, lawyer or agent) would play the song "Bad" by U2. It's a phenomenal song, full of twisting logic, strong and purposeful prose and a halleluiah finish that would bring tears to a chunk of cinderblock. He surmised (and I agreed) that this song was the tear-jerker to cap off what would certainly have been a full life for Dan Sullivan. I will keep this promise (Steph), but I heard the song the other day on my IPod and it got me thinking...





What songs would you least like to be played at his or any other funeral?





Never mind the obvious thrash metal, profanity laced songs that end up causing many funerals. And never mind the songs that elicit too much sobbing (see the first line of this blog from J. Buckley). Just think of the ten songs that, if they began blaring over the loudspeakers, would make you the most insanely uncomfortable.





I've compiled my 10 favorite, and I invite you to delve into your future to do the same. Enjoy.





Number 10: "Pump Up The Jam"- Technotronic


This is the one that really got me thinking. I cannot imagine being in a church, sadly reminiscing about the loss of my friend/co-worker/what have you and this song coming on. Picture some innocent cousin of yours bobbing his head to the beat, not realizing that he was grooving. This is a really bad song anyway, but as a processional march it is pure genius.

Number 9: "Alive"- Pearl Jam

Big Pearl Jam fans cradled this song for years as a song of rebirth, strength and an anthem against hidden oppression. Aunt Linda in the 5th row pew would hear the refrain and probably break the casket open with a hatchet..."Oooooh, oooh, oooh, ooooh, oh I'm still ALIVE". Not the funniest one in the bunch, but the best punchline for the intended purpose.

Number 8: "I Did it All For the Nookie" - Limp Bizkit

Like a chump, like a chump, like chump...I just broke the rule of thrash metal/shock songs being included in the list. But in your heart of hearts, can't you imagine a black comedy with Will Ferrell where he dies and in the last scene, his mean wife who never loved him has to endure listening to this song while he looks on from heaven? I can, and it's funny.

Number 7: "Another One Bites The Dust" Queen

Shoot, even the Priest/Rabbi/Minister would chuckle and think, "That is one funny sumbitch..."
Especially if your name Steve.

Number 6: "Yellow Submarine" - The Beatles

Provided you planned far enough in advance to purchase a light colored wood for your casket, I think your Grandchildren would get this joke. That is, if they brought their IPhones to the service and could run that sweet App that identifies music and shows you the artist (since nobody under the age of 20 will be able to identify the Beatles in this country in 25 years.) Dear Michael Jackson....sell the the music back to Paul and pay off your debt, asshole.

Number 5: "Luck Be A Lady" - Frank Sinatra

You'd have to time the music so that it popped right into the chorus for this. You might also want to put baby wipes in the hymnal holders in case someone poops their pants out of sheer irony.


Number 4: "Too Sexy" Right Said Fred

A perfect choice for the vain. I'd choose it if I could be sure that I'd be interred with no shirt. Hell, I'm already bald, so now I just need some muscles.


Number 3: "Original Land of the Lost Theme Song"- Really bad hillbilly group sort of imitating Supertramp with a banjo

If you were born between 1960 and 1977, you can really appreciate how great this song would be to play at your funeral. Mostly for the sounds of the ferocious dinasour eating you. I would love to see a perceptive 8 year old's face if this song came on and he was trying to hold a candle. Priceless.

Number 2: " U Can't Touch This" MC Hammer

Such a catchy beat, I have a hard time imagining the altar boys not hammer dancing across the aisle. For an even funnier and more inappropriate version, click here to see Peter Griffin's way of kickin it. If your name is Peter and you die and you want people to laugh at your funeral, put this on the organ player's music holder.

Numero Uno: "Wake Me Up (Before you Go Go) - Wham

Wrong on nearly every level (beat, tempo, enthusiasm, lyrics ((especially the threatening line "I'm not plannin on goin solo!")) this is the all-time champion for FUNeral songs. If you really want to see people feel awkward, schedule this song to match the pallbearer march out of the hall. I, for one, don't want to miss it when you hit that high.

Sell your Garage.

In 2003 I went to this really cool store and bought this really cool thing for someone I love a really lot. I gave it to them and they really loved it and it was really cool and soon began collecting dust in my house.

Then, in 2007, I found it again and we reminisced about how cool this thing was and even spent a couple of hours looking at it and doing cool things with it.

In 2008, after I dusted it off for the 22nd time, I started not to like this really cool thing. In fact, it became a really uncool thing. "Where the hell did I get this piece of crap?" I asked aloud to nobody. And nobody came to the rescue of this piece of crap, so it made it's way to my basement along with the other pieces of crap I never wanted throughout time. What a waste of crap those things were!

So it was, until I cleaned my piece of crap basement and found all this really cool stuff that people would love to pay me dearly for since logic dictated that, once, I loved all this cool crap and now it was time for someone else to shell out the big bucks for all this really cool, necessary crap!

The logical and cool solution: hold a really cool garage sale where cool people with big bucks could come to my cool sale and pay me big dough for all my cool stuff.

The realistic and actual outcome: hold a crappy sale in my lawn for people who already hold an advanced degree in taking my uncool crap from me for pennies on the dollar.

"How you all doin' today?" I would ask each group as they piled from the Sanford/Son-like jalopy...

"Fine. You got any silverware? Gold stuff? Anything gold?"

These folks know the value of a dollar, I surmise.

"Nope! Got a sweet lunch tray with the Fairly Odd Parents logo on it, though...and I paid about $15 for it a couple years ago...It can be yours for three bucks. Whaddya say?"

"I'll give you ten cents. Take it or leave it, dummy."

"Sold, to the nice lady who has me in a half-nelson!"

And so it went, endlessly screwed over of my least valuable possesions for seven hours.

Did I feel cheated? No. Why? Because I want this crap less than they do. And in the end, possession is 9/10ths of the law...and the law says I don't have to deal with it anymore.

Or ever pay retail for anything as long as I live.

I found some Future Letters...

May 10th, 2022.

Dear Mom,

I'm sorry that I've been so busy lately. I tried texting you the other day and your I-Top popped up and I could see that you and Dad were at the lake, putting in the dock. Tell Dad to move it a little to the south, since it looked like it was on the property line.

Your I-Top shot me another image of you making Dad a sandwich and it really made me homesick. I wish that work wasn't keeping me so busy, or I'd come to Okoboji with Jack and his wife over Memorial day to have a little quiet time. I heard they were expecting another baby, and I tried to text him, but he must have been too busy to reply. Ben stopped by the other day (well, he pic phoned me at breakfast, and with my new HD Pic phone, it felt like he was in my kitchen.) It's funny how much we look alike, now that we're grown .We both have your eyes and Dad's big jowels, though I admit that we have dimples that I never could explain. He's been really busy with Grad school and needed to vent a little. Getting a degree in Environmental Protectionism was his choice...who would have known that it would end up taking longer than getting your MD. I miss Law school when I hear him talk about the next big ice shelf redemption project he's working on. I hope they're successful or we'll all be living coastal like the Nevadans.

Maybe I can come to the lake this summer and bring the girl I've been telling you about. She's really sweet and I think you'll like her. She plays guitar and piano. Need I say more?

Well, you know me, I never get all mushy, but Happy Mother's day. I really miss you and I wish you could make me a grilled cheese sandwich and go for a bike ride like the old times. Maybe soon.

-Sam

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Mom-

Hi. School is rough. Three more semesters to go and I'll be done, thank goodness. Saving the planet is hard work, and its only getting tougher. Did you see on the news that the last piece of Florida went under the other day? That was a cool state a few years ago. Oh well, nothing lasts forever. Maybe I should have been an attorney like Sam? Nahh, I never could argue for hours just to win a discussion like he could. I had virtual breakfast with him the other day...it was nice. Technology sure makes it easier to be apart. Not sure that was ever the intention, but it's definitely the outcome. I have like nine girls calling me right now, and I'm doing my best to date them all. Can't focus on a relationship right now, so I hope you know I'm kidding.. :)

How's Dad? Did he get the dock in? His old back should be hiring that job out, but I know he's too cheap, so I'm sure you had to help. Tell him I am planning to come up next week after finals. I'm going to drive and bring my golf clubs. Is it true that you beat him the other day when you played nine holes? Wow, not working for the last 13 years has really sharpened your game.

Well, I miss you and I won't get all mushy like I usually do. You're the best Mom ever and remember: Have a great day.

Ben

Man, I like Facebook. There. I said it.

FACEBOOK.

What does the combination of words even mean?

There is sometimes a FACE, but absolutely no sighting of a BOOK within a thousand miles. The FACE is voluntary, contrived, and very often a group shot that catches you in just the right light.

The worst is (admittedly) when you can see the arm of the FACE taking the picture because there is nobody around you to take your picture when you think you look cool so you can post it on FACEBOOK. So you take it yourself and try to crop your arm out of the shot and make it look like someone just happened to catch you solo, laughing enormously at something funny at sunset on your back porch with fall foliage bursting in the background and the sky is perfectly blue. Not staged at all. Oh, and you brushed your teeth before the "arm" took the picture. Maybe that's just me.

Why is the world so quickly falling in love with and then becoming crack-embroiled in the workings of a free website designed to expand social interaction? I'll tell you why...because it's like going back in a time machine and having a beer with your friends without having to also find them a ride home/pay the tab/explain why you hit on their girlfriend/laugh at their receeding hairlines/actually go to your reunions/express how you really feel/deal with your past sins/see how it all turned out for your enemies/root for the saved ones/see who is dead/see who got married despite your belief they never would/check out their weird looking offspring/show off your non-weird, perfectly awesome looking offspring/boast of your accomplishments/pretend you love hip-hop/discuss politics without having to debate in person/and end your chat sessions with a "gotta run!" rather than sneaking out the back door of the party kind of hangout.

(As much as I'd like to admit that that was a run on sentence for those of you that monitor that kind of thing, I will tell you now that it wasn't even close to being a run on sentence and that this sentence is a run on sentence if there ever was a run on sentence in the history of run on sentences.)

I have friends that rode motorcycles through graveyards aimlessly while flipping through porno mags and drinking Nighttrain who now regularly post things like, "Me and Tyler are going to Elmo on Ice at 3:00!!! Can't wait!" What I wouldn't give for a time machine to go back to '85 and show that guy his status in 2009.

FACEBOOK. HEROIN. SLOT MACHINES. ROOTING FOR THE CUBS. WATCHING DANCING WITH THE STARS. EATING A GALLON OF ICE CREAM. What do these things all have in common?

Nothing. The rest are just things you do when you're bored and have low self esteem. Facebook is the most serious addiction problem facing our nation today*. In fact*, a recent study showed that 97 of 100 polled Americans replied that they update their "Status" on Facebook every time they urinate...

*Not really fact. Repeat, completely made-up gibberish. Kind of like Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Maybe the best way to accentuate my point would be to take you on a little tour of my personal Facebook page to shed some light on the seriousness of the problem

Perhaps the most troubling thing to jump up on my home page is the bartering from Mafia Wars. What is it you ask? I don't know. Someone from East Lansing just asked someone from Georgia to send them a Five of Diamonds and then offered to reciprocate with a rare painting from Michaelangelo in order to boost their energy.

I am completely lost and don't play Mafia Wars...but every one of my 312 (jealous?) friends does, and somehow I think I'm missing out on some free cash or real crack or a shot at being the Dom. (Which would suck, because I need all that stuff)

Which of the Four Beatles are you Most Like?

My friend Sharon from Valencia is most like John. Good to know in case we ever meet in person.

Which cities have you ever lived in? I saw one the other day that said (not making this up*) 1.)Casper, WY 2.) Mills, WY 3.) Alcova, WY 4.) Caspar, WY 5.) Bangkok, Thailand in a tent for four painful months and then hurried back to Mills after a severe caning.

*Fabricated. And not intended to poke fun at Casper, I love Casper.

I look at my Facebook page through my mobile phone a couple times a day, just to make sure people are:

-Awake!

-Having coffee!

-Playing with the kids!

-Loving this coffee!

-Can't believe it's Monday!

-Ready for Friday!!!!!!

-Need some more Java!!

-Eating some lunch at a restaurant!

-Is. (This one gets me every time...so existential. I've done it. Chris Keefe (dramatic pause) is.)

-Ready to go home!!

-Eating a snack!!

-Hating this job, so I need some COFFEE!

-Driving an automobile and eating a snack and posting my status as to such!

-Having beers! (insert wine, cocktails, drinks, etc. Nobody ever seems to say: "Myron Elkenstock is: blowing up a fatty with strangers!" or, "Kelly Junkolowski is: hallucinating and stabbing homeless people!!" or Leroy Keller is: not going to to take it anymore, fellow Postal Workers!")

-Ready for bed! :(

-Cannot sleep...:(

-Awake and mainlining REDBULL!!

But I love this stuff. It helps me understand how normal I am to care about it and to hope that other people care about me.

My greatest thrill is to post something like, "Chris is: having a difficult time understanding the contents of his briefcase!!?? WTF?? " and having 35 people say they "Like This!" or comment about the time they found a dead squirrel in their briefcase and had to explain it away to the authorities. It makes me feel real and normal and connected.

Thanks, Facebook creator, for giving me a class reunion every 11 minutes.

Grizzly Mom

Is there any more indelible bond in the world than that of a woman and her child? Is it possible for any more powerful a love to exist inside a human heart than the love that a mother has for her child? I could argue that I love my own children as much, or that my Dad loves me as much, but I’m pretty sure I’d lose the argument if I sat down with a group of mothers and tried my case.

Mothers are different. Even in the animal kingdom do mothers stand out. A snarling Grizzly bear you see on the Discovery Channel ferociously slapping something around or making a meal out of it generally makes me say, “Something made that guy mad…look at him!”

Then the narrator will chime in with something like, “Phil and his fellow campers should have known better than to get too close to the cubs of a mother Grizzly bear, and they paid dearly for their ignorance, as she feasts on them like kabobs at a Sunday picnic.” The father grizzly bear is probably sleeping in a tree or scratching his butt on an old stump about three miles away while momma bear wipes her face clean with Phil’s tent. Nothing against Dads (mine or myself)...we just more than likely have a game to watch or some home improvement project to ruin.

My Mom is different than all other Moms…because she is mine. I make no claim to her being better, smarter, wiser, more protective or anything else than your Mom, but she is by virtue of the fact she’s my Mom. Anyone who makes the claim that their Mom is the best is right.

It’s an argue-free zone.

If you believe you have the best Mom, you’re right. Tomorrow is April 20th and it’s her birthday. I can hardly believe that in August, when I turn 39, I will be the same age as my Mom... but she never lies and assures me that it’s true.

My Mom (and I share her with my brothers, but still, for this purpose she’s mine) taught me more about life than every textbook rolled up into one. She fought dragons for me when I was surrounded by them, rode in on a white horse and snatched from certain doom thirty or forty times and she loved me fully even when I made monstrous mistakes. Now this might sound a lot like your Mom…but it’s not. It’s mine.

Some people fight addiction, money troubles, relationship battles or physical woes as they grow older. Many Moms fight the battle of loneliness that my Mom fights. She has three boys, physically and mentally engineered to grow old and start a life without her…and we did. Two of us live kind of close, and one of us lives farther away. We rarely go home to see her, call almost as infrequently, and always kind of scratch our heads when we feel bad for being “absent” or “busy”, because we are busy and it causes us to be absent, and just what does she want from us? To drop everything, quit our jobs, get divorced and move back into the basement??!!!

Nope. Just a phone call. Just an email. Just an occasional drop-in for no reason. That’s all.

Alas, life is weird and difficult and hectic and fast paced and doesn’t slow down unless you tell it to. So, Mom, please know that on this day, I am going to concentrate on you the way I know you spend each of your days, thinking about, praying for and loving your boys.

You already know that we are sorry for being distant. You already know that we have kids and wives and jobs and responsibilities…you were here in our shoes once. We don’t need to explain it to you. We get it, and we recognize that a mother Grizzly bear would run twenty miles to catch up with her stray cub and swat Phil and his evil camping buddies into the next campground, even if the little cub hadn’t roared out to her or scratched a “hello” into a tree for her in months. She listens for him, instinctively know when he needs help, and would gladly go defend her boy, cuddle and clean him up and then hunt for and deliver him a hot meal. Then off he’d go again, wandering into the woods to become a man…

Thank you for being my Grizzly bear, Laney Keefe. Have a great birthday, know that we love you second most to how much you love us. Consider this, however far from an aged Aspen you may be, my “hello in the tree bark".

Corks, Dogs and Goats: Turning 40 in Napa

Local grape stompers call the Silverado Trail, a beautiful winding two-lane that juts up the Napa Valley, "the road less traveled" in order to entice you toward it. I think they do that to keep you off I-29, the road they travel to get to and from work and home. Either way, when we spilled onto it from the Oak Knoll cut across, we felt like we'd found the secret passage into wine heaven...

You only turn 40 once in your life, after that, you just turn 39 until you look 60. Then, you just turn and hope people don't notice. Turning 40 was cause enough for our friend Liz to ask four more of us to join her and her husband Courtney on an adventure into Napa. I jumped at the chance mostly because I've been promising my wife an anniversary trip (15) since our anniversary (last September), but also because I needed some culture in my life. I've never really been a big "try new stuff" kind of guy, so the prospect of dropping everything and drifting along the coastal grapevines in search of newness sounded refreshing for the old psyche...

I figured Napa would be like Jackson Hole or Vail, where the locals tolerate you long enough for you to pay for your lodging, then begin to ignore you unless you're holding a Benjamin to pay for your muffin and coffee (and to give you the $9 in change.) I expected the wineries to be crowded, crammed with dorks like me who asked stupid questions and can only pretend to understand the answers. I expected the wine to kind of bore me, and that the grapes wouldn't fit their way into my memory as they are lifeless fruit with little to offer aside from hanging there. I expected repetition from the winemakers and tour guides...that each would be French and ask us hicks from Missourah exactly when we'd be leaving town, so that they could mark their calendars for the big "We have our town back party".

Luckily, I was dead wrong on every account.

Our pilot on arrival day was Albert, who at the ripe age of 44 was the senior member of the group. He spoke in a knowing and Patriarchal tone that earned him the nickname "Daddy" for the rest of the trip. As Daddy pointed the minivan north, he and Courtney commanded we see the ocean near Half Moon Bay. Good choice, it turns out, as we wouldn't otherwise have seen it aside from the Alcatraz view-stop on the north side of the Golden Gate. We hiked down a 50 foot cliff to dip our toes and feel coastal, and it was just blustery enough to fill our noses with a chill and turn our toes blue in the lapping surf. We had a nice lunch and then headed to Napa...I was feeling California and looking Minnesota.

Traffic? None. It was a Thursday afternoon and we were terribly fortunate to move freely up the 101 with good music and the wind blaring simultaneously. We checked in to the Marriot Resort and Spa in Napa, which I recommend for their hot tub, location right off 29, and reasonable price. They also have a free wine "tasting" from 5:30 to 6:30 every night in which the lobby begins to resemble the stock market trading floor until the last bottle is uncorked. They serve free Starbucks each morning from 6:30-7:30 as well, and near as I can tell, gave away about 6 cups of coffee the entire time we were there. People like to take it easy in Napa.

Wineries open at 10 and close at 5 in the Valley. You see, these people don't just work there...they sometimes live there and always entertain during the day, which oftentimes means that they enjoy the fruits of their labor alongside the guests. Try drinking wine all day and starting your work day at 8:00...

We muddled over our nearly 600 choices of where to go and scoured recommendations from friends (big thanks to all that gave us tips). The biggest lesson I learned in Napa: Nothing anyone tells you means anything. No tips were 100% guranteed to be great. Everyone had a story and an opinion. Timing was critical to your enjoyment of a venue. Every person we met had been somewhere other than where we had been. In a three day trip, there is simply too much to choose from to even plan, so we chose to drift until we hit the spot that looked right. We never made a bad choice except to listen to the concierge on Thursday night, who sent us to eat at Celadon, a pricey and plain restaraunt that was just a little too full of itself. Good calamari, rough on the pocket book. We ordered a $35 dollar bottle of Canyon Force Caberbet and without knowing it, got served a bottle of Wild Horse Cheval. When the bill came and we saw a slight price difference, ($35 vs. $105...) I felt like a tourist. Luckily, they took responsibility for the error (force, horse...it's all the same) and that's where the bad stuff ended for the trip.

Friday was Liz's birthday and we got our first taste of the country. Taking the Silverado north, we first went into Stag's Leap, a big and beautiful building that had just opened when we walked in. They gave us some wine and the tip to go see Pine Ridge and Casa Nuestra, which is exactly what we did.

Our sommelier at Stag's Leap gave us the most in depth training course of the week. Eric taught us about "Bud Break" (the initial flowering of the grape) and that we were in town to witness the first of it. He also taught us about the goats wandering the vineyard, hired specifically to ensure organic eradication of the Blue Green Sharpshooter Aphids that destroy the vines. He also made all three of the redheads in our group dizzy. He was a good looking dude, I guess, but they all called him "Cute Eric" to his face. It was 11:00 and they were already buzzing. Rookies.

Casa Nuestra was our next stop and it was fantastic. 2500 cases of wine a year...no distribution. Buy it there or order it online. The first two stops made you feel small, with enormous tanks and vaulted ceilings...Casa Nuestra made you feel like you'd walked into someone's cabin. Technically, it was much smaller that a cabin, but more quaint. Grateful Dead posters and Elvis memorabilia covered the walls, along with an award plaque for "Napa's Most Dog Friendly Winery"... which turns out to be a monumental achievement as dog's are revered here the way cows are in India. One fat black lab had a collar with the ominous warning "NO FOOD" written in marker across it. He followed us the whole hour and a half we spent there, hoping I'd slip up and give him some scooby snacks.

I give Casa five stars for the hospitality, great wine and no self-absorptive bullshit attitude. We all bought wine from them, which is exactly why the little wineries have to put really good and genuine people at the forefront. Stephanie Trotter was our host, and she let us drink from the barrel with a big extractor that looked like a turkey baster...she was the only one who encouraged us to take our glass from the tasting room to the tour. Awesome. We did not have an appointment anywhere we went, and even though they generally like to know you are coming for staffing purposes, nobody turned us away. Napa people are extremely accommodating.

We scooted up to Dutch Henry winery next, enjoyed a taste and the company of three Airedales and two cats as our boorish English wine guide talked about the fact he only missed pub crawls and all day drinking from his days across the pond. The girls were getting tipsy now, so made our way into Oakville by cutting across Rutherford to hit Taylor's Automatic Refresher. Taylor's looks a lot like someone built a Sonic fifty years ago, then abandoned it until that morning. We were warned to get there before noon, and luckily did, just in time to spend $30 on two of the best burgers money can buy. Go to Taylor's Automatic Refresher when you go to Napa.

Moving north again, we wandered Calistoga and had a beer with the locals, window shopped and soaked in the afternoon sun, then retreated back down the Silverado to squeeze in one last bottle before the big birthday dinner. Liz wanted to have a drink on the balcony of Auberge de Soleil for the view, which was dizzying and terrific. We were totally out of place and most of cars in the parking lot have an MSRP equalling my mortgage, but it was worth it.

Birthday dinner was awesome at Don Giovanni's, where dogs and cats roamed the restaurant as well. We partied at the hotel afterward and ended up meeting some of the most interesting people on the trip in the hot tub each night. There really are no inhibitions after good wine and when you know you'll never see someone again, so I can't fault the girl from Duluth who told us that she "only wished I had the body for porn, since I think getting paid to get laid is a great idea." More power to you, uncensored girl from Duluth.

We started slow Saturday, hitting a bit of a wall from the 1:00 am PACIFIC shut down the night before. The best advice I can offer in this department is to pace yourself, eat any free bread they offer, have a glass of water for every taste of wine and eat meals. Then my friend, you are golden. Also, try a little hair of the grape that bit you, which is exactly what we did at PlumpJack, the Starbucks of wineries. The host at PlumpJack poured me a Cabernbet and said, "This is best served with white fish and Jack Johnson" who happened to be crooning "you better hope you're not alone" at that very instant. During our taste of their Merlot, he quipped that it was oaky, had some vanilla in it, and was really good alongside Dave Matthews. Right, right and right. PlumpJack was cool, restarted Daddy's motor, and fell on the Oakville cross road. We made our way over to 29 to hit the Oakville market with the notion of finding a hidden place to picnic on our last day in Napa. Candie and Liz ran the crowded aisles scooping up mustard, bread, cheeses and wine for the eventual feast. Outside the market, the traffic on 29 was getting heavy and ominous, and as we headed to the van, Courtney mentioned a sign that the store owner posted warning of a young Blackbird nest being guarded by the proud father of the babies. "He will attack your hair" the sign cautioned, so naturally, I coaxed Candie into seeing if this was true. This picture proves that Napa grocery store owners know what the hell they are talking about. Don't worry, she survived.

Our final winery was the most memorable by far. We departed from 29, and into an area I'm not sure we were even supposed to go. There were no other cars, a curvaceous and dangerous road up and into the mountainside. Our van strained at the pitch, and I wondered if we were nuts to drive that far out of the way for a winery we hadn't been told to see except by one person. We found the Robert Keenan vineyard at the dead end of a one lane road. The air was calm and the A-frame house that stored the wine was muted by two foot concrete walls, offering a 15 degree temp change when we stepped inside. We were met by a diminutive woman too hoarse to give us a more than a wave inside where she asked the same question as everyone else..."Do you have an appointment?" We didn't and she could have said sorry, goodbye. She was going to close in an hour (3:00) but graciously poured us a six flight wine tasting for free and cleaned up to leave as we sipped. We asked her if we could stay behind after she closed up and have our picnic and she told us to keep our wine glasses and simply leave them by the side door whenever we finished.

Folks, this was once in a lifetime. We sat in the dying california sun and ate and drank like retirees. We laughed, took pictures, and were finally coaxed by Daddy to give ourselves a hiking tour of the vineyard. This place is set on the mountainside, and the terrain is ridiculously steep and lush. I won't ever forget those two hours on the hills of the Robert Keenan Winery. Please go there and buy his wine.

The next twelve hours were spent in winding down mode, though we ended the night hot with Beer can Chicken and another late run. Zero traffic driving back to San Jose Sunday morning and back to reality.

I may never see Napa again, but I want to. But like your first kiss, you never really get that moment back. It would never be quite the same, so maybe I'll simply cross it off my list and find the next place to culture me up. Cheers to five great travel mates, to the hills of the Napa Valley, to the locals who loved us for a weekend and their dogs, and Happy Anniversary, Kari. You get to pick our 20th adventure in 4 years...

The Lotto Winning Cyst

Self Fulfilling Prophecy.

You (better) know what it means. In case you've forgotten, then let me give you a taste.

Some dude from Washington state drops out of college, convinced he's smarter than the people he's in school with. Hell, he's convinced he's smarter than the faculty. Cocky? No. Determined? Oh yeah. He co-founds a major company and works really hard every day to make his pre-determined self-evaluation a reality. He listens to his confidantes, trusts only those he deems worthy of his vision, and ignores critics that tell him the world is not interested in his version of it. Bill Gates.

Actually, no. That person was Skyler Clark, a skateboarder from Yakima who still lives in his car. But he is one happy son of a bitch. He gets up in the morning with a smile on his face and does what he believes he was born to do. He hurts no one, loves and respects himself, and makes the world better. So, one might argue, does Bill Gates, but I just dropped his name to make you say, "I knew he was talking about Gates." Honestly, they are interchangeable because they both cling to the basic tenet of life that if one finds inner belief in one's self...one is capable of peace, joy, and anything they choose to do. (I made that tenet up, but it sounds both surfer-budhhist, and cool, so roll with it.)

A self fulfilling prophecy is generally construed or used contextually as a negative. It's the easy cop out to a parent saying, "I told you so," to a child that falls off his bike while not wearing a helmet and suffers a fat bruise. The kid had been told something, thought about it, worried about it, made a decision to test it out and VOILA! It came to life, just like Mom told him it would. That prophecy has no spine with a conscious choice to forgo the helmet and see...and in this instance, it's the negative outcome of the desired effect that only has a chance of surfacing.

I would much rather focus on the positive side of a SFP. Consider the wonderful movie, Rudy, starring 5 foot nothing inch Samwise Gamgee himself, Sean Astin. The perfect stature for this role, hard-chinned and diminutive, Astin does justice to the story of Rudy Rutiger, a kid who gets to play football for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish simply because he thinks he can. Is he talented enough? Not by a mile. Does he have the heart? The film wants you to say yes to that question, but the answer is no. Does he convince others to believe in him deeply enough to make his dream real? Nope. That's not it.

Take a big pot of luck (good and bad), timing, desire, belief, heart, stick-to-it-ive-ness, hard work and steam for years over an open fire...and you may get jack squat. It might work out for you. It might not. Add self-actualization and you have a recipe for success.

Rudy got to play for the Irish because he thought, in his brain, that he was going to. He made every decision in his life centered on that belief. He did not work nearly as hard at convincing others to believe him as he did funnel his energy toward maintaining his own central and inner belief. Corny? Yes. But other people saw it as a steam train they could not stop. It was going to happen because he believed it, and never gave anyone a reason to think it wasn't a FACT.

Think about the picture above here with the herds of blue angry faces and one yellow smiler. I choose to see this as our world, yours and mine. You pick which person you are in the picture. And I'm not saying, put on a happy face, take your meds and be off to face the day. I see that yellow dude as the most centered and self-preserved of the group. That guy chooses to enjoy being wherever he is, sees it as opportunity or part of the deal you must deal with. He's in the same economic and world-shaking shitstorm we all wake up to each morning, but it doesn't faze him. He can only control what he can control. He loves being where and who he is because it it where and who he is. He is a walking (or rolling as he lacks feet) SFP. His T-shirt does not say "Choose your attitude", a trite saying that reeks a little of "Just deal with it". Nor does it say "This too shall pass", which sounds too much like an exit strategy for someone without a plan. No, this guy is happy to be. Existential smiley face.

I struggle with control issues. I can't always control my own brain. The brain is extremely powerful, and largely unleashed in most humans. If you need some serious and terrific proof, then click here. When the brain starts down a path, it's difficult to take it off that path, for better or worse. It's the basis for hypochondriacism...I have a lump on my neck. It looks and feels like an ingrown hair. It's obvioulsy from shaving without shaving gel. I should get rid of it. It will go away. It's not gone yet...Is is an ingrown hair? Google neck cancer. One of the 12,083,098,942 articles found in .005 seconds postulates that it might be cancer.

I knew it. It's cancer. Cancer? But it looks like an ingrown hair!

And so it goes until you go to the skin doctor and he removes the ingrown hair and you and your stupid brain take you lighter-by-a-fifty-dollar-co-pay wallet to the store to buy some Barbasol.

What if, instead of Nega-Googling every scary thing in our lives, we simply believed they were positives with challenges that would turn out, not just fine, but really awesome? This neck thingy? Oh that? It's my chance to be a millionaire. Because I have this thing, I'm going to win the lottery or discover gold in my backyard, or forcibly find a cure for cancer. Any or all of these things can be true...but only if you select them as your destiny and then joyfully convince the future to fall in line for you. At the very least, you'll have fun while you're at it.

And no, peeps, it's just a stupid ingrown hair that I need to leave alone. And it's also just a deep recession, and it's just a (not really) brave new world out there we all need to cope with by choosing our outcome RIGHT NOW.

As Captain Jean Luc Picard would say..."Make it so."

Spring Training at the Blog

Spring is literally around the corner, good friends. I just had lunch with him at Lew's, just around the corner from my house. We had a coupla sandwiches (big roast beef and au jus fan, Spring) and a cold beer and talked about what he's been up to since the last time we talked, almost 14 months ago. To be honest, he looked really good. He actually shaved and put on this snazzy dress shirt to go with his faded jeans. It was a really, really nice lunch. I had to pay because he's a season and the Patriot Act prevents him from acquiring a bank account on the count he doesn't have a social security number. At least that was his excuse this year.

You'll notice some wholesale changes to the blog as we progress into Spring. The layout is different, and the title has changed. I chose the word Sarcastik! after looking for a suitable blog title for a long time. Sarcastic was too obvious, kind of like getting a weekly magazine called, Magazine. Sarcastique is cute and clever, but it's also French, and I vehemently oppose anything French on the count of their widespread and unethical treatment of bicycles. I'm pretty sure there is another blog out there called "Sarcastik", but they don't have the proprietary and all important exclamation point. Why misspell Sarcastik! you ask? It's a meld of two words, "sarcasm" and "fantastik" (no, not the adjective, the cleaning product). I was going to call the blog Fantarcasm! but it sounds too much like a disease of the thorax.

I have a Facebook page with a similar name that houses a more group-like effort to destroy my humor and credibility, but the two are very different. In this version, you only get me. Feel free to spout off in the comment section below each entry (and I love and appreciate the feedback) but that's it...Here there are no officers, personal vendettas or jokes of the day. If you're not into 100% CK One, better venture off to some other idiot's plot of internet land and set up your lawnchair.

Just as I write that line, it occurs to me that internet domain navigation and acquisition is exactly like the post civil war Westward expansion of the US. People head out looking for something in the great unknown, throw their flag down in the ground and stake claim. They set the rules for their group (web page) and allow visitors to spend money as they pass through in the hopes of finding a peaceful existence and a place to hang their hat. Coincidentally, the Gold Rush of Silicon Valley happened eerily near the real money grab of the same name from 1849. Weird. Now, much like the internet, we seek land and domain space inside a much more crowded landscape, and pay rent to the original owner (blogspot). Weird indeed.

Pictured above is my boy, Alex Gordon, of the Kansas City Royals. A clean cut hard hitting lefty cut from the same die as George Brett; he even plays third base. He gets the innagural accompanying picture to signify the meat of my blog. I solidly and boldly predict that Gordo will break out in this his third year and put up some All Star caliber numbers. 26 HR's, .297 BA and a trip to the midsummer classic. With him as my beacon and inspiration, I'm going to get better too. I'm going to post more content and with a true direction. Everything in this blog going forward will be better, funnier, more frequent and ultimately, Sarcastik! as hell. Here goes nothing! (also my salary for writing this or anything else) See! That was sarcastik!

I was right

Just a quick PostScript to that last entry...I nailed it.

A-Rod did the right thing, in my book. Hell, I even got some of his verbiage right. "I goofed up big time" is almost a direct quote.

A lot of people want to chase this guy and ostracize him, angered by cheaters, etc. I'll reitterate that people are flawed and will always make mistakes. Test him every week and let him play ball. As for the record books...I agree with pundits that call for a wing at Cooperstown entitled, "The Steroid Era".

Turned on the television today and saw that Alex Rodriguez pumped some steriods into his body back in 2003, the same year he won the MVP as a member of the Texas Rangers. Saw that the press was having a field day with the water cooler topics that were sure to fly around sports bars and airwaves for the next 3 months.

I saw that Barry Bonds was beginning the next phase of his trial or inquest as to the allegations that he doped while playing in the MLB.

Then I saw that there were new allegations of DNA evidence recovered from needles belonging to Roger Clemens' trainer that proved that the Rocket got shot up with more than a little B-12 whilst a Yankee.

Flipped the page and noticed that Aquaman himself was being dropped from the Wheaties box after pictures "surfaced" with him wearing lambchops and smoking dope from a 3 footer. He got banned for 3 months from swimming and will likely not hear the end of this until he retires.

Lance Armstrong accused of doping. Back page of last year's news.

I'm sitting here staring at the biographies of some of the most prolific athletes of the last ten years...hell, the most prolific athletes in their respective sports ever, and they all have something dreadfully wrong with them in common. They are all human.

Humans cheat. On their taxes, wives, husbands, at stop signs, when they get too much change from a lazy cashier, and in sports. Humans make mistakes. They believe people when they tell them that their actions won't have consequences. They listen to people that give bad advice, and ignore detractors that offer the opposing sentiment. Human beings are flawed, and can be downright devious. But most of the time, making a mistake only requires an apology for people to rightly feel empathy and let them off the hook.

Phelps did the right thing. He said he was sorry, young, eager to have fun, and negligent. He is forgiven in my book. Lots of people continue to throw stones at him, and there will be more fallout than he deserves, even if this was the only time he ever smoked weed (it wasn't, and we all know it). But he did what nobody else in this blog has done (yet) and he manned up to his actions. Now, the irrefutable proof of holding a bong in a really clear picture will force you to "tell the truth" and admit mistakes. So I suppose that if there were picture out there with Barry injecting Roger in the hip with a day-glo colored substance that we could universally ID as 'roids, we'd have gotten a quick apology from them, too. Unfortunately in this case, we live in America, and we have a constitution that protects you from having to admit you made a mistake in your life until a team of three hundred lawyers get paid 20 million dollars to sniff out irrefutable proof that it was true. Damn that freedom thing.

Sadly, I wish certain things were exempt from that protection. I can't name a single person that thinks that Bonds, Clemens, Armstrong, Sosa, Palmiero, Phelps, or A-Rod are perfect. Each of them has most likely done something in their professional or personal life that they are not proud of or that they wish they could take back. But since admitting freely their mistakes and laying themselves before the mercy of the court of public opinion would entail such a brutal beating from the very fans they worked so hard to gain adoration from, they listen to their lawyers. They go in to hiding. They let the chips fall where they may. They basically hope it will go away and someone else will make a bigger mistake that will overshadow their own (see: Phelps' sigh of relief after A-Rod's allegations made the headlines).

I would love, just once, for an athlete to take this course after it comes up...

Call a press conference and gather your friends and family there. Look into the camera and occasionally back at your F and F, and say, "I goofed that up, big time. I made a mistake, and I went with peer pressure and I did the wrong thing. I volunteer for mandatory testing so that it won't happen again. I failed you."

Then, and only then, let the chips fall.

I think I'd stand up and clap if A-Rod did that this week. I'll bet you his salary that I'll see a lot more of his attorney than of him.

Postscript:
"A-Roid" and "Alex Roidriguez" have been Trademarked by me, years ago. The fee for using either nickname in conversation, print or on the air will result in me sending you a bill for $10,000 American. You can talk to my attorney if you need proof.

TalkPick of the Week

Which came first, the Chicken McNugget or the Egg McMuffin?
Blatant thievery, that question; stolen directly from Little Jackie and her mega hit (as Wiki would say: citations needed. ) "The World Should Revolve Around Me".

Well, it doesn't.

The line she or some song(?)writer composed is definitely worthy of some discussion, though. It raises a philosophical and moral question that has been plaguing six year-olds for decades. It's a derivation of a riddle that is older than my favorite Ham Jam t-shirt depicting a pig's head being squeezed from the tap of a beer keg (1988), and older still than my brother's Mumpy (disgusting yellow security blanket which was sewn circa 1973 by a woman named Severance).

Its a McSong version of the age old question, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" (Wiki says its Egg that evolved, in a landslide citations needed ). People have bantered on about the subject for Eons, and the revolving time-warp it puts your logical brain into is a classic dinner topic for farmers, The Duggars and most any family that owns the Little Jackie album (according to Wiki, there are seven such families You really need to find some citations, smartass. ).

Time honored traditions like a dinner topic are a lost art in today's world.

In my house alone it is possible, and not unlikely, for there to be dinner-time interference from 4 televisions, 3 Ipods, a computer, a Wii, a PS2, a Gameboy, two dogs and actual food chewing to get in the way of a family conversation. I am proud to say that we turn almost all electronic devices off during family meals unless the four of us agree that the episode of Drake and Josh that happens to be on is funny enough to warrant leaving the volume up in the family room loud enough for us to get the gist of what's actually happening on the screen. In these instances, we generally migrate one by one in toward the TV, salad bowls balanced on our heads and dinner rolls under our arms. We admit defeat to being TV slaves with barely a whimper as we crowd the couch.

Well not anymore America. My wife of 15 years has recently and proudly invented TalkPicks (Patent Pending, All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2009 anything you say will be held against you in a court of law...Citations needed), and the craze is coming to a disjointed dinner table near you.

TalkPicks is a play on words. Say is fast or without the aid of front teeth and it sounds like an already invented and patented word. Say it slow, and you have yourself a gold mine...and a really cool idea.

Every Sunday night becomes someone else's turn to pick the TalkPick. The first week she introduced it, I glared at her and tried to feign interest while listening to Drake argue with Josh about who would go and...never mind. She told us that, from now on, we would have a TalkPick every Sunday, and spend the rest of the week becoming fluent in that paticular subject for until it became retired on midnight of the Saturday hence (that's a fancy Olde English way for tossing it forward seven days, old school, yo).

Knowing that diving immediately into "Moon Landing Conspiracy Theory" would go directly over the heads of some of the members of our (Sam and Ben) family, she wisely chose Spongebob Squarepants as the innaugural TalkPick. And the ensuing conversation was absolutely glorious.

We talked as a family for 45 minutes. I was so engrossed, I forgot to eat my broccoli (citations propbably needed). We talked about our favorite characters, episodes, sayings and conspiracy theories. We talked about animation, the time it takes to make one episode (six months to a year), the reason the show enjoyed longevity and even how plausible it was that Spongebob would ever need to clean a restaurant floor using a bucket of water and mop when said restaurant happens to be resting at the bottom of the ocean floor. It was truly glorious.

The next week, we selected World Records as our TalkPick at Sunday dinner. There was some huffing and puffing at first because it seemed dull compared to Mr. Squarepants and company, but my eldest son rescued the day with his Herculean effort to right the ship. He came home from school on Monday afternoon having absconded (checked out from the library) the 2008 Guinness Book of World Records. It was a field day. Did you know that the record for most pushups by a 38 year old man is 56 in one day (held by yours truly (citations needed)) )?? Did you?

My point, however difficult to see, is that we now have a bonafide tradition in my house involving feeling, conversation and words as opposed to Megabytes, HTML and Wikipedia citations.

Because of this beautiful and soon-to-be-permanent tradition in our house, I can now explain to my boys how life used to be at the dinner table without sending a single text message.

BRB. ROTFLMAO.

The Thief And His Pushups

I have two boys.
Sam. Eleven. Gregarious, thoughtful (I'm boasting) and fun loving.
Ben. Six. Sensitive. Wide-eyed and a little too cautious.

This is about Ben, who just left my embrace and headed upstairs to place the pen he stole in a safe place so we can take it back to his piano teacher next week...

Ben broke his leg when he was three. Somewhere in the back of his three year old heart, he grew scared. He jumped off one step when other kids were jumping off three or four. He walked when others ran, sat when they sprinted. He's burned off some of that fear and put himself in harm's way a couple of times since then, but usually because he's not looking where he's going.

He has these huge blue eyes and a totally honest heart, so you can't imagine for a minute that he would become the Keefe thief. But he did, clear as a blue bell today at his piano lesson. I wasn't there, but I could see it in those eyes the second he walked into the house. He looked like he stole the car, ran over the dog, went out with friends and got drunk, tagged the neighbor lady's garage door with green spray paint, and then passed out in the bushes in the front of a cop's lawn. But he is six and I just watched him leave for piano an hour earlier, so I put that anxiety on hold for 12 years from now.

One of the jobs a little brother has is to be amazed at things. You have this big brother that does stuff and you can't be too amazed because you share a room with this guy, and you can't just be dropping your jaw every time he coughs or defeats Bowser on a Wii game. But all the same, keeping your cool isn't easy and sometimes your big bro does stuff and you just want to faint because it seems so cool. But the closer we get to 7, the less we decide to be impressed with big bro and the more we'd like to show him up just a little.

I made a New Year's resolution to complete a minimum of 40 pushups every day this year until 40 seems wimpy and I'm not sore (not yet) and then move it to 50 and so on until I transform magically into a 5' 9" version of Michael Phelps with smaller teeth and fewer cranial hair follicles. I shared this with the boys and they went bananas. They practically cleaned their room to make a place to do pushups to outshine the other. Sam has good core and leg strength (I rationalized after his 3rd pushup left his arms shaking like a hummingbird trying to pose for a class photo). Ben, however, just lit it up. He could probably do 100 pushups if he didn't constantly lose his train of thought and decide to go have a snack.

Sam needed the rationalization not to feel to bad for being outshined Soundgarden style by Ben. He appreciated my praise of his core strength and tried to blow it off. Little bro finally had the upper hand, though, and was not letting him off the hook. He dropped and gave me twenty for no reason and then shot a supermodel-catwalk-over-the-shoulder glare at Sam as if to say, "I know you counted."

And I want to be impressed with both my kids for their achievements, honesty, hairlines etc., so it's really hard not to want to give Ben a high five at this point, which I wisely choose not to do in order to save some emotional scarring for the 11 year old. (Ed. Note: I can hear my father, father in law, brothers, grandfather and high school gym coach now: "Oh man, the pussification of American kids...") Maybe.

Bottom line, Ben is staring at me and wanting this reassurance, so I give him a quick wink and smile and we move on to less competitive activities like going to bed. That wink sticks with you as a boy, and he wears it like an honor badge for two straight days, falling on his hands and throwing down 10 pushups between bites at dinner. Anything to catch that wink and smile again.

Well, I'm glad I gave him that wink now. It occurs to me that needing your Dad's approval and support makes it harder for you to let him down. Ben had the complete opposite look on his face when he came home from piano tonight. Kari and Sam walked in chatty and moved in different directions and left me staring at big blue-eyed Ben, half crying and broken. I was clueless at the time what might have gotten him to that state of mind, but I could sense the body language in the threesome that someone needed to tell me something. He was holding a pen. It was silver and had a ball point tip on one side, and on the other side it came equipped with a laser pointer and a light blue flashlight. This is a an extremely rare find for a first grader; such a marvelous and multi-purpose writing/pointer-of-things-on-the-wall/dog-teasing instrument rolled into one.
He'd stolen it from his piano teacher's apartment, subsequently been questioned as to the origins of such an awesome instrument, and copped to the theft in the car. Mom and Bro told him it was wrong, but they left him alone with his tears and sobbing apologies because they knew it was me he was really afraid of disappointing.

He didn't. He admitted it, told me he was sorry and agreed to return it and apologize.

I couldn't be more proud if he broke the world record for pushups.