I Wrote It

Well, lo and behold, it is coming up on the one-year anniversary of this column. 52 weeks, that is a lot of columns, and if you don't think it is, you didn't just have to spend over an hour pasting the new instructions for passing on comments to me on ALL 52 of them. You can thank the geniuses at Yahoo for that, for in their infinite wisdom, they have decided to not let us enterprising hellraisers have message boards anymore. Anyhoo, I decided to take this opportunity to give sort of an update for the uninformed on the many things I've written about over the past year, as well as what I think are some of the wittier comments I've made. So, without any further yadda yadda, let's crank up the way-back machine...

Looking back at the first column I wrote (appropriately numbered column #1), I made a lot of bold predictions, cuz it was the first of many times I would forecast or pronounce the end of someone's career. It was also the first of many times I would unfortunately be DEAD WRONG. Here's the quote, so you can get adequate proof before you laugh at me:

"...all those guys trying out for that ABC series "Making the Band", and where did it get them? The series got canceled, and the furthest O-Town got was the Pokemon soundtrack."

OK, open-mouth-insert-foot time. Not only did they renew the damn series for another season (which I ranted about in column #32), but they've had 2 Top 10 hits, and may go down historically as the last boy group to have a Top 10 hit with their current one (there I go predicting their downfall again). The reason? Well, Fox Family Channel asked one group of pre-teen girls if it was the music, and they responded, "No, it's cuz they're CUTE!!!" One year later, and nothing has changed, although I have heard nothing about that planned 'N Sync movie since I wrote about it...

"It has become apparent that there are only two groups of people who are not allowed to congregate in large groups: teenagers and Mafia types."

That line led off column #2, and has proven to be true again and again over the past year. Whether it was Hellfest (column #47), the effort to kick the Town Shop out of Camillus (column #48), or Zero-Tolerance Madness (column #31), adults continue to find ways to meddle with the lives of well-meaning young people; because a few scattered individuals have caused senseless tragedies, all must be subjected to harsh scrutiny, both at school and in everyday life. It was wrong when I wrote my original salvo last August, and it still is now. Oh by the way, despite the best artists of "spinmeisters" who tell anyone who will listen that there were fights and destruction all over Mattydale, Hellfest was a trouble-free success.

Yeah, I've had my crusades over the past year, the various causes I've taken up for and so on. Sometimes I won: the Rhino Rule at OCC (column #5) has basically been rendered ineffective, the Carousel Mall expansion (column #24) passed. Sometimes I lost: Napster (column #6) is for all intents and purposes dead, and my rant about snow (column #10) may be somewhat to blame for the near-record 190+ inches we got last winter. Also, the mere fact that there may be a "Starsky and Hutch" movie in the works proves that my efforts to get Hollywood to think of new ideas are failing miserably. The jury is still out on some, like the Columbine lawsuit (column #38), and the never-ending crusade to pull the Republican party kicking and screaming to the middle, where most of the country currently sits.

I've also talked about sports a lot, with one common thread seeming to go through those columns: just be a fan, be passionate, love your team, and please don't act like you know more about how the team should be run than the owner/AD/coach. For the record, Paul Pasqualoni is still the football coach at SU (not for long, though, I'll divulge why when I give my 2001 football picks). Jerry Wilcox is still the basketball coach at West Genesee, Hank Fengler is still the basketball coach at C-NS, and Daniel Snyder couldn't pay me enough money to pick the Redskins to make the playoffs this year, which means Marty Schottenheimer had better hope ESPN will take him back when he gets fired after this season.

You the reader have also been privileged to read about some of my life experiences in the past year. Which means, you've had the opportunity to read my various theories on the way things work in the world, such as...

"I tried skiing when I was younger, and the thought of going at high speeds downhill on two rail-thin pieces of fiberglass doesn't exactly strike me as fun. You show me a happy skier, and I'll show you Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono. I'll betcha they were happy too just before they hit the tree." (column #10)

"I am proud to be an American, and therefore, I am proud to buy something I know will not work 100% of the time and yet to absolutely nothing to make sure that it will work 100% of the time... However, I also have the right to bitch and moan all I want about the fact that it does not work 100% of the time." (column #11)

"...I would have let Gore and Bush take turns smacking the network anchors who called Florida for both of them before all the votes were counted." (column #20)

"Common rational thought to the single male apartment dweller is very rare, the thing that usually takes precedence is common rational laziness." (column #23)

"True Outdoorsman decides that when the fire is getting low, he is going to get his trusty chainsaw and lay waste to a couple of squirrels' houses. A "guy" tries to bring down trees with EXPLOSIVES..." (column #41)

"...this is the time of year you spend away from stress, away from the problems of climbing the educational ladder. So, plan your beach time accordingly. I, as would be pretty obvious from the paleness of my skin, suggest 'not going'." (column #45)

"...the proper procedure is to just to go into your motion, roll the ball down the lane and then meditate on it some. OMMMMMMMM... unless of course, this doesn't work out so hot, and your ball winds up in the gutter, in which case it's more like OMMMMMOTHERF#$%ER!!!" (column #49)

So, sans message board (I'm still peeved about that, BTW), here we go into year number 2. Here's hoping I don't lack interesting stuff to write about, as much for the sake of me the writer as for you the reader.

Wishing for Any Kind of Musical Ability

Aspiring columnists like myself often get criticized that we should not try to disparage stuff that we don't know anything about. How dare I comment on sports when I never got more than four hits in a single Little League season, when my only varsity letter came as the manager of the baseball team. And especially, how dare I bash pop music when I have no visible signs of musical talent.

Not that I haven't tried, mind you. I took up the drums in elementary school, perhaps part of every kid's primal desire to play the loudest instrument possible in order to cause the most annoying effect on his parents. Actually, the drums were kinda pushed on me. At the end of third grade, if you were interested in playing in the band (pardon the Grateful Dead reference), they trotted you into a room with a bunch of instruments and they tried to see what you were best suited for. Now I had already gone through this the previous summer, as I tried to follow in my sister's short-lived footsteps and tried to play violin. The accent being on TRIED. So, they sent me from station to station, trying out the various woodwind and brass instruments, and there was one common thing that happened with all of them. I couldn't play them. I couldn't blow hard enough into the reed, mouthpiece, whatever, to make any kind of sound, much less the right one. Lung capacity has never been my strong suit, and I TALK for a living. So, they sent me to the one station that did not require breathing: percussion.

Which didn't just mean drums, but also "keyboard", in other words, bells. Nice try calling it a keyboard, but when I hit those metal plates with the mallets, I wasn't exactly Tony Banks from Genesis or RIchard Wright of Pink Floyd. Luckily, I only had to actually use it sparingly, it was the snare drum I played most. Just a matter of keeping time and making sure you didn't screw up. So I did this for two years, and then I ran into a big problem. I wasn't coordinated enough to do drum rolls. You know, dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada... drum roll, please, that whole thing. It didn't help that I practiced drums like I would study in high school and college, that is to say, not at all. Hell, I didn't have time for that, I was young, I wanted to enjoy life, and I was starting my futile attempt to play sports. When I filled out my time sheets to show how much time I had practiced, I wrote down the correct and proper number, although I had probably spent that time at baseball practice or in the backyard. Eventually, I just said the hell with it. In hindsight, all I really missed out on was a lot more frustration, scorching summers and long nights of practice, and different anecdotes from the many I have now ("and this one time, at band camp...")

My next brush with music was my freshman year in high school. In another attempt to get me to play something, there was a segment of our music class where we alternated between electric keyboard (yeah, the real thing this time), and guitar. As keyboard was a lot easier to screw around on for me and my friends, I passed up the opportunity to learn guitar or any kind of decent keyboard ability. Of course, I wasn't as big into rock as I am now, so if I got a second chance at guitar, I could give it a shot. But not serious lessons, after all, I would hardly take such a thing seriously. I want to be the next John Landecker, not the next David Gilmour. Maybe in my spare time, though...

Then there's singing, which I don't like to do. I hang out occasionally with theatre types, so right off the bat I'm the least talented in the room when I'm with them. Sure I like to sing along with the radio when I'm in the car, but only when I'm alone. However, my best friend Courtney got a good laugh out of my attempts to sing "Somebody To Love" by Queen. See, when I do that song, I insist on doing ALL the parts, Freddie and the rest of the band, at the SAME TIME. Not taking it seriously makes it easier.

Which brings me to karaoke. You all know what it is, you all have done it, but few of you would admit it. Now we've been told (jokingly) that the actual word "karaoke" is Japanese for "tone deaf". That's only partially true; actually, it's only half of the translation. To get the full interpretation, you need to add the words "while drunk". Karaoke means "tone deaf while drunk". It has always been my belief that you cannot get the full karaoke experience without being drunk. And in my case, considering my shyness about singing, I could only do it after a few helpings of "liquid courage".

Now there are a few tips to get the best karaoke experience possible. First of all, do not attempt a song that you are positive you cannot sing. Even if the beer is telling you that you can sing it, do not try it. There's nothing worse for your friends than making them wince and worse cuz you think you can do a decent Meat Loaf. And speaking of which, there are two required songs that must be sung every time you go to karaoke, those being "Paradise By the Dashboard Light" and "Summer Nights" from Grease. I cannot stand either song, not since it was also required playing at every high school dance I ever went to. However, it's part of the experience, so you have to begrudgingly learn to like it, I s'pose. Lastly, at some point, not necessarily the first day but at some point, you have to get up and sing. I have done it, it's not exactly something I'll go around and brag about, but I have done it.

So now having said all that, it would be nice if I could have some sort of musical ability, but I don't feel it's necessary in order to write about music. Having nearly 200 CDs and countless other tapes, MP3s, etc. and knowing what I like is enough. After all, who ultimately decides what is good and what sucks? ME, that's who. OK, maybe that didn't come out right, I mean all of us as individuals. No, wait, I was right the first time; it is ME.

Get Real (Better Yet, Don't)

Sorry to say this folks, but I do believe the party's over. We've had all we can stand, we can stand no more. Reality TV has got to go!!!

Now before you going saying "there he goes again, he probably didn't even like reality shows from the start, so of course he's going to make us believe it's over", I did like reality shows for a while. I thought "The Real World" had some of its finest moments the last four seasons, I was into "Road Rules" for a couple of years, I even watched part of the first episode of the first "Survivor". However, it has become very apparent that we are NOT watching reality with these shows anymore, and in some cases, we never were. We are watching controlled reality, this is the reality that the geniuses who created the show came up with in order to get the highest possible ratings, and America is starting to catch on.

Heck, the turning point may have been when the people on the show itself caught on and essentially the "lab rats" tried to put one over on their captors. Of course, I am referring to the near-walkout at the end of "Big Brother" last year. The show was getting no attention, and it was obvious that things were being done to tweak the situation in order to goose the ratings, and the remaining inhabitants of the CBS house had enough of it. They planned to all leave a week before the last episode, thus leaving the network scrambling to fill all those time slots and facing a PR nightmare. And suddenly, it didn't happen. Most likely, what did happen was the "contestants" were threatened with serious "breach of contract" lawsuits.

We got the message, though, and people from other shows got it, too; hence, the lawsuit filed by the contestant from "Survivor 1" that claims she got booted unfairly. Hell, if anyone should be suing, it's the kindly old lady that got tossed in the very first episode. I stopped watching at that point, because it was obvious what was happening. Get rid of all the old people and let the younger, more demographic-friendly contestants duke it out. Think about it; one different vote and it would have been Rudy who had gotten booted. If you'll recall, he survived by one vote; in fact, all the votes of the one clan or alliance or whatever the hell they were in that first episode were to kick old people off the island. And all of them went on camera and said pretty much the same thing about each of them: "well, they're so bossy, and they're older and slower than us, etc."

So "Survivor 2" comes along, and what's the first thing we notice about the cast? They're younger and better looking. First rule of television: if they won't watch for the plot, they'll watch because the cast is hot; best all-time example: "Baywatch". As opposed to 15 minutes of the first "Survivor", I watched a grand total of ZERO minutes of the second. Then, whats-his-name gets burned (shows you how much I paid attention to the show), and they airlift him out for medical attention? What's up with that? See what I mean about CONTROLLED reality?

Well, the fecal matter finally hit the rotary oscillator for good with me when I flipped on MTV a couple weeks back for the "Real World/Road Rules Casting Special". The previous format of this show was to show us the videos sent in by these wannabe "strangers", and then watch how they go through the process of getting whittled down to the finalists. Sometimes they left you holding your breath and wondering which of your favorites made which show, and which ones didn't make it at all. Not this year!!! Nope, they gathered all the finalists, and put them up for the weekend at a resort, thus giving them all the opportunity to meet and get to know each other ahead of time. And what's more, they trotted out a couple of Real World/Road Rules alumni to ask the finalists questions about which of the others would you want to sleep with and all that? Come on!!! This is supposed to be "the true story of seven strangers, yadda yadda yadda..." Where is the surprise and the excitement of these people meeting and figuring out how to coexist when they ALREADY KNOW EACH OTHER GOING IN!!! Especially when we were told before the end who the lucky people were, so all you needed to do if you had made it was take a wild guess who would be your future roommates, and you had a 50-50 chance of being right. I'm sorry, but that was it. I've seen a couple episodes of this season, and I have really no interest in it. That's too bad, because it used to be a big part of my Tuesday nights.

And so, we come back to "Big Brother", which has already been scaled back in terms of nights per week and all signs point to the fact that CBS is expecting a clunker and pretty much leaning toward never doing this again. We can only hope. Meanwhile, as the controversy over past editions continues, "Survivor 3" is off and running in Kenya. Of course, we won't see what really would happen if you plunked these contestants in the middle of Africa, things like fierce animal attacks, horrible weather, the occasional violent revolution, nope, none of that. And honestly, I'm tired of this sanitized version of reality, and I really don't think I'm the only one. And I haven't even begun to talk about the other even worse reality shows, like "Temptation Island", "Spy TV", even this guaranteed joke of a "Love Cruise" that Fox is sticking us with for the rest of the summer. Oh well, such is the case during the summer when everything else is in reruns or you may see the occasional failed pilot or 5-6 episode series that won't be picked up in the fall. I've actually liked some of the "non-hits" that have been trotted out over the years, most notably and recently "Opposite Sex" which aired on Fox last summer, a series about three guys enrolling in an all-girls private school. It did have some good moments, despite the admittedly cheesy premise.

Anyhoo, I don't know if it's the pathetic quality of TV this summer or something else, but I'm actually liking some of the previews of the new fall series. Only time will tell, and of course, when it does, I'll be the first to tell ya about it...

The Tao of Bowling

OK, finally here's that bowling column I promised a couple months back. No, it's not because I got inundated with requests for a column on bowling, I just always felt it was something I should write about. There's something about bowling, perhaps a science to it, or maybe something more. Maybe it's spiritual...

No, I'm not losing it, all I've done is go out to Thunderbird Lanes the last couple of weekends and after several games and several futile attempts to break 150, I've really started to wonder if there really is some sort of connection required between you and the ball and the pins in order to have any kind of success at this sport. Now for those of you who are reading this and aren't from upstate New York (which may be very few), you probably won't right away understand the place bowling holds around here. See, as you know, our winters are way, way, too long, and so we don't get to do what all of you out there do outside very often, like beer league softball or golf or croquet or whatever. We need a sport we can play several months of the year, one where alcohol is an integral part of the game (if you want it to be), and where basic athletic talents are not necessary.

Hence, bowling.

Now when I refer to alcohol as an integral part of the game, I'm referring to your average league bowling night. This is where middle-age guys who could not bowl their weight if they wanted to (and in some cases it's mathematically impossible; after all, you can't bowl higher than a 300) wear tacky multi-colored shirts and try to engage in the long-cherished manly art of trying not to make bigger asses out of yourselves than the guys you're bowling against. That's not us, not yet anyway (perhaps 20 years and 100 pounds from now). Some of our bunch isn't even of legal drinking age, and those of us who do choose to imbibe prefer to limit it to a mixed drink of our choice. However, in some cases, it might be encouraged to drink more, cuz I've seen guys who actually bowl BETTER while drunk.

Which gets me to the actual mental key to bowling, which supposedly is not to think about it. I'd say that this is where my whole point about the spiritual side comes into play. I mean, hell, isn't meditation supposed to be all about not thinking, clearing your mind of conscious thought. If I've learned anything from "The Simpsons", it's from that one episode with Lisa trying to turn Bart into a Tao-inspired super-mini-golfer. And so, the key is to not to think about it. Perhaps not by pondering the questions of the universe, like: Why do I have to wear these tacky sherbet-colored shoes, and why am I throwing this polished piece of granite or whatever the hell it is down this waxed piece of wood to knock down ten pieces of wood? No, the proper procedure is to just go into your motion, roll the ball down the lane and then meditate on it some. OMMMMMMMM...

...unless of course, this doesn't work so hot, and your ball winds up in the gutter, in which case, it's more like OMMMMMOTHERF#$%ER!!! Which is when you resort to other techniques which may improve your game. Like no-tap. This actually doesn't improve your game, just your score, since in no-tap, if you knock 9 pins down on your first throw, it counts as a strike. Sure, it may be cheating a bit, but who cares if it makes your score better? Besides, doesn't improve things much; my best normal score is around 150, and with no-tap, I've never done better than 160.

So, perhaps there could be another method of improving your game. In our case, it's an incentive program. Throw a strike, make someone do 10 push-ups. Throw a spare, make someone do 5 push-ups. Throw a gutterball, YOU do 10 push-ups. I must say, the first time we tried this, I threw a grand total of 2 gutterballs the rest of the night, and I'm talking 4 or 5 games. Just don't get on your buddy's bad side because he may have a 200 average and make you do all the push-ups.

And then there is technique. See all the great pro bowlers and a bunch of my friends who do a lot better than I do use a different technique than just rolling the ball straight down the center of the lane. They manage to put a spin on it so that it starts out curving to the right (or left if you're a southpaw), and then it comes right back to the middle of the lane in time to smash right through all the pins. This does appear to be more effective if done properly, it's just the "done properly" part of it that I can't get. I'd guess that I average around a 120-130 most games when I bowl just straight down the lane. The one time I tried to bowl the whole game "like the pros", I think I wound up with a 36. Thank goodness we weren't doing push-ups that night.

The best night to do something like this is on a night when the local bowling center does what is called "Rock-n-Bowl". They turn on blacklights to make the lanes and pins glow and pump in loud music all night. This helps with the "not thinking" aspect as well, since if you get focused on a favorite song of yours, you think less about having to roll the ball, and as a result you may do better. Where we go, the music is piped in by a satellite/Internet service called (as god is my witness) Rock 300, Bowling Radio. The problem with this is that since most of the music is requested, and we are dealing with mostly teenagers at these things, as the night gets later, the music gets steadily worse. That may not do so well to help with the whole blocking out thought thing, as your dislike of the music may become so intense that you throw the ball directly into the gutter out of frustration.

Or you could always multiply 'N Sync by 2, put them at the end of the lane in place of the pins, and bingo, instant strike!!! Hmm, not a bad idea. I should try that next time...