The greatest record in sport has been broken

Milena, my Bulgarian Connection, Called me up today to ask if I thought life was a  Bitch or a Bastard.  She was taking a poll. 

I told that like is sometimes a bitch, but rarely a bastard.  If we must come up with an alternative to Bitch, I would go with Asshole. She chewed on that for a second and said Okay, but I could tell she was unsatisfied, since ‘Asshole’ doesn’t really yang to ‘Bitch’s Ying.  “Very well”, I said,  “If Life isn’t an asshole  or a Bitch, it’s probably just a Son of  bitch”, which seemed to satisfy her.  In fact, I allowed myself to be proud of it until I realized just how obvious it was.

Later, while driving to my hotel and thinking about the Movie Jackass, which Eva T has been pushing me to go see, I pondered my favorite usage of the word “Asshole”.  As you may have noticed, it’s not much of an insult anymore. Oh, people still try, but it doesn’t work. If you hear someone calling someone else an asshole, it generally reflects poorly on the name caller, not the callie. This is because People who call other people “assholes”, usually just got shafted, and are frustrated,  and therefore seem incompetent, weak, or effete.          Diagree?  Well, it’s subtle-- Think about it some and then get back to me. 

 ("Fucker", on the otherhand, has just the right hint of underlying respect, that it preserves your own dignity when you use it)

But Alex has pioneered one way to successfully sling the "Asshole" epitaph: Use it when referring to someone who has done themselves harm by their own stupidity. The key is to call them an Asshole right when you would otherwise be expected to console them or remark on their idocy.  The unexpected anger implicit in the ‘asshole’ insult  provides the perfect bit of comic irony.   In short, your using it to mean idiot, but you get to cuss, which is nice.

I could explain it a bit more thoroughly but I feel as though I have already waded far enough into uncharted waters.     

As Paul Harvey would say

GoodDay!

Two weekends in Vegas in a row.  By row, I mean back-to-back,  I am not fighting with anyone, though on the second weekend I shared a room with Brad M, otherwise known as M-Sweet, who I  usually butt heads with.    “Two Hens in a Cockhouse” was how Rich put it, rather cannily.   Rich also said the was going to respond to my comments about his anti-drug stance, but he didn’t. Perhaps, I figure, because he is a man of limited articulation?   It's not like he'd even have to punctuate worth a damn, on these pages, but we’ll just assume that, until proven otherwise.  The topic came up again over dinner at Bobby Flays somewhat disappointing restaurant, Mesa, in Caesar’s palace.    Everything was good, but Southwestern influenced food isn’t served well by such spare presentation.  That’s the main issue, I think.

M-Sweet and I got along fine, in fact that second weekend went well from top to bottom.  A mild Bachelor Party, to be sure, but the party fractured each night  by  2 am, with  splinters mostly finding their way to bed. I spent the wee hours prowling around, living off strip views, obscure drink orders, and sleep deprivation.   Saturday night I ended up in a booth at a After Hours club called the Forty Duece with the proprietor, and a girl he was hitting on, whose fiancé was about to unexpectedly come calling.   The bouncer, who looked like Ving Rhames at 9/10^th scale,  watched everything unfold.  I couldn’t guarantee that I wouldn’t be the first person thrown out, on account of I didn’t have boobs and was otherwise unaffiliated.  I excused myself to go talk about the Pride fights with the Restroom Valet, and a guy I met in the steam room earlier in the evening.    Dude, it’s Vegas.

The previous weekend went well too. The wedding, without a hitch.  I didn’t go out at all then, looking forward to having breakfast with the Nieces every morning instead.   Thanksgiving is at Gina and Brian’s this year, which is something else to look forward too.

Finally, I should add that my first game of Ice Hockey went splendidly. The improvement I demonstrated with each successive line change was inspirational.  You ask  how can someone improve so much and still end up such an artist of suck?  Well, consider that I spend most of my second turn standing in front of my own goal trying to put my glove back on. I looked just like that guy in Saving Private Ryan, who was walking around the beachhead holding his own arm.   And that was an improvement over my first turn. So, you see, there is plenty of room for improvement.

So I picked up a copy of Stomp and Stammer and one of the letters to the editor complained about the increased age  and homogenization of the crowds at recent cracker concerts.

Seeing this letter hit me as if I had stumbled across the obituary of a long lost lover.   

Sure, I was first to drop out of the “I’m a bigger Cracker Fan than You” contest that Dave and Alex and I  had engaged in over the years, but on the other hand, I still sneak in a little drunken Cracker-soul-rocker into a playlist now and then.

Two things happened to them that explain their predicament, first, as StompAndStammer noted, they got old.  Second, their last Album Forever was bad.  It wasn’t horrible-cracker would never be that- but it was uninspired.  

I should say one more thing about that ‘getting old’ thing. One of the big criticisms of Cracker was that the were so ironic.  It’s a criticism that is hard to deflect, since arguing that ‘they do it on purpose’ doesn’t really work for Irony (It’s the self-awareness that makes Irony the pest that it is).  No, the best defense of the Irony Attack is that their concerts burned through the Irony like nose grease through beer-head.      Unfortunately, as they got older, those pure-rock moments got rarer and rarer.     The mosh pit was replaced with Polka circles far too often, and right on queue, they started touring with Camper Again. 

But the Stomp and Stammer guy said that their New Album, GreenLand,  is their best ever, so I just bought it and am listening as I type. Because I am a bigger fan than you.

I’m staying in a great hotel this week, you can drive right up to the front door!

But it’s Caesar’s this weekend.  I suspect I won’t have much in the way of pool time though, what with all the wedding festivities.

The Broncos look weak on Offense,  but I think they are going to turn that corner.   The fact that they moved the ball in the 4^th against Baltimore is a great sign, since never move well against Baltimore.   More importantly, no balls were batted down.   That is a terrific indicator of Bronco Health.      But the most important indicator is the development of the in-stride long ball.  Granted, Plummer didn’t hit anybody with it, but the simple fact that he is throwing that pass, bodes good things for Denver.  In the pass all deep balls were looping bombs that recievers would have to track down.  

I think Javon Walker  is going to make a big difference.

Our Defense looks stellar.  It appears to be outperforming its mediocre  DVOA (footballoutsiders.com) , but we shall see.     It looks to me like Coyer, our Defensive Coordinator,  agrees with  TMQ, and decided that Blitzing is passé.    I love it. In the past, if we didn’t get t the QB in under a second, we were going to get burned. Now it ends up with the ball being thrown out of bounds.

Which isn’t to say that Peyton won’t tear us apart again.

The thing about Denver is that we can be beaten by any team that has an extraordinary players.   We will beat ‘better’ teams, and we will beat inferior teams. But if you have a team based around one extraordinary feature, you can beat us.  Baltimore had Ray Lewis. The Colts have Manning.    The Patriots are complete team, and consequently lose to us because Denver handles balance extraordinarily well.  

So I was driving home during the fourth quarter of the rapidly spiraling UGA Game when Gregory called and convinced me to go, as-is, to a posh end-of-summer party up in the Sandy-Chastain area. 

The theme was “the Death of Summer” so everyone was supposed to wear black. I was wearing  the jeans and v-neck undershirt I had been wearing since 8 am.  The crowd was gathered around back, poolside, dancing to come-on-Eileen.  I found Gregory and borrowed his sportcoat,  transforming myself from Underwared  ruffian to ubiquitous jeans and wool-blazer guy, then found a corner to hide in.

I tried the trusted “I like what they have done with Garage” line on a couple of ladies who were sharing my corner, but they took it way too literally. We were, apparently in what once was a garage.  Just my luck. Then some guy interrupted our conversation asking the whereabouts of his tall and rich friend, who was with two nineteen year old girls.  Me and the  other wallflowers pointed south with quiet confidence, but Mike,  tripped up by our certainty,  pressed forward with his approach  telling us about all the places he had been (“You all ready said, New York”, I mumbled into my beer can).   When we finally overcame NY Mike's conversation, I needed a nap and  another drink, so I left the corner for wetter pastures.

Shortly after that the lid of the large beer cooler lifted one of the 19 year olds' skirts as I lifted it.  Entirely unintentional, that, though if I had to argue the alternative, I would protest that she did in fact look a lot  like Maryln Monroe.  Alas, since I had been looking beerward at the time I saw nothing.  I didn't even know what I had done until it got a quiet and I lookup up to see people alternating glances between me and her.  So now I had to chat it up with Mike and his entourage, in an attempt to de-perv myself.   This at least got Greg and Jessica off my back: Jessica was pestering me to hit on some people.  Greg  wanted me to talk to a tall Russian woman that he found attractive and  Jessica had taken to accosting any women I happened to glance at. If my gaze lingered at all, she would walk up and introduce herself, and then try to introduce me.   She did this to women who were  mid-conversation with other guys.    I started yearning for sunglasses,  to foil her plots and to further complete the black sport-coat look I had going on.   

Gregory and Jessica left soon after, taking his coat with them.  The Wallflowers commended my wardrobe improvement.  Friends of Mike called me names for wanting to leave early. The 19 years old shirked away as I approached to appologize. The Cougar Leader assured me, though I would have ripped out my tongue before giving her reason, that I wouldn’t last 20 minutes with her.  The Russians Ignored me.  The Brazialians, well, they were cool. "It's not every day that you get to talk to three Brazilian girls" they half-jested, after rescuing me from myself.

I left soon after, having fulfilled my promise to Greg and Jessica that I would talk to a couple people.