Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Mud

I just got off the phone with my mom. She was on the way home from Morristown Memorial Hospital with my sister.

She just saw this chick http://www.weirdnj.com/stories/_archives2002.asp#43
Check out the 12/6/02 posting.

This kid's version of the story is pretty much the one I've heard.....only she was once a supermodel living in one of the mansions blocks from the green. I didn't know she ever had a family. I always assumed she went nuts, mistook shoe polish (that's what the "pasty substance" is) for self-tanner, and moved out of the mansion and onto the Green (a park in the center of town) when she became too crazy to pay bills and not smear shoe polish all over her body to pose for pictures.

In high school The Mud Lady once followed a group of friends and myself around to various Morristown retail locations. I thought we lost her until she showed up at Jersey Boy Bagels. We ended up running for our lives back to the car.

I have seen her with a dark, black mustache painted on her upper lip. Can't say she's without her sense of humor!

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

The Colts

For good reason, the stature of each and every team in the NFL has been up for grabs each and every week of this NFL season. All teams are one mistake-ridden loss from being counted out. By the same token, they are one impressive win away from inclusion in Superbowl discussions.

Despite what critics would have you believe, the Colts are an elite football team second only to San Diego. Moreover, from at least one light (the one I am holding), the criticism of Tony Dungy and co. is ill-conceived and unfair. As the Colts have dropped the ball in the playoffs in previous years, when seemingly invincible during the regular season, naturally, we look for them to do the same at some point this year. Their recent three game skid provided convenient justification of this prediction.

Tony Dungy is supposed to be a defensive mastermind. Similarly to Brian Billick in Baltimore, an "offensive mastermind" with no offense to speak of (until recently this year) and a dominant defense, Dungy's floudering run defense is well-documented and even highlighted as his team's most glaring weakness, and ultimately, fatal flaw. This is seen as Dungy's failure. People cannot reconcile a "defensive" head coach with a faulty, to put it lightly, run defense.

However, in an age of salary cap and bottom feeding parity, teams are forced to cut corners somewhere. An NFL team superior on both sides of the ball is very difficult to find. Obviously, the Colts strength is found on the offensive side of the ball. Peyton Manning is a wizard. He's fundamentally flawless and as versed in the nuances of quarterbacking as anyone I have ever seen play the position. Between Dallas Clarke, Brandon Stokely, Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, Dominique Rhodes, and Joseph Addai, the Colts O is irrefutably STACKED. Their concession is made on the defensive side of the ball where personnel limitations (stemming from salary cap limitations) are designed to be overcome by their juggernaut offense.

The inability of the Colts to stop the run should surprise no one. Expecting to play the majority of their games with a lead established during their first two possessions, the Colts do not afford most teams the opportunity the run the football for very long..... and teams playing from behind throw the football. The earlier and more oppressive the lead, the more accurate this addage becomes. Dungy, who I think is a really good coach, has a defense geared for an all out attack on the pocket passing quarterbacks of the opposition who are forcibly throwing the ball substantially more frequently than they are able to run it. This is a concession Dungy willingly makes, wagering his offensive arsenal is good enough to establish the leads that justify his defensive approach. It's difficult to argue with their regular season performances.

And if the Colts win the Superbowl, people will begin to talk about the forsight of this concession isntead of about the shortcoming of their run defense. Conversely though, if the Colts exit the playoffs early, as they have done in recent years, Dungy will continue to hear the same old criticism. I, for one, don't see how you can blame a coach for building his team and game plan around the virtuosity of a quarterback like Peyton Manning. It SHOULD only be a matter of time.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Sssshhhhhhh.....Don't Tell Anyone

It could just bee the caffeine talking.......and having just come off reading the most recent Bill Simmons article but.......

I've been thinking about ending my hiatus from professional basketball and for a few reasons.....I've been thinking about embracing the Boston Celtics. Please allow me to explain in list format:

1. They're horrible. I couldn't be accused of being a fair weather fan.
2. I'm Irish, they're the Celtics. You understand.
3. I live [albeit somewhat reluctantly] in Boston.
4. When I was a kid, my favorite players were always Celtics. Larry Bird, Kevin Mchale, Robert Parrish, Reggie Lewis, Dee Brown, Joe Klein (jk), etc.
5. When I was a kid, my favorite team was the Celtics. For some reason my father was a Celtics' fan. May have had something to do with the Irish thing and the Great White Hope (Bird). It wasn't until I moved to Chicago at the beginning of eighth grade that I begun to embrace the Knicks (a strategic move on my part made to create drama/alienate myself from my peers.....who were Chicago Bulls' fans during the height of the Jordan v. Knicks era).
6. When I think about the current state of the Knicks it makes me happy I don't follow basketball.
7. I miss it a little bit. Basketball I mean.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

State of the Union?

Now, in an effort to redeem myself for admitting to having participated in an hour and half of hot yoga, I am going to do some NFL naval gazing:


Vince young has the second lowest QB rating in the NFL. When you win, people never want to talk about stats. When you lose, the first thing we do is examine stats.

Mike Vick has been in the league for 6 years and his completion percentage this year is a paltry 51%.

Art Shell is a terrible coach and it's truly amazing he was given a second chance with a head coaching job.

Chad Johnson is siiiiiick.

Terrel Owens is no longer an elite receiver and this makes me smile.

Shawn Merrimen was suspended for testing positive for steroids. Where is the public outcry? Does he have to beat Strahan's sack record in order for people to care?

Why/how is Philly playing better without McNabb than they were with?

Tom Coughlin needs to be fired because he's an idiot.

How is Frank Gore this good on two reconstructed knees? He's averaging 5.6 yards per carry this year. That's superhuman.

Fred Taylor isn't given enough credit for his body of work.

Jamal Lewis has been decidedly medicore since emerging from prison....which makes me smile.

LaDanian Tomlinson is as effective as Emmett Smith and as exciting as Barry Sanders....which also makes me smile.

If Denver's offensive line did not have a policy against speaking to the media, would the media speak to them?

Ray Lewis and Brian Billick are the two most annoying personalities in football.

What's the deal with Clinton Portis? What's the deal with the Redskins?

The game has passed Joe Gibbs by.

How come some guys are constantly hurt?

How come the rules don't apply to Michael Irvin?

Monday, December 11, 2006

Hot Yoga

As part of an ongoing effort to confront the sexist demons within.....and also for a free lunch [on Mussolini], I, with a little trepidation, agreed to join friends of ours, Stalin and Kevy, for some Hot Yoga on Saturday morning. I mean how hard could it be?


Unfortunately, doing push-ups in slow motion and contorting my body in all sorts of ghastly positions -all given seemingly benign names like "down-ward facing dog" and "warrior one"- for an hour and a half in a heated 110 degree room proved rather difficult.


I should have known I was in over my head the moment I set foot inside the studio. As women disrobed down to tight pants and tank tops took the time out of their pre-Yoga rituals to shoot Kevy and I looks of wonder, shock, and awe, the writing was on the wall. So naturally we looked to each other for comfort and reassurance, coming usually in the form of brief laughter.

"It's alright dude, lunch is gonna be free!" Kevy offered more than once.

"That's right," I thought to myself. Make it through...."How long is this dude?" I wondered aloud as I placed my shoes and socks into a cubby.

"An hour and a half," he said through a sheepish grin.

Shit. That's really long.

As we stepped into the room that would soon bear witness to unspeakable crimes against humanity, Stalin and Mussolini were rolling out our mats for us. The irony that was lost on me at the time is crystal clear at this moment. The oppressive heat eveloped me at once and entirely. As we sat on our mats and took nervous little swigs of water, the two dictators shared a laugh at our expense. There would be no lunch. Kevy and I had unwittingly been led to our DOOOOM!

I did my best to keep up. The thing about oppressive heat is....when you engage in physical activity of any kind, it becomes even more oppressive.

"Upward facing dog into downward facing dog. Warrior 1, touch the sky, swan dive, sideways standing seagull. Warrior 2, turtle, knot, downward facing dog into swan. Fly away.....FLY........FIND YOUR CORE" the teacher gently muttered. It was all background noise to me, however, as I mimed those around me, my 'core' headed towards an overpowering white light.....and the afterlife.......I felt a peaceful warmth all around me. Strangely, this meant a significant drop in temperature.

Something flickered. I blinked. It was the light. The light flickered again.... and went away. My eyes readjusted to the relative darkness of Earth. Where was I? There I was..... at a yoga class taking place in an oven, deceptively painted and decorated to resemble a yoga studio. I was standing on one foot. My right hand held my right ankle behind me. My left hand extended upwards toward the very heaven from which I had moments ago returned. My gaze did the same. Confused, I turned to those around me. Everyone was doing the same thing. Sweat dripped from every orifice and every pore of my body. I had to get out of this oven. But how?

As my left leg began to tremble, I realized I could no longer fight it. I had to sit down and drink some H2O. As I put my water bottle back onto the ground beside my yoga mat, Kevy followed suit. Our peers, those who would undoubtedly share our fate, bravely trudged on; slowly moving from one pose to another in line with the instructor's gentle cadence. They too, were soaked in toil and tragedy [sweat] only they were stronger than we.

So Kevy and I sat there, repeatedly wiping our faces with towels, and taking sips of water, intermittently reassuring the instructor that we were ok and did not need to leave the room. Eventually, we even had enough strength to participate every so often, though never for too long.

Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. The door to the other room (must have been a kitchen, right? Masquerading as the lobby of a yoga studio?) opened and breathable air rushed in. To my surprise, those around me did not rush toward the open door and possible survival. Among them, Mussolini and Stalin, sat simply gazing at the two of us, sporting ear to ear grins and flashes of hysterical laughter. As I stood up, I stumbled as a horrid head rush came over me. It was at this time the instructor commented on "the two novices" adding something about how we were not to be discouraged. I don't know, I wasn't really listening.

We had survived and it was almost lunch time.

Monday, December 04, 2006

Unintentional Battle of the Sexes (Intentionally Interesting)

Let's revisit a battle of the sexes waged this past Thursday night after an evening of a little too much drinking that spilled over into an email exchange on this lovely Monday morning. Basically, the argument boiled down to the relative vapidity of sports to reality television. The men, Kevy and I, argued the two are incomparable. The women, both WWII dictators oddly enough, Mussolini and Stalin, obviously countered this argument, claiming sports were equally mindless while encorporating similar degrees of perverse ethics.

As most relationships are riddled with requisite comprimise, both men and women alike are forced with a certain degree of regularity to watch sports and reality television. If sports and reality TV are in fact equal but opposite, at least in terms of depth, why are sports seemingly incomprehensible for women? Stalin wondered aloud recently, I assume with a thick Russian accent, whether the New England Patriots were ranked second in the latest BCS standings. A third friend fo mine, also of the female persuasion, who for the purposes of this blog I think we can refer to as the attorney for the third Reich, wondered why a few of us were talking about the Giants and Cowboys when the Patriots played yesterday (because only two teams play per day). While men can decipher the stupidity/framework of any given reality TV show within 10 minutes?

My waxing chauvenistic elicited the following response (which just so happened to be well-written, interesting, and very much correct):

"So Seamus, let me briefly respond. I agree that the premise that sports and reality tv are equal and opposite is fatally flawed, I just want to point out another obvious hole in what I think is your implied argument that men are smarter than women.

let me remind you that there is an age-old argument of nature vs. nurture - whether it is our innate human qualities or our personal experiences and upbringing that determine our physical and behavioral traits as adults. one of these traits is intelligence. so while i think that you are implying - ever so subtly, i might add - that males are more intelligent than women as evidenced by a male's dual understanding of both sports and reality tv, please keep in mind that boys are taught from an incredibly young age the 'rules of the game.' Whether it's by doting fathers or competitive peers, boys are cajoled and trained into becoming fans and players, and a knowledge of sports rules and culture is developed as they mature, whether consciously or not. it's a cultural thing. as an example - is it not assumed that you can insert a guy into any conversation and as long as he can keep up with the current sports news, he'll be ok? thus it is not your inherent ability to understand sports and your unique intelligence that unlocks the mystery of the rules. rather, it is by serious training and studying for decades that you have mastered your supreme level of understanding.

meanwhile, there is no comparable arena for women. there is nothing that is considered a universal femail pastime. even fashion and shopping don't count, as they are relished really only by the relatively good-looking and wealthy who can benefit from them. reality tv is mindless. while entertaining and, yes, even addicting, it requires no specialized knowledge. any person who lives and breathes and can understand a few pop-culture allusions can enjoy the pleasures of the real world and america's next top model. most importantly, we girls don't deny it. we know that it's stupid, and we revel in it. we count colie as our hero because she's funny and cute and does stupid things that are great to gossip over. so while we sip wine and eat appetizers, we laugh (and sometimes high-pitch scream) over the latest embarrassment that happened on mtv. but the bottom line is - we don't hold ourselves out as experts for doing so. we realize that you guys get it, too, we just wish you wouldn't be so condescending about it.

and sports aren't incomprehensible to us. if we had the time or the inclination, we could learn the rules, the stats, the players, and the business of sports. we just don't have a decade to catch up. and to be honest, we don't care to. besides, why disturb the status quo? all is right in a world where women sound clueless and men get to make fun of us for it, no?"

Touche. I agree.

I should not have made it seem like I was arguing for the intellectual superiority of men over women. I was really just trying to establish that bad tv is less venerable than closely following sports. When I rail against bad tv, ultimately I mean not to rail against women but to address what I do see as a disconnect between the intelligence of many of the women I know and their propensity and undying hunger for the worst that television has to offer.

Now......on to the important stuff....If you had to be one of the following, which would you be? And why?:

a. Pirate
c. Ninja
d. Knight