Tomorrow's the kick-off of the college football season for Penn State. I'm looking forward to it but, admittedly, with a very different sense of anticipation than in year's past. I want the team to win so badly. I don't care that it's a meaningless game against Ohio University. I just want to win to stick it to the NCAA.
Yes, Jerry Sandusky did terrible things. You know what, though? Penn State students, athletes, faculty, alumni, and fans shouldn't be punished for those things. But, that's what the NCAA is intent on doing. That, and making themselves look good.
The NCAA is a complete and utter joke. If you don't believe me, take a few minutes out of your day to read about the University of North Carolina's African and Afro American Studies program. The program, which just happened to serve a preponderance of student-athletes at the Chapel Hill campus, conducted fradulent classes from 2007 - 2011. UNC's own study showed that there were 54 no-show classes. Students were given grades for fake classes. Athletes were steered to these programs by academic counselors assigned to the athletic department. Why? To keep students eligible for athletic competition.
Wouldn't you think the NCAA should care about this? Remember Mark Emmert's grandstading statement at the podium when he announced the sanctions against Penn State? In case you've forgotten, here is an excerpt from his comments:
"Our goal is not to be just punitive but to make sure the university establishes an athletic culture and daily mindset in which football will never again be placed ahead of educating, nurturing and protecting young people. More than 100 years ago, the NCAA was created to assure that sports are fully integrated into our colleges and universities, and that the athletic programs wholly embrace the values of higher education.
Our constitution and bylaws make it perfectly clear that the association exists not simply to promote fair play on the field but to insist that athletic programs provide positive moral models for our students, enhance the integrity of higher education and promote the values of civility, honesty and responsibility.
The sanctions we are imposing are based upon these most fundamental principles of the NCAA.
One of the grave dangers stemming from our love of sports is that the sports themselves can become too big to fail, indeed, too big to even challenge. The result can be an erosion of academic values that are replaced by the value of hero worship and winning at all costs.
All involved in intercollegiate athletics must be watchful that programs and individuals do not overwhelm the values of higher education."
Strong words, aren't they? Unfortunately, Dr. Emmert clearly didn't really mean what he was saying. If he did, the NCAA wouldn't have told UNC today that it wasn't subject to punishment because no official NCAA rules were broken. You read that right -- since there's apparently no written rule that says running a completely fraudulent academic program is not allowed, then UNC can't be punished. So much for caring about academics.
Do you understand now why so many of the Penn State faithful are angry with the NCAA? Mark Emmert and the NCAA's Executive Committee members have shown themselves to be inconsistent, capricious, and arbitrary in their actions. They're all tools.
Stewart Mandel of Sports Illustrated summed things up perfectly this afternoon with his tweet in reaction to the UNC - NCAA news. I'm going to end with that:
"Long story short on NCAA's "conclusion." UNC, unlike Penn St, didn't make the evening news."
The latest issue of The New Yorker arrived yesterday. I'm already four issues behind so, rather than starting to read this latest issue, I just glanced at the table of contents to see what I had to look forward to when I finally get caught up with my reading. Imagine my surprise when I saw that Sasha Frere-Jones, The New Yorker's music critic, actually had a piece on One Direction.
I like a wide variety of music and will give almost anything a try. But, Sasha Frere-Jones and I usually don't agree. He reminds me of Michael Sragow, the film critic for the Baltimore Sun (at least, he was their film critic back when I used to read the Sun). Frere-Jones and Sragow are the types of critics who seem to make it a point to not like anything that has been -- or could be -- accepted by the masses. Occasionally, though, they'll send a curve ball your way. For example, Frere-Jones likes Arcade Fire and even has had positive things to write about Neil Diamond. That's right, Neil Diamond. You can laugh if you want, but try not to sing along with Shilo, Cracklin' Rosie, or I Am .. I Said. You can't do it. Neither can Sasha or I.
Anyway, back to Sasha and his One Direction article. As I started to read it, I told myself to not get too excited since One Direction really didn't seem like it could be Sasha's thing. But, if there's anything that could bring together a 45-year old balding father of three who lives in the plain vanilla suburbs of Howard County and a 45-year old New York City hipster who went to Brown, perhaps it was One Direction.
Nope. I'm sorry to say that Sasha is very clearly not a One Direction fan. If there was any doubt about how he really feels, that ends about halfway through the article. After making a couple of statements that are somewhat positive, Sasha decides it's time to sum up One Direction's sound and style. Here's his take: "What One Direction really sounds like, though, is a bunch of girls." Ouch.
Oh, well. Sasha and I still have Earl Sweatshirt.
I'm a notoriously soft talker. I figure that, if I can hear myself, I'm speaking loudly enough for everyone else to hear me. I know that doesn't make sense. But, since when has making sense been important to me? My problem with soft talking is so bad that I even go so far as to get mad when people ask me to speak up so that they can understand what I'm saying. If they want to hear me, they should pay closer attention, I tell myself. Silly, I know. But, that's me.
Today, I got stuck in a conversation with a loud talker. I was in my office, meeting with a guy I'd never met before. He came in, introduced himself, sat down, and our conversation started. Immediately, I knew I was in trouble. This guy was practically shouting. I started to wonder what the people sitting around me would think. Thankfully, we had to get another person on the phone so I was able to close my door.
While closing the door may have helped those on the outside, it just made things worse for me. In my office, when you close the door, you get no air circulation. So, I was stuck. I was trapped for an hour with a guy just 3 feet away from me, talking as loudly as Jim Cramer on "Mad Money." And, I was starting to sweat.
As I sat there listening, I tried to send all sorts of non-verbal cues to my guest. I pushed my chair away from my desk. I leaned back as far as the chair would go, cupping my hands behind my head. I swiveled to the side. It was no use. Whenever I moved away from him, he just leaned closer towards me.
I looked to see if this guy had a wedding ring on his finger. He did. "Good Lord," I thought. "Is he this loud at home?" If he is, I don't know how his wife stands it.
The conversation continued for the full hour. Every once in a while, I forced myself to carry on the conversation, just so I could give my own ears a break. But, it was only temporary. Soon enough, he'd pick right back up again. It got so loud that I started to feel like I'd done something wrong and he was yelling at me. Finally, it ended. We shook hands and said our good-bye's. Peace at last.
I'm typing this in the silence of our family room. The dogs are outside. Kim's upstairs. Jay's doing day one homework. The only thing I can hear is the soft hum of the clothes dryer off in the distance. It sounds beautiful.
Today was a big day for several members of the family. First, Hannah got to go back to Penn State. While I think she enjoyed the summer at home with us, she's been ready to go back to school since approximately May 15th. Second, Nick finally got to get his own Penn State experience of to its official start. He's been waiting for this moment for so long that it's hard to believe it's actually here. Finally, with those two departures, Kim and I are one step closer to being empty nesters.
When we got home, I noticed an immediate advantage to having only three people in the house. As I took my flip-flops off, I saw that there was a completely empty shelf in the garage storage unit where we all store our shoes. When we first put the shelves there, we had three kids with small feet. Everybody's shoes fit nicely on the shelves. As the boys' feet grew larger and they started to accumulate all sorts of sneakers, boots, sandals, and cleats, things changed. Shoes would overflow from the shelves, inching ever closer to my car. Every few weeks, I'd come in from work and whine that I was tripping over loose shoes whenever I got out of my car. It never worked. The shoes stayed right where they were.
Now that Nick and Hannah are off to school, I won't need to worry about tripping when I get out of my car -- at least not until winter break, that is. I guess I should be happy. But, as I put my flip-flops up on the shelf, I wasn't happy. I missed Nick's big sneakers. I missed Hannah's sandals. Actually, I missed them.
As I walked in the door, Jay was there to greet me. I gave him a hug and told him how glad I was to see him in our otherwise empty house. "Don't worry. You've got me for three more years," he told me.
He knew exactly what to say to me. I'm thinking I may need to take him shoe shopping tomorrow. There's just a little too much empty space on the garage shelves.
When I first read Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" quote, my first response was sheer amazement. Could anyone alive today really be so stupid? One day later, I'm still asking myself the same question.
What's most amazing to me is that the question that the pundits keep asking is whether or not Representative Akin should continue his campaign for the U.S. Senate. Really? That's the question? I think we should be asking if he's qualified for any job at all.
Think about it. Imagine you're a hiring manager. I don't care where you work. It could be a bank, the local gas station, a car dealership, or even a Dairy Queen franchise, for God's sake. Let's say you need to hire someone. You've scheduled an interview with a candidate. The candidate comes in to talk with you. In the middle of the discussion, the candidate blurts out "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down."
Now ask yourself something. How much longer would that interview last? Ten seconds? Five seconds? Even if you kept up the charade and let the interview continue, there's no way in hell you're going to hire that person. You know you wouldn't.
So, there you have it. There's absolutely no job that Todd Akin is qualified to hold. None. He's just not smart enough.
Back in 1988, I spent the summer in Washington, DC. I had two jobs. By day, I was a vastly underpaid intern in a law firm. By night, I was working my dream job in the prep kitchen at Slade's in Ballston. At the very end of the summer, I quit those two jobs so that Kim and I could spend a couple days in Ocean City, MD, before I went back to school for my senior year.
Those three days in Ocean City were the first real vacation of my life. Growing up with nine people in the family, our travel pretty much consisted of the annual trip to Lewis Run for the Piscitelli Family Reunion. That was it. While those trips were always fun, they weren't really a "vacation." So, I was really looking forward to that late summer trip to the beach.
Unfortunately, what I remember most about the trip is two things. First, the beach and I really didn't get along too well. I just couldn't deal with all that sand. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep it off of me. Second, Ocean City was trashy. Trashy people, trashy streets, trashy bars and restaurants -- it was pretty much trashy everything.
Having lived full time in Maryland since 1989, you would think that I'd have made it back to Ocean City at least once since that initial trip. After all, going "down the ocean" for summer weekends is a Maryland tradition. But, I'd been able to avoid going back to Ocean City for 24 years. That streak was finally broken last week when I had to attend a work function there for three days.
I can tell you that not much has changed in 24 years. To give you a sense On my first night there, we took a couple clients out for dinner. We had reservations at one of the nicer places in Ocean City. The service was slow. The food was bad. So, we had to rely on people watching.
The highlight of that activity was the family of four that came in for dinner at about 9PM. The father was dressed in a pair of relatively nice shorts and a nice polo shirt. The teenage son was impressively clean cut and dressed quite a bit like his father. The teenage daughter was also quite tastefully dressed. In fact, unlike most of the teenage girls I saw in Ocean City, she wasn't trying to call any attention to herself. That task was left to the mother.
The mother was about 40 years old, quite trim (with one exception -- more on that later), and had a full head of blond hair. She was wearing a skirt that fell below her butt cheeks by about one inch. That one inch, of course, was black lace. Above the skirt, she was wearing a black leather vest. That's it -- just a vest, held together by two or three buttons.
Have you ever seen a woman wearing just a vest? What about a particularly buxom woman wearing just a vest? Take a moment to imagine what it looks like. Got it? That's right -- it doesn't leave a lot to the imagination.
The thing about the scene that got me was that the two kids were so conservatively dressed. As I watched them at their table eating dinner, I couldn't help wondering what they were thinking, sitting there with their mother. Did she dress like that all the time? Or, was it Ocean City that brought out the trashiness in her? I'm going with the latter.
I spent the past two days at a conference. As at most business conferences, there was an exhibit hall where dozens of vendors set up display tables. For hours on end, vendors stood (or sat) at those tables, saying "hello" to everyone who passed by, hoping to strike up conversations with prospective customers. If you've ever been to one of these events, you know the drill.
When I go to these things, I always marvel at the tchotchkes that vendors use to lure people to their tables. Vendor tables are overflowing with cheap giveaways. Walk down aisle one and you see pencils, yo-yo's, beer coozies, and mouse pads. Turn down the next aisle and you'll find lens cleaners, luggage tags, pens, rulers, and potato chip bag clips. If you're really lucky, you might find something really special like a super-grippy plastic jar opener. Mostly though, it's just cheap plastic items, all garishly colored and labeled with vendor names. No matter, though -- it's all free!
Seeing all those giveaways always reminds me of opening up the junk drawer in my mother's kitchen when I was growing up in Elmira. Whenever I pulled that drawer open, I always wondered two things: where did she get this stuff and why hasn't she thrown it away already? I don't get home much any more but, whenever I do, I always check that drawer. Rather unsurprisingly, it's still filled with the same stuff that was there 30 years ago.
Back to the conferece. Basically, everything that the vendors give away at these things is complete trash. But, try telling that to the conference attendees. They stroll through the hall, bags in hand (that's right, bags), flitting from one table to the next. Put them in costumes and you'd mistake them for trick-or-treaters on Halloween. They don't care what's sitting on those tables. All they know is that it's free and they want it.
At this particular conference, I literally saw people walking out with three and four full shopping bags. Some of the attendees even brought their kids in late in the day, handed bags to them, and sent them off to grab as much loot as they could. As I sat there watching this craziness, I wondered to myself what they were going to do with all this crap when they finally got it home. Like trick-or-treaters, would they spill it out on the family room floor, organize it into piles, and plan how they were going to enjoy it all? Or, did they get home, lug the bags out of their car, ask themselves what the hell they were thinking, and promptly toss it all in the trash?
My heart hopes that it was the latter. Sadly, my head tells me I'm probably wrong about that. I love America.
I just asked Hannah to turn up the volume on the TV. Why? Because "High School Musical 2" is on Disney Channel and I don't want to miss a line of dialogue.
The High School Musical movies have got everything. Wholesome teens. Catchy songs. Jazz hands. Drama. Young love. Heartbreak. Young love, reunited. Quite frankly, the only thing they're missing is Tom Daley, that little diving heartthrob we met during the Olympics. How awesome would it have been if he'd been cast as Troy's little brother? He could have shown up during the pool party scene at the end of movie 2, right when Miley Cyrus randomly enters the film. Then, he could have done an inward 2 and 1/2 off the diving rock. I'm pretty sure that, if he'd been in the movie, he'd have won the StarDazzle award instead of Ryan.
Anyway, I think I've seen movies 1 and 2 a dozen times each. They never get old. Unfortunately, movie number 3 really wasn't quite up to the standards of the other two. But, that's OK.
By the way, "Bet On It" may actually be a better song than "One Thing." Nah. It's awfully close, though.
While the kids might say otherwise, I think I'm a relatively permissive parent. I've tried to give the kids their freedom. I've tried not to make too many arbitrary rules. And, when I've felt I needed to dole out punishment, I've tried to be fair.
One of the rules that I enforced all these years is that the kids weren't allowed to watch any R-rated film in the house until they were 17. Tonight, after standing firm for so many years, I relented. What a mistake.
Hannah, Jay, and I went up to the Redbox at Royal Farms to pick out a movie. The selection wasn't that great. After going through the entire roster twice, they finally said that the choice was mine. I settled on The Grey. I didn't know much about The Grey, other than it had Liam Neeson and a bunch of wolves. Liam Neeson seemed like a safe choice. I mean, how can you go wrong with a movie starring the guy who played Qui-Gon Jinn?
What I didn't know was that The Grey is rated R. By the time I realized that, I'd already made my selection. Standing there looking up at my youngest son (yes, I said "looking up" since he's taller than me now) and too lazy to start over from square one, I decided to go ahead with my purchase.
Now that we're 30 minutes into the movie, I guess I'm not that permissive after all. The reality is that I'm just very uncomfortable watching an R-rated movie with my kids. I really don't like sitting here watching a movie where the characters curse for no good reason and people's limbs get bitten off indiscriminately. It the cursing that gets me the most. It makes me feel like I'm failing to set a good example.
So, I guess that I'm a prude. I get it. But, do me a favor. Watch The Grey. Then watch Balto. You tell me which one is better.
When you're addicted to the Olympics like I am, you have to watch a lot of ads for the new shows that NBC is hoping you'll tune in to see this fall. I'm not going to watch any of them. That doesn't mean I can't have an opinion about them, though.
Here's everything you need to know about these shows. Yes, that "everything" is based on nothing more than the couple of 30-second ads I've seen for each of them. Is that really a problem?
- Animal Practice. It's a workplace comedy set in a veterinarian's office. Wow, great concept. This show seems to have everything. Zany co-workers with bad dance moves? Check. Cute animals? Check. A randy lead actor? Check. Humor? Based on the ads, unfortunately no. Wouldn't you think that would be the most important thing to include?
- Go On. Matthew Perry is back -- again. Only this time, he's cranky. Not sold yet? Well, he's got a radio show. And, he's in grief counseling. Even better, it's group grief counseling. What's that? You still don't want to watch?
- Guys With Kids. I'm not going to say anything about this one. It just looks way too stupid. It doesn't even deserve a comment from me.
- Revolution. OK, I think I've seen this one before. It's Falling Skies, only without aliens. Wait, it's Lost, only they're not on an island. Hold on, I think it's The Walking Dead, except there are no zombies. Whatever. All I know for sure is that there's no power but everyone still has clean hair and clean clothes. Seems pretty realistic to me.
- Stars Earn Stripes. This is the only series that I'm actually tempted to watch. Why? Because Nick Lachey is in it! And Picabo Street! And Todd Palin! And Superman! Well, it's Dean Cain, actually, but that's close enough. Can you imagine what would happen if one of these "celebrities" actually died while in the midst of one of their missions? You'd watch if you knew that was going to happen, right? What do you say, NBC?
- The New Normal. The sidekick from National Treasure is in this one. You know his name, right? What's that? You don't? Me, neither. I'm so disinterested in him that I don't even want to Google him. Good luck carrying this series, buddy.
Do you remember the halcyon days when the USA used to sweep the gold medals in the men's 100 meters, 200 meters, and 400 meters on the track at the Summer Olympics? I do. Now, we can't even get a runner into the finals of the men's 400 meters. What's up with that?
Thankfully, the Olympics now has women's beach volleyball. If there was ever a sport that the USA should dominate, shouldn't it be women's beach volleyball? NBC apparently thinks so. They're obsessed with this sport, showing it in prime time each evening that America's sweethearts, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh-Jennings, have a match. Thanks to NBC, I'm now obsessed with it, too.
Tonight, I sat here on the edge of my seat (figuratively, of course, as I was in the recliner with my feet up), anxiously watching to see if Kerri and Misty could pull out a semifinal victory over the Chinese. The match had everything: annoying yells from the Chinese whenever they won a point, a come-from-behind first set victory for our heroines, crazy limbo-like efforts from Kerri to win a crucial second set point, and tiny bikinis. That's right. It was warm enough that all four women were wearing their ridiculously skimpy bikinis instead of their full body suits.
At the end of the match, justice was served and Misty and Kerri emerged triumphant. Even better, it set up an all-American final for the gold medal. Happy days are here again.
Watching the Olympics on tape delay means putting up with a lot of commercials. I've resigned myself to that. I get that NBC needs to try and recoup the money it spent on broadcast rights. But, did they really have to agree to show paid political advertisements for the Obama and Romney campaigns?
During the Olympics, all Americans should be uniting behind our athletes as they battle for the number one spot in the medal standings against their competitors from our primary rival and creditor -- China. It's our civic duty. Instead, we have to see Barack and Mitt taking turns pointing out our differences and driving wedges between us.
Shouldn't they know better? I realize that there are 30-35 million of us watching the Olympics each night. That's a lot of eyeballs. It had to be very tempting for the two campaigns to take the opportunity to buy ad time. Couldn't they have given us a break, though? I, for one, would like one.
As I was getting dressed this morning, I realized that my vacation tan is already fading. What a disappointment.
I love tanning. Back in middle and high school, I would start to work on my tan during spring break. While all the more fortunate kids in Elmira headed down to Myrtle Beach or Hilton Head for the week, I just headed to our backyard. As long as there was any sun at all, I'd pull out one of our lawn chairs, face it towards the sun, take off my shirt, and sit there soaking up the rays. I'd sit there for hours. It didn't matter that spring break in Elmira often happened in late March or early April and that it was only 55-60 degrees. As long as the sun was out, so was I. God forbid I was going to let those more fortunate kids get a jump on me with their South Carolina tans.
Obsession with tanning was kind of an Elmira thing. I think it was because the winters were so long and so cold. I remember one time, in high school, a bunch of my friends and I took off from school early to "go play" (that's what we called skipping school) on the first reasonably warm day of the year. We headed out to one of my friend's houses where no one was home, threw on some shorts, and actually grabbed a stick of butter from the fridge to accelerate the tanning process. I ended up smelling like popcorn.
After high school, I got a coveted job as a lifeguard at the town pool. Is there anything better than getting paid to get a tan? I can't think of anything. A typical day at the pool was a ten-hour shift. We'd have four guards on duty. If the pool was crowded, we'd have to put two guards out at a time. That meant 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off. Often, though, the pool wasn't crowded at all. So, each hour I'd spend 15 minutes in the chair and 45 minutes simply lounging around. I was bronze by July 4th, dark chocolate by August 1st, and coffee-colored by the end of the summer.
Unfortunately, life got in the way and my time in the sun has become severely limited. In fact, I'm out in the sun so infrequently that now I often get sun-burned. It's pathetic. That never happened when I was younger. In my mind, only losers got a sunburn. I guess that's not true any longer, right?
I remain completely in love with the Olympics. Competition among nations! Obscure sports! Ridiculous uniforms! What's not to love?
As I reflect back on the first four days of competition, here are the five things I've enjoyed the most:
- The non-stop chatter of those female gymnasts during their teammate's individual routines. I don't think they ever shut up. Last night, during the team competition, it was particularly crazy during little Gabby Douglas' parallel bars routine. Every second, one of her fellow American pipsqueaks with the crazy pulled-back hair would scream out a "Go, Gabby!" or an "Awesome!" or a "You got this!" or a "Yeah" or a "That's it!" You never heard the same thing twice in a row. Do they script this? And, how do they know not to yell when someone else is yelling? Listening to the Chinese women's team do the same thing was even more enjoyable.
- Watching the male water polo players pulling themselves out of the pool on their line shifts. It made me wonder. Why do the regular male swimmers, who, thankfully, mostly stopped wearing little Speedo's years ago, shave all their body hair while the burly water polo players, who still do wear those little Speedo's, don't shave? If one of these groups of guys is going to shave, shouldn't it be the water polo players? Ryan Seacrest, could you do an investigative report on that one for us, please?
- The expert analysis of Cynthia Potter and Elfi Schlegel. Cynthia covers diving. Elfi covers gymnastics. Their breathless, over-the-top enthusiasm gets me every time. Please, NBC, pair them together for synchronized swimming. It would be so awesome. I might even watch.
- Women's team handball. Who knew it was so exciting? I'm going to have to go out and sign Kim up for a league.
- Reading all about the badminton scandal. Seriously, can you believe I just typed those words next to each other? Tell me the Olympics aren't great. I dare you.
