We search our hearts in this season of joy and light and find that, as usual, we come up lacking, but what the heck. Bowl season is upon us and we must persevere. Our Irish, Anglo-Saxon and Cherokee (‘Skins’ as our Osage friend called ‘em) forefathers would demand no less, though Gaelic football, rugby and lacrosse are mysteries to us.
Not so the American variety of four downs, seven men on the line of scrimmage, one man in motion and drawing plays in the dirt. We are infallible, except for taking the McHale’s Navy team against the Montezumas of San Diego St. in the Poinsettia Bowl. By the way, what is this trend of enunciating the last “i” in this Christmas flower? Have we been locked up too long in our hillbilly trailer park?
We digress. A beloved sibling used to give us his bowl picks each year, carefully copied by hand and delivered personally to his inner circle. We will usurp him this year because 35 games are too much for one man to bear. As we recall, the young man incorrectly predicted a Roger Staubach-led Navy team win over Texas in the 1964 Cotton Bowl game. But we could be wrong. We often are.
Not so in the 21st century. Our predictions for entertainment purposes only:
Wisconsin over TCU in the Rose Bowl
Arkansas over Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl
Stanford over Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl
Texas A&M over LSU in the Cotton Bowl
Our beloved Sooners over Connecticut in the Fiesta Bowl
Auburn over Oregon in the BCS championship
We will not pick the Chick-fil-A or GoDaddy.com bowls, though we will be watching them for entertainment purposes only.
On Christmas Eve, we must entertain ourselves while counting our blessings on this holiest of nights:
Beautiful children and beautiful women.
Gold, frankincense and myrrh.
Golfing buddies.
Peace on Earth, good will toward men.
Same old Jets.
Christmas ties you can only wear one day a year.
Who has it better than us?
Friday, December 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
The Morning Star and Freshman English
When we awoke the other morning, we at first thought it was a police helicopter heading toward a sleepy city that never sleeps. But it kept rising on the horizon above the dowdy apartment buildings and tire repair shops on the east side of the street without coming nearer to our abode on the west. Then it vanished as that lucky old sun -- which has nothing to do but roam around heaven all day -- gave light to our planet.
In all our to’ing and fro’ing, we lit a cigarette and stopped to ponder if the universe were expanding or contracting. Will Venus (not being astronomers, we assumed it was Venus), the morning star mistaken for a man-made airborne vehicle, shine for us in perpetuity, or will it end in a whimper, not a bang? As goes Venus, so goes Earth. Eventually, in a gazillion years both will become frozen ice balls when the fires of our hydrogen-fueled Apollo die. This is the cosmologist’s version of doomed! doomed, I say!
But in the short term, we must focus on more important things. We begin our agonizing decline. China and the old Europe, as an ex-secretary of defense called it, excoriate Bernanke and the central bank of the U.S.A. for “quantitative easing,” i.e., buying long-term government debt to boost the money supply. It’s the only card left to play. It’s like seeing a return of a perfect serve and rushing to send a lob over your opponent’s menacing grin at the net. You’ve got to try, man.
And try we shall. The inevitable end of life doesn’t mean we should neglect this sporting life in which we find ourselves today.
Our beloved Temple Owls failed us last week, but we expect them to rebound against the Miami (Ohio) Redhawks tonight -- two carnivores of the air who keep the rodent population down.
By the way, there’s a Miami, Oklahoma, too, home of Heisman Trophy winner Steve Owens, he of the crimson and cream who was big man on campus in our freshman year long ago when we sauntered to our English class and got an F on our first essay. We’ve never been the same since.
In all our to’ing and fro’ing, we lit a cigarette and stopped to ponder if the universe were expanding or contracting. Will Venus (not being astronomers, we assumed it was Venus), the morning star mistaken for a man-made airborne vehicle, shine for us in perpetuity, or will it end in a whimper, not a bang? As goes Venus, so goes Earth. Eventually, in a gazillion years both will become frozen ice balls when the fires of our hydrogen-fueled Apollo die. This is the cosmologist’s version of doomed! doomed, I say!
But in the short term, we must focus on more important things. We begin our agonizing decline. China and the old Europe, as an ex-secretary of defense called it, excoriate Bernanke and the central bank of the U.S.A. for “quantitative easing,” i.e., buying long-term government debt to boost the money supply. It’s the only card left to play. It’s like seeing a return of a perfect serve and rushing to send a lob over your opponent’s menacing grin at the net. You’ve got to try, man.
And try we shall. The inevitable end of life doesn’t mean we should neglect this sporting life in which we find ourselves today.
Our beloved Temple Owls failed us last week, but we expect them to rebound against the Miami (Ohio) Redhawks tonight -- two carnivores of the air who keep the rodent population down.
By the way, there’s a Miami, Oklahoma, too, home of Heisman Trophy winner Steve Owens, he of the crimson and cream who was big man on campus in our freshman year long ago when we sauntered to our English class and got an F on our first essay. We’ve never been the same since.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Curtain Up
Who says there are no second acts in American life?
Barack Obama can draw inspiration from, of all people, Michael Vick, the quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, and the New York football Giants. Having paid his debt for harming man’s best friend, Mr. Vick eviscerated the Washington foes last night in a performance that would draw ecstatic raves from the toughest critic at Variety or Hollywood Reporter.
His ruthlessness evinced against the animal kingdom in the past has now been transferred to the gridiron against his fellow man in pads. The strategists of the New York football Giants must be gnashing teeth and rubbing furrowed brows to figure a way to stop him next Sunday night. Our answer: keep him off the field. Run the game clock down. Run more than pass. Run for your life.
Mr. Vick proved himself to be Nietzsche’s ubermensch, beyond good and evil, launching deep passes with the accuracy of cruise missiles or waltzing through bewildered defenses as if at a debutante ball. The U.S.A. could have used him in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he could have danced all night.
In the meantime, like the New York football Giants, Mr. Obama must be spending nights watching game film of the Republican ascendancy and plotting his own comeback. Unless the recovering economy starts producing jobs as well as gobs of cash for the well-heeled, he could be doomed.
Or he could take a page from Donovan McNabb, the once Eagles quarterback, now with the Redskins vanquished by Mr. Vick. Mr. McNabb signed a five-year extension on his contract and picked up a fresh load of cash, despite cardiovascular issues. Talk about second acts. We who are wheezing salute you.
As for “amateur” football, as played in the farm system for the NFL known as institutions of higher learning, Ohio at Temple is a tough call tonight. But if we were a speculating sort, for entertainment purposes only, we would take Temple and give 7 ½ points. This is based on the analysis that Owls are predators but wise and Bobcats are vicious but simple.
Barack Obama can draw inspiration from, of all people, Michael Vick, the quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, and the New York football Giants. Having paid his debt for harming man’s best friend, Mr. Vick eviscerated the Washington foes last night in a performance that would draw ecstatic raves from the toughest critic at Variety or Hollywood Reporter.
His ruthlessness evinced against the animal kingdom in the past has now been transferred to the gridiron against his fellow man in pads. The strategists of the New York football Giants must be gnashing teeth and rubbing furrowed brows to figure a way to stop him next Sunday night. Our answer: keep him off the field. Run the game clock down. Run more than pass. Run for your life.
Mr. Vick proved himself to be Nietzsche’s ubermensch, beyond good and evil, launching deep passes with the accuracy of cruise missiles or waltzing through bewildered defenses as if at a debutante ball. The U.S.A. could have used him in Afghanistan and Iraq. And he could have danced all night.
In the meantime, like the New York football Giants, Mr. Obama must be spending nights watching game film of the Republican ascendancy and plotting his own comeback. Unless the recovering economy starts producing jobs as well as gobs of cash for the well-heeled, he could be doomed.
Or he could take a page from Donovan McNabb, the once Eagles quarterback, now with the Redskins vanquished by Mr. Vick. Mr. McNabb signed a five-year extension on his contract and picked up a fresh load of cash, despite cardiovascular issues. Talk about second acts. We who are wheezing salute you.
As for “amateur” football, as played in the farm system for the NFL known as institutions of higher learning, Ohio at Temple is a tough call tonight. But if we were a speculating sort, for entertainment purposes only, we would take Temple and give 7 ½ points. This is based on the analysis that Owls are predators but wise and Bobcats are vicious but simple.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Renaissance Man
My name is Ron Washington, skipper of the Arlington, Tex., baseball club. I chose to remove starter C.J. Wilson because I peddled subprime mortgage securities and wanted to maximize the downfall and damage to the economy. Just kidding, but c’mon man.
Ron, you should join the board of governors of the Federal Reserve and bail out bankers so they can give each other bonuses to pay the salaries of pinstripers. No. I remember every detail. You wore red, white and blue, the Huns of Steinbrenner wore gray while Nolan Ryan slumped in his seat.
The firemen of the Rangers turned out to be the arson squad. They threw heat all right, bathed in gasoline that sent the empire staters to an improbable come from behind victory over the Texan freedom fighters, now caught in the headlights of inevitable golf dates a week from now. Remember the Alamo, fellows.
Sometimes when we try to be renaissance men, we eat our seed corn and then wonder where our next meal is going to come from. “Life is much more successfully looked at through a single window, after all,” Nick Carraway says in “The Great Gatsby.” That it is, old sport, as Gatsby himself might have said.
Looking out our window, a single window for entertainment purposes only, we see Wisconsin over Ohio State; Nebraska over Texas; Nevada vs. Hawaii over 75. Meanwhile, Boise State’s young men will not remain No. 1 in the BCS standings. They just don’t play enough tough teams down the road.
If these prognostications are less than Nostrodamus-like, you can yank our scholarship.
Ron, you should join the board of governors of the Federal Reserve and bail out bankers so they can give each other bonuses to pay the salaries of pinstripers. No. I remember every detail. You wore red, white and blue, the Huns of Steinbrenner wore gray while Nolan Ryan slumped in his seat.
The firemen of the Rangers turned out to be the arson squad. They threw heat all right, bathed in gasoline that sent the empire staters to an improbable come from behind victory over the Texan freedom fighters, now caught in the headlights of inevitable golf dates a week from now. Remember the Alamo, fellows.
Sometimes when we try to be renaissance men, we eat our seed corn and then wonder where our next meal is going to come from. “Life is much more successfully looked at through a single window, after all,” Nick Carraway says in “The Great Gatsby.” That it is, old sport, as Gatsby himself might have said.
Looking out our window, a single window for entertainment purposes only, we see Wisconsin over Ohio State; Nebraska over Texas; Nevada vs. Hawaii over 75. Meanwhile, Boise State’s young men will not remain No. 1 in the BCS standings. They just don’t play enough tough teams down the road.
If these prognostications are less than Nostrodamus-like, you can yank our scholarship.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
The Toy Department
The game played between the lines is often ruled by the one between the ears.
Maybe Brooks Conrad, the Atlanta Braves’ second baseman who committed three errors night before last -- the final one a fatal scoot through the pet-door of two legs -- summoned his inner Bill Buckner, allowing the Giants by the bay to score the winning run. Keep the glove on the ground and the butt low, son, then let it hit you in the chest if it bounces up.
We are all doomed in the end, but it’s different being doomed in this sporting life. Conrad, who could have written “Lord Jim,” (which another Conrad did) had to sit and watch the Turner tomahawks fall limp yesterday. His only choice is to vanish to a fishing village in Mexico, if not as a vagabond in the Pacific or a ranch hand on Buckner’s Montana spread. Or to soldier on, and say “Oh well.”
We know how he feels. In our dotage, mistakes loom large. We are continuously amazed by the ability of our brethren homo sapiens to shake it off and move on. See Bill Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, the blue dress and black socks. But those are of a different ilk than Mr. Conrad’s, whose only sin was to fail in something as unimportant as a sporting event – the toy department as we used to call it in the newspaper trade.
When the stage is small, one can slink off to his or her lonely room, fire up a Marlboro and browse through Golf Digest while Turner (he of the tomahawks) Classic Movies plays “The Public Enemy” late at night. One can while away the sleepless hours improving his or her James Cagney or Joan Blondell impersonation.
Falling asleep with the television screen flickering, we dream of a wayback machine in which Mr. Peabody and Sherman intervene in history and set things aright, saving us from ignominy and regrets.
Hold your head high, Mr. Conrad. You’re not going to miss any meals, though you might need to find another profession. Failure on the field of athletic endeavor is the key to victory – for the other side. Those of us on the smaller stage of softball in the park, the municipal tennis court and the local golf course know this and keep our day jobs. Keep ‘em if you got‘em.
The October sun appears ready to grace us with another day in shorts and golf shirts. Got to work on keeping the glove on the ground and the rear end down. Practicing putting is strictly forbidden.
Maybe Brooks Conrad, the Atlanta Braves’ second baseman who committed three errors night before last -- the final one a fatal scoot through the pet-door of two legs -- summoned his inner Bill Buckner, allowing the Giants by the bay to score the winning run. Keep the glove on the ground and the butt low, son, then let it hit you in the chest if it bounces up.
We are all doomed in the end, but it’s different being doomed in this sporting life. Conrad, who could have written “Lord Jim,” (which another Conrad did) had to sit and watch the Turner tomahawks fall limp yesterday. His only choice is to vanish to a fishing village in Mexico, if not as a vagabond in the Pacific or a ranch hand on Buckner’s Montana spread. Or to soldier on, and say “Oh well.”
We know how he feels. In our dotage, mistakes loom large. We are continuously amazed by the ability of our brethren homo sapiens to shake it off and move on. See Bill Clinton and Eliot Spitzer, the blue dress and black socks. But those are of a different ilk than Mr. Conrad’s, whose only sin was to fail in something as unimportant as a sporting event – the toy department as we used to call it in the newspaper trade.
When the stage is small, one can slink off to his or her lonely room, fire up a Marlboro and browse through Golf Digest while Turner (he of the tomahawks) Classic Movies plays “The Public Enemy” late at night. One can while away the sleepless hours improving his or her James Cagney or Joan Blondell impersonation.
Falling asleep with the television screen flickering, we dream of a wayback machine in which Mr. Peabody and Sherman intervene in history and set things aright, saving us from ignominy and regrets.
Hold your head high, Mr. Conrad. You’re not going to miss any meals, though you might need to find another profession. Failure on the field of athletic endeavor is the key to victory – for the other side. Those of us on the smaller stage of softball in the park, the municipal tennis court and the local golf course know this and keep our day jobs. Keep ‘em if you got‘em.
The October sun appears ready to grace us with another day in shorts and golf shirts. Got to work on keeping the glove on the ground and the rear end down. Practicing putting is strictly forbidden.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
How to Succeed in Entertainment without really Trying
Mr. Halladay of the Philadelphia ball club is a failure. He allowed a single runner to reach with a base on balls (BB on your score card). Surely, he had a fitful night’s sleep, realizing he had faced 28 batsmen, retiring a mere 27. Oh, the torment!
Darting splitters, cutters, sliders, curve balls were to no avail against the redoubtable Jay Bruce of the Red Legs, who shrewdly took first base from the flawed moundsman, who should seek help from PA (Perfectos Anonymous). Why, a vision of grandiosity is a sign of serious mental illness and should be addressed immediately by a qualified professional. Talk him down from the ledge, Doc.
Mr. Lee of the Dallas club stifled the Floridians, and the Pinstripers managed to squeeze the crème-filled center out of the Twinkies.
In other words, we went 0 for 3 in our pursuit of entertainment in this sporting life. However, another Florida bunch, the rogue Knights of Orlando, cut a swath through the fizzling Blazers of Birmingham, giving us entertainment in the scholar-athlete realm.
Take Pavano and the Twin Cities (the head of the Mississippi River is nearby, we believe) over Pettite and the bridge-bound Bronx (no thonx). Also, Lincecum of the city by the bay against Lowe of Scarlet O’Hara’s territory. Also, Wilson of the Lone Star state over Shields of the scary underwater critters of another bay.
Meanwhile, the bond market is sending a message. Yields keep falling. Which means economic growth is fragile and stocks have little upside from here. Use the mattress and take the soon-to-be Big 10 Nebraska Cornhuskers minus 11 over Kansas State, for entertainment purposes only.
Darting splitters, cutters, sliders, curve balls were to no avail against the redoubtable Jay Bruce of the Red Legs, who shrewdly took first base from the flawed moundsman, who should seek help from PA (Perfectos Anonymous). Why, a vision of grandiosity is a sign of serious mental illness and should be addressed immediately by a qualified professional. Talk him down from the ledge, Doc.
Mr. Lee of the Dallas club stifled the Floridians, and the Pinstripers managed to squeeze the crème-filled center out of the Twinkies.
In other words, we went 0 for 3 in our pursuit of entertainment in this sporting life. However, another Florida bunch, the rogue Knights of Orlando, cut a swath through the fizzling Blazers of Birmingham, giving us entertainment in the scholar-athlete realm.
Take Pavano and the Twin Cities (the head of the Mississippi River is nearby, we believe) over Pettite and the bridge-bound Bronx (no thonx). Also, Lincecum of the city by the bay against Lowe of Scarlet O’Hara’s territory. Also, Wilson of the Lone Star state over Shields of the scary underwater critters of another bay.
Meanwhile, the bond market is sending a message. Yields keep falling. Which means economic growth is fragile and stocks have little upside from here. Use the mattress and take the soon-to-be Big 10 Nebraska Cornhuskers minus 11 over Kansas State, for entertainment purposes only.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
If We Had to Choose Just One Day
You can’t tell people how to feel. But you can tell them OU 28-Texas 20 and God is on his throne. You can tell them order has returned to the universe. You can tell them good conquers evil. You can tell them the Athens of the plains has vanquished Sparta. You can tell them Boomer Sooner and sing the OU Chant!
O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A
Our chant rolls on and on.
Thousands strong join heart and song
In Alma Mater’s praise
Of campus beautiful by day and night
Of colors proudly gleaming red and white
‘Neath a western sky, OU’s chant will never die
Live on University.
OK (pun intended), enough of the crimson and cream, but if we had to choose just one day to last our whole life through, it would surely be that Saturday, the day that we met the enemy and the enemy was ours. Or is the enemy us, as Walt Kelly’s Pogo opined in the funny pages, lo those many years ago?
We recently turned 25 years old and thought that turning 60 in one year was a “Cruel Twist of Fate,” as we used to put in the eyebrow of a headline. However, we also used to put in “Man Cheats Fate.” We’ll take the latter over “Headless Man Found in ... Bar.” We’ll leave it to your imagination.
This sporting life is for entertainment purposes only, but, since youth springs eternal, look for Texas (Rangers, not emasculated steers) to best Cincinnati in the World Series. Get in now while the gettin’s good (for entertainment purposes only).
Sell the Yankees tonight. We have a sibling who is a Twins fan and reminds us that the Twinkies have flourished without Justin Morneau. Pinstriper C.C. Sabbathia doesn’t wear his cap correctly and his derriere is wider than the pitching rubber. No brainer.
OU’s chant will never die. Take ‘em every week, for entertainment purposes only.
O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A
Our chant rolls on and on.
Thousands strong join heart and song
In Alma Mater’s praise
Of campus beautiful by day and night
Of colors proudly gleaming red and white
‘Neath a western sky, OU’s chant will never die
Live on University.
OK (pun intended), enough of the crimson and cream, but if we had to choose just one day to last our whole life through, it would surely be that Saturday, the day that we met the enemy and the enemy was ours. Or is the enemy us, as Walt Kelly’s Pogo opined in the funny pages, lo those many years ago?
We recently turned 25 years old and thought that turning 60 in one year was a “Cruel Twist of Fate,” as we used to put in the eyebrow of a headline. However, we also used to put in “Man Cheats Fate.” We’ll take the latter over “Headless Man Found in ... Bar.” We’ll leave it to your imagination.
This sporting life is for entertainment purposes only, but, since youth springs eternal, look for Texas (Rangers, not emasculated steers) to best Cincinnati in the World Series. Get in now while the gettin’s good (for entertainment purposes only).
Sell the Yankees tonight. We have a sibling who is a Twins fan and reminds us that the Twinkies have flourished without Justin Morneau. Pinstriper C.C. Sabbathia doesn’t wear his cap correctly and his derriere is wider than the pitching rubber. No brainer.
OU’s chant will never die. Take ‘em every week, for entertainment purposes only.
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